You miss the salient point that the defining verbiage exists in BOTH editions:
“are those born IN the country of PARENTS who are CITIZENS.”
“Additionally, Vattel did not purport to explain the meaning of the term in the context of British law or the common understanding in the British American colonies or newly formed United States. It is, at best, highly speculative to assert that the Framers looked to Vattel for the definition of “natural born Citizen.”
That opinion is disingenuous on its face!
The relevant sentence - “are those born IN the country of PARENTS who are CITIZENS.” - is self defining!
RE: “are those born IN the country of PARENTS who are CITIZENS.”
Let us not simply quote Vattel in part and ignore what he acknowledged in other parts of his treatise.
An English-language translation of Emerich de Vattel’s 1758 treatise The Law of Nations (Le Droit du gens), stating that “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens”,was quoted in 1857 by Supreme Court Justice Peter Vivian Daniel in a concurring opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, as well as by Chief Justice Melville Fuller in 1898 in his dissenting opinion in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
However, two paragraphs later, Vattel says, “ ... there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.”
Therefore, I have to conclude that:
1) It is still unclear what the framers meant by the term
2) It is also unclear whether the framers referred to Vattel when they used that term.
“The relevant sentence - “are those born IN the country of PARENTS who are CITIZENS.†- is self defining!”
Are you actually making the claim that the if our military members have children born OUTSIDE of the borders of America, then those children are not “natural born” and can never serve as President? If that is the case, then I don’t see any connection to the intention of the framers at all....I couldn’t think of a more patriotic group of Americans than children of military members...