>>> Further, you’re the one who asked me to notice the word “born.” I’d like to know why you asked me to notice it.
Tublecane, I was trying to responded to your question, while responding to calenel's question: " ... definition of ‘natural born’ from that found in the dictionary: ‘having an attribute or quality from birth’. Do you have one?
That's why I wanted to show Vattel as an influential legal expert whose theories laid the foundation of modern international law. Vattel's concepts would have been part of the "collective influence" the Framer's would have had, including the influence on "natural born citizen". Just like today, if you study Psychology, your going to be influenced by Jung.
Our Framers would have been molded to some degree by the work of Vattell, and more so by William Blackstone. In fact if you do some research, you'll soon understand that many terms, phrases and concepts used by the Framers were derived from William Blackstone's works.
Even today, U.S. courts frequently quote Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England as the definitive pre-Revolutionary War source of common law; in particular, the United States Supreme Court quotes from Blackstone's work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or further (for example, when discussing the intent of the Framers of the Constitution).
Blackstone's work has been used most forcefully as of late by Justice Clarence Thomas. U.S. and other common law courts mention with strong approval Blackstone's formulation also known as Blackstone's ratio popularly stated as "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
Here's a passage from the Blackstone Commentaries. Note than many scholars and US court cases consider "Natural Born Citizen" and "Natural Born Subject" as synonymous.:
"The first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural born subjects. Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the allegiance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it. Allegiance is the tie, or ligament, which binds the subject to the king, in return for that protection which the king affords the subject. The thing itself, or substantial part of it, is founded in reason and the nature of government; the name and the form are derived to us from our Gothic ancestors.
"Allegiance, both express and implied, is however distinguished by the law into two sorts or species, the one natural, the other local; the former being also perpetual, the latter temporary. Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king’s dominions immediately upon their birth. For, immediately upon their birth, they are under the king’s protection; at a time too, when (during their infancy) they are incapable of protecting themselves.
"When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once.
"Yet the children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador.
"To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband’s consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants.
"But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s allegiance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attained, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain."
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Now, these are just TWO "building blocks" of the Framer's legal conceptualization. If you start looking at these influences, and others, like as the Federalist Papers, and other supporting documents such as the John Jay letter, you begin to notice a trend.
The trend I see in MY analysis of these influential works is that loyalty, dominion, being under the "King's protection," and being a citizen/subject are connected, passed on by heirship, nearly always paternally, and AT BIRTH.
That's why the DUAL CITIZENSHIP issue is a critical component of the Obama case. You either have "Natural Born Citizenship" at birth, OR YOU DO NOT. If you DON'T, you're a CITIZEN. There's some more research I need to do looking at the Hague Convention, British and later the Kenyan Constitution, and parse some of the lesser known U.S. Naturalization cases.
Right now, I feel somewhat comfortable that Obama is a US Citizen, but I cannot see how he'd qualify under the Common Law or otherwise as a "Natural Born Citizen," born to a US mother, under the age of 19, with a wedded father who was a Citizen (not just a Subject) of the UK, with Barack Jr having divided loyalties that he couldn't relinquish as an infant -- again, all at the time of birth.