http://edberry.com/blog/ed-berry/why-ted-cruz-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/
Early Congressional Statutes.
Because the English statutes are of little help, Cruz and the articles cited by the court below really rest strongly on the fact that in 1790 Congress passed, “An act to establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” which provided that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” 1 Stat. 103 (repealed 1795).
However, Cruz and those articles fail to address the following evidence that this Act fails to support their position.
First, nothing in the 1790 statute indicates that it meant Congress thought that in 1787, when the Constitution was written, a “natural born citizen” was understood to include someone who was born abroad to a U.S. citizen. To the contrary, there would have been no need to pass the statute if such persons were already understood to be natural born citizens. Indeed, the legislative history affirmatively indicates that Congress was trying to change who became a citizen at birth. See McManamon, supra, at 332-33. Thus, the statute affirmatively indicates that the 1790 Congress did not believe that the 1787 Constitutional meaning of “natural born citizens” included children born abroad to U.S. citizens.
Second, even on its face, this statute did not say that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were natural born citizens. The statute instead carefully said they “shall be considered as” natural born citizens, suggesting that Congress thought they were not natural born citizens but should be treated as such. Further, the Act’s title indicates it is a “naturalization” Act, and by definition Congress can only “naturalize” someone who is not already a natural born citizen.
Third, there is not a whiff in the statute or legislative history to suggest that Congress thought it was changing who was constitutionally eligible to be President. Nor is there a scintilla of evidence that Congress thought it had any authority to change the constitutional meaning of “natural born citizen.” The legislative history indicates that Congress was instead focused on changing naturalization law because (under the then-prevailing principle that aliens could not hold U.S. land) the change would alter the extent to which foreign-born persons could hold lands in the United States. See id. at 332-333.
Fourth, when the 1790 Naturalization Act was reconsidered in a few years, James Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize “aliens.” 4 Annals of Cong. 1027 (Dec. 29, 1794). Madison’s observation again confirms the point noted above that Congress can only naturalize persons who are not already natural born citizens.
The bill was then committed on January 2, 1795 to a three-person committee that included Madison. Id. at 1058. On January 5, 1795, Madison reported a new Naturalization bill. Id. at 1060. The bill reported by Madison was adopted by Congress, and it amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.”
See An Act To Establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization; and To Repeal the Act Heretofore Passed on That Subject, ch. 20, § 3, 1 Stat. 414, 415 (1795).
This amendment clearly indicates that the view of Madison, and of the Congressmen who adopted his amendment, was that children born abroad of US citizens were natural aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be considered “natural born”.
Fifth, the view that the 1790 and 1795 statutes did not alter the constitutional meaning of the “natural born citizen” eligibility requirement was confirmed by the most contemporaneous scholars. In 1803, St. George Tucker published an edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries that added his own notes on American law.
After citing to the 1790 and 1795 U.S. naturalization statutes, he stated that that “[p]ersons [] naturalized according to these acts, are entitled to all the rights of natural-born citizens, except . . . they are forever incapable of being chosen to the office of president of the United States.”
ST. GEORGE TUCKER, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE, TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES; AND OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 374 n.12 (Philadelphia, William Young Birch & Abraham Small 1803) (emphasis added). See also McManamon, supra, at 331 (collecting other scholars in the early 1800s expressing similar views).
Sixth, the interpretation that anyone whom Congress deems a citizen at birth is a natural born citizen would run counter to the plain purpose of the clause, which was to impose constitutional limits on who is eligible to be President. If Congress can by statute expand the meaning of a constitutional limit on who is eligible to be President, then the Constitution would impose no effective limit on Congress.
The first President of the United States to qualify as a natural born citizen was Martin Van Buren who assumed the office in 1837.
Historian, Secretary of the Navy and Founder of the U.S. Naval Academy at Anapolis George Bancroft wrote in his “History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States” (1884) (Volume 1 Page 346):
“One question on the qualifications of the president was among the last to be decided. On the twenty-second of August the committee of detail, fixing the requisite age of the president at thirty-five, on their own motion and for the first time required that the president should be a citizen of the United States, and should have been an inhabitant of them for twenty-one years. The idea then arose that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for the office of president; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage of the formation of their institutions, the committee of states who were charged with all unfinished business proposed, on the fourth of September, that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the the of the adoption of this constitution, should be eligible to the office of president,” and for the foreign-born proposed a reduction of the requisite years of residence to fourteen. On the seventh of September, the modification, with the restriction as to the age of the president, was unanimously adopted.”
Mr. Bancroft had interviewed an elderly James Madison in preparation for his books on the formation of the Constitution.
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-02-02-3262