I think we need to go back to the notes from the Third Congress. The Founders were still alive, except for Franklin. They wanted to assure there would be no second class citizen (irony notwithstanding). All citizens were to be considered except when election a Commander-in-Chief.
Mr. James Madison, who had been a member of the Constitutional Convention and had participated in the drafting of the terms of eligibility for the President, was a member of the Committee of the House, together with Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts and Thomas A. Carnes of Georgia when the matter of the uniform naturalization act was considered in 1795. Here the false inference which such language might suggest with regard to the President was noted, and the Committee sponsored a new naturalization bill which deleted the term “natural-born” from the Act of 1795. (1 Stat 414) The same error was never repeated in any subsequent naturalization act.Here is the text of the 1790 Naturalization Act:
And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States1795 Naturalization Act text change:
, and the children of citizens of the United States born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States. Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend on persons whose fathers have never been resident of the United States.
Thank you higgmeister. I read all of that from your earlier post. I’m not finding in there any help that answers what is meant by “shall be considered as citizens” versus “are (actually) citizens”. No worries, I definitely appreciate what you’ve provided. I had never seen this before. I’ll continue to work with pieces of this weird puzzle which, by the language and definitions known by the founders, should not be nearly as complex as it has turned out to be. Many see the 1790 act and stop there stating NBC is defined while dismissing that it was repealed and replaced. I believe the reason it was replaced is because statute can not make one a NBC, only Natural Law can.