It is, in law. It isn't in the public's mind, because the people are gullible and our leaders (political and academic) are duplicitous.
-- how could such smart founding fathers not address this clearly? --
They assumed, wrongly, that the meaning of the term would not change (in the minds of all people) with the passage of time.
-- someone told me the Naturalization Act stated that someone like him could. --
That's a popular argument, one that is comfortable and easy to adopt when the candidate is "good and decent," and hard to adopt when the candidate is the Afghan-born daughter of US citizen Polly Pinhead and Afghani Achmed the Mad-bomber. The 1790 act created a legal fiction. It did not say then, that a person born abroad of a citizen parent WAS an NBC, it said the law would PRETEND that he was. It's a definition in the sense that it EXCLUDES persons born abroad from being NBC as a matter of fact.
-- my grandparents and my friends' parents and grandparents who came from Italy were more patriotic than most "Americans" i know. --
That's an argument that naturalized persons should be allowed to assume the office.
dont remember seeing you on the board since i’ve joined but i’ll remind myself no to debate you :)
thanks for the pertinent info.
but now i’m more confused than ever about that Act.
maybe they tried to duck it lol.