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https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R42097.html Qualifications for President and the "Natural Born" Ciotizenship Eligibility Requirements, Jack Maskell, Legislative Attorney, January 11, 2016, Congressional Research Service 7-5700, R42097, Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

It may be noted that some have argued that the relevant common meaning of natural born citizen that was prevalent in 18th century America should not be the one that was actually applicable in the American colonies during that time from British statutory and common law, and which was adopted specifically by the states after independence in 1776 (and which, as noted by Justice Story, formed the “foundation” for American jurisprudence), but rather should be recognized as one derived from what has been described as a “philosophical treatise”¹⁰⁰ on the law of nations by a Swiss legal philosopher in the mid-1700s.¹⁰¹ This particular treatise, however, in the editions available at the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, did not actually use, either in the original French or in English interpretations at that time, the specific term “natural born citizens.”¹⁰² It was not until after the adoption of the Constitution in the United States did a translator interpret the French in Emmerich de Vattel’s Law of Nations to include, in English, the term “natural born citizens” for the first time, and thus that particular interpretation and creative translation of the French, to which the Vattel enthusiasts cite, could not possibly have influenced the framing of the Constitution in 1787.¹⁰³
Furthermore, and on a more basic level, the influence of the work of Vattel on the framers in employing the term “natural born” in relation to domestic citizenship within the Constitution is highly speculative at best, is without any direct historical evidence, and is contrary to the mainstream principles of constitutional interpretation and analysis within American jurisprudence. Although it appears that there is one single reference by one delegate at the Federal Convention of 1787 to Vattel (in reference to several works of different authors to support an argument for equal voting representation of the states in the proposed Congress),¹⁰⁴ there is no other reference to the work in the entire notes of any of the framers published on the proceedings of the Federal Convention of 1787,¹⁰⁵ and specifically there is no reference or discussion of the work at all in relation to citizenship at the Convention, in the Federalist Papers,^{106^{or in any of the state ratifying conventions.¹⁰⁷}}
It would appear to be somewhat fanciful to contend that in employing terms in the U.S. Constitution the framers would disregard the specific and express meaning of those precise terms in British common law, the law in the American colonies, and subsequently in all of the states in the United States after independence, in favor of secretly using, without comment or explanation, a contrary, non-existent English translation of a phrase in a French-language treatise on international law. In a state case cited with approval by the U.S. Supreme Court, an extensive legal analysis of the question of natural born citizenship under the law of the United States by Assistant Vice Chancellor Sandford, in New York in 1844, found that the laws in all of the American colonies, and then in all of the states after independence, followed the English common law principles of jus soli, that is, that birth in the territory governed citizenship at birth, regardless of the nationality or citizenship of one’s parents.¹⁰⁸ Sandford found that it would be “inconceivable” that the framers, in drafting the Constitution, would abandon without explicit comment or explanation in the document, the existing law in all of the colonies, and then in all of the states, of who were natural born citizens in favor of an “international” or “natural” law theory of citizenship by “descent” (through one’s father), an argument pressed by one of the litigants relying, in part, on Vattel. Addressing specifically the question of the use of the term “natural born citizen” in the federal Constitution as one of the qualifications for President, Vice Chancellor Sandford found the following:
It is a necessary consequence, from what I have stated that the law which had prevailed on this subject, in all the states, became the governing principle or common law of the United States. Those states were the constituent parts of the United States, and when the union was formed, and further state regulation on the point terminated, it follows, in the absence of a declaration to the contrary, that the principle that prevailed and was the law on such point in all the states, became immediately the governing principle and rule of law thereon in the nation formed by such union.... The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section that defines the qualification of the President. “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution shall be eligible to the office of President,” &c. The only standard which then existed, of natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the Constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor that by the rule of common law, in force when the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen.
Moreover, the absence of any avowal or expression in the constitution of a design to affect the existing law of the country on this subject, is conclusive against the existence of such design. It is inconceivable that the representatives of the thirteen sovereign states, assembled in convention for the purpose of framing a confederation and union for national purposes, should have intended to subvert the long-established rule of law governing their constituents on a question of such great moment to them all, without solemnly providing for the change in the constitution; still more that they should have come to that conclusion without even once declaring their object.¹⁰⁹
The treatise in question by Emmerich de Vattel was a work concerning the “law of nations,” which we would now classify generally as “international law.” However, the concept of citizenship within a particular country is one governed not by international law or law of nations, but rather is governed by municipal law, that is, the internal law of each country.¹¹⁰ Vattel’s writings on citizenship by “descent” reflected in many circumstances what the law or practice may have been in certain European nations at the time—that is, that citizenship followed the nationality or citizenship of one’s father, as opposed to the place of birth.¹¹¹ This concept, although prevalent on the European Continent was, even as expressly noted in Vattel’s work itself, clearly not the law in England or thus the American colonies,¹¹² and clearly was not the concept and common understanding upon which U.S. law was based. James Madison, often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” expressly explained in the House of Representatives in the First Congress, in 1789, that with regard to citizenship the “place” of birth, and not “parentage” was the controlling concept adopted in the United States.¹¹³ Additionally, the Supreme Court in 1971 simply and succinctly explained, after citing historical legal precedent: “We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in this area follows English concepts with an acceptance of the jus soli, that is, the place of birth governs citizenship status except as modified by statute.”¹¹⁴ Again in 1998, the Supreme Court expressly recognized jus soli, the place of birth, as controlling in the United States, noting that in this country “citizenship does not pass by descent” except as provided by Congress in statute.¹¹⁵
The “common” understanding of the term “natural born” citizen during the revolutionary period, the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and in the generation after, was that of one who was a citizen “at birth” (and the principal factor in the United States, as in England, was the place of birth within the country, rather than that of ancestry, lineage, or descent, except as provided in statute). This common understanding and usage has continued up until this day as the term “natural born” citizen has entered the popular, legal lexicon as defined as: “A citizen by birth, as distinguished from a citizen who has been naturalized,”¹¹⁶ and the meaning of “natural born” in common, general usage as “having a specified status or character by birth.”¹¹⁷
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¹⁰⁰ Craig v. United States, 340 Fed. Appx. 471, 473 (10th Cir. Okla. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S.Ct. 141 (2009).
¹⁰¹ Emmerich de Vattel, THE LAW OF NATIONS, OR PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE, APPLIED TO THE CONDUCT AND AFFAIRS OF NATIONS AND SOVEREIGNS (London 1760)[hereinafter THE LAW OF NATIONS]. The 1760 Volume is an English translation of the original French, E. De Vattel, DROIT DES GENS: OU, PRINCIPLES DE LA LOI NATURELLE, APPLIQUES A LA CONDUCT & AUX AFFAIRES DES NATIONS & DES SOUVERAINS (1758)[hereinafter DROIT DES GENS].
¹⁰² In the original French, the sentence reads: “Les naturels ou indigenes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays, de Parens Citoyens.” (DROIT DES GENS, supra at Ch. XIX, p. 111). In the English translation available at the time of the framing of the Constitution, translated in English in 1760 and in 1787, the terms “naturels or indigenes” were simply interpreted as “natives or indigenes”: “The natives, or indigenes, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” THE LAW OF NATIONS, supra at Vol. I, Book 1, Ch. XIX, §212, at p. 92 (1760), and at p. 166 of the 1787 edition. The English phrase “natural born citizen” in early French translations of the U.S. Constitution’s Article II, §1, cl. 5, however, was interpreted as either “citoyen-né” ([a “born citizen”] John Stevens or Warren Livingston, EXAMEN DU GOUVERNEMENT D’ANGLETERRE, COMPARE AUX CONSTITUTIONS DES ÉTAT-UNIS,” at 257 (Paris 1789)), or “citoyen né dans les États-Unis,” ([a “citizen born in the United States”], L.-P. Conseil, MÉLANGES POLITIQUES ET PHILOSPHIQUES, “Constitution Des États-Unis,” at 160 (Paris 1833), and M. Du Ponceau, EXPOSÉ SOMMAIRE DE LA CONSTITUTION DES ÉTATS-UNIS D’AMÉRIQUE, at 45 (Paris 1837)), or in more recent French translations, “citoyen de naissance” (“citizen at birth”). None of these French expressions for the English term “natural born citizen” were used by Vattel.
¹⁰³ Compare the 1760 London edition of Vattel’s Law of Nations, to the 1797 English translation (London 1797), at Book 1, Ch. XIX, p. 101 (Lib. of Congress No. JX2414 .E5 1797).
¹⁰⁴ I Farrand at 437-438 (Mr. Martin, of Maryland).
¹⁰⁵ Farrand’s work, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, includes the personal notes of the following framers: Robert Yates of New York, James Madison of Virginia, Rufus King of Massachusetts, James McHenry of Maryland, William Pierce of Georgia, William Paterson of New Jersey, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and George Mason of Virginia, as well as the Journal kept by the Secretary of the Convention, Major William Jackson. I Farrand, supra at xi-xxii.
¹⁰⁶ THE FEDERALIST: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, AS AGREED UPON BY THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, SEPTEMBER 17, 1787 (New York 1788).
¹⁰⁷ There were only two apparent references in all of the state ratifying debates to Vattel: one by a delegate in South Carolina in relation to a nation’s duty to honor treaties (4 ELLIOT’S DEBATES at 278), and one in Pennsylvania mentioned with other “political writers” to support the notion that not all of the rights of the people of a nation could be “completely enumerated” in a constitution. 2 ELLIOT’S DEBATES at 453-454.
¹⁰⁸ Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 242, 244 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844). This case was cited with approval by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, at 664, 674, and also by the U.S. Court of Appeals in In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 909 (Cal. Cir. 1884).
¹⁰⁹ Lynch v. Clark at 246-247. Emphasis in original.
¹¹⁰ Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 162 (1830); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 668 (1898); Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 329, (1939); Lynch v. Clark at 249; see also Frederick Van Dyne (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES, at 3-4 (New York 1904).
¹¹¹ See discussion of European nations following concepts of citizenship by “descent” through one’s father, in Flournoy, Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL, at 554-559. Vattel explained that the citizenship of “children naturally follow the condition of their fathers,” and that “in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen ....” Vattel, LAW OF NATIONS, at Ch. XIX, p. 101 (1797 ed.). It is interesting to recognize that Vattel never expressly postulated a “two-citizen” parent requirement for what he described as natives or indigenes. Rather, grammatically, the plural of parent or relative (parens) merely conforms to the plural subject of “natives” or “indegenes.” That is, for example, if the rule is that the “children born in the United States of foreign diplomats” are not to be considered natural born “citizens” of the United States under common law principles, such statement does not necessarily require that both parents must be foreign diplomats to deny such U.S. citizenship status to that child. See, e.g., In re Thenault, 47 F.Supp. 952 (D.D.C. 1942).
¹¹² Vattel, LAW OF NATIONS, at Ch. XIX, p. 102 (1797 ed.). See discussion by the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, in Town of New Hartford v. Town of Canaan, 5 A. 360 (Conn. 1886): “In Field’s International Code, 132, it is said: ‘A legitimate child, wherever born, is a member of the nation of which its father at the time of its birth was a member.’ Upon this Morse, in his work on Citizenship, p. 17, thus comments: ‘This is the law in most European States (Westlake, p. 16; Foelix, p. 54), but not in England or in the United States.’”
¹¹³ “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States ....” James Madison, explaining the citizenship eligibility of Representative-elect William Smith, in the election contest of Ramsay v. Smith, 1st Cong., 1st Sess. (1789), in Clarke and Hall, CASES OF CONTESTED ELECTIONS IN CONGRESS, FROM THE YEAR 1789 TO 1834, INCLUSIVE, at p. 33 (Washington 1834).
¹¹⁴ Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 828 (1971).
¹¹⁵ Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 434, n.11 (1998).
¹¹⁶ BALLENTINE’S LAW DICTIONARY, at 831 (“natural-born citizen”) (3rd ed. 1969). See also BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY, at 278 (“natural-born citizen”) (9th ed. 2009) “A person born within the jurisdiction of a national government.”
¹¹⁷ WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, at p. 1507 (1976) (note specific reference to presidential eligibility). It may also be noted that the English word “natural,” according to the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, is rooted in the “Middle English (in the sense ‘having a certain status by birth’) ….”

Early targets of birther nonsense were military personnel. Some swallowed the scam and paid the price. They decided to disobey lawful orders because Obama was not the lawful President/CinC. Just a few of the more notable cases taken from the officer ranks.

LTC Dr. Terry Lakin

For an officer, dismissal from the service is the equivalent of an enlisted servicemember receiving a dishonorable discharge. For an officer with 17 years of service, it means never getting a retirement check.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial_of_Terry_Lakin

Before Lakin went to court-martial, it was found by the judge that President Obama's eligibility (and hence his birth certificate) had no bearing on the case. Lakin pleaded guilty to two charges while pleading not-guilty to one other. Despite recanting his original concerns and asking the jury for leniency, Lakin was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to dismissal from the Army, loss of pay and allowances, and a prison term of six months. Lakin was released from the United States Disciplinary Barracks after serving five of his six months. He was later denied a medical license in Kansas as a result of his dereliction of duty.

Major Stefan F. Cook, Army Reserve

The Army revoked his orders and his access to the base where he worked for a defense contractor. He was fired from defense contractor Simtech.

CAPT Connie Rhodes

Judge Land in the Rhodes case:

"The Court finds that counsel's conduct was willful and not merely negligent. It demonstrates bad faith on her part. As an attorney, she is deemed to have known better. She owed a duty to follow the rules and to respect the Court. Counsel's pattern of conduct conclusively establishes that she did not mistakenly violate a provision of law. She knowingly violated Rule 11. Her response to the Court's show cause order is breathtaking in its arrogance and borders on delusional. She expresses no contrition or regret regarding her misconduct. To the contrary, she continues her baseless attacks on the Court."