The Framers in Article II distinguished between a “citizen” and a “natural born citizen”. The first Congress, many members of which were Framers, in the Naturalization Act of 1790 distinguished between a “citizen” and a “natural born citizen”.
In the Naturalization Act of 1790 the distinguishing characteristic between persons naturalized with a status of “citizen” and those naturalized with a status of “natural born citizen” was parental US citizenship.
Congress in the Naturalization Act of 1795, et seq, no longer made such a distinction and declared all such persons naturalized to be “citizen”.
Are we to conclude that subsequent to 1795 there were no further “natural born citizens”? They ceased to exist? Or are we to conclude that other children born with parental US citizenship - those who were not “born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States” - those born within the United States - are “natural born citizens”? Or are these other children - born with parental US citizenship within the United States - something other than “natural born citizens”? Was it necessary that they be “born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States” for them to be “natural born citizens”?
The only rational conclusion is that those born within the United States with parental US citizenship are “natural born citizens”, and all others are not.
The 1790 Act et seq. also demonstrates that the foreign-born children of citizens have always required naturalization. The 1790 Act provided a legal fiction that some naturalized persons be “considered as” natural born citizens, not that they are natural born citizens.
And on what you say, I don’t agree and I’m not persuaded.
But at this point, I’m not going to argue about it anymore with you. There’s only so much time to be spent on things, and I’m convinced the anti-Cruz candidacy position is straining out an imaginary gnat to swallow a camel.
I discuss and argue the little details of things all the time, because they actually are significant, but I believe this matter isn’t, and have seen no persuasive evidence for it.
Something that’s an example of being worthwhile to look at is how the first leaders of America formally got together for prayer, and called for days and occasions of prayer. That’s in contradiction to much of what we’ve been told today.
This is just aimless, though. No real legal foundation for it, no remedy but the one its proponents say isn’t the proper one (the court of public opinion), and no possibility for success in that because public opinion, rightfully in this case, won’t disqualify someone who was born an American citizen in a foreign country. On the face of it, it insults all the people who have spent time in other countries now, either for school, work, or perhaps to follow a spouse, that if they did or might have had children in those countries, their influence on their children wouldn’t have been enough to make them a reasonably-committed American, even if the child was for the most part raised in America. The public, which the politicians consider the ultimate judge in the matter, isn’t going to buy that.