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Well that convention under British common law may well rule here in any future case, but the interesting part is it seems that no one wants to define what natural born means.

They avoid it like the plague it seems, in our judicial system.

Just to think! Arnold the Governator could have run for the presidency!

Well that convention under British common law may well rule here in any future case, but the interesting part is it seems that no one wants to define what natural born means.

They avoid it like the plague it seems, in our judicial system.

I don't see that it's been avoided by the plague. I mean, the only relevance of "natural born citizen" is with respect to the office of President (and peripherally Vice President). And the courts can only hear those cases that are brought before it. They can't just pluck some issue out of the air and rule on it all on their own.

There have only ever been 44 Presidents in the 200 plus years since Article II was written. The numbers simply don't give the situation much chance to arise.

So no, I don't see that it's been something that's been avoided like the plague.

Just to think! Arnold the Governator could have run for the presidency!

Actually he could have seeing as there's nothing to prevent anyone from running for the office. The only restriction is on who may actually hold the office.

But with regards to Arnie, there's one thing I think everyone can agree on. That no one who is a naturalized citizen can ever be considered a natural born citizen.

Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y.Leg.Obs. 236, 1 Sand. Ch. 583 (1844)
"Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen."
"The entire silence of the constitution in regard to it, furnishes a strong confirmation, not only that the existing law of the states was entirely uniform, but that there was no intention to abrogate or change it. 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 which 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 a 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 the common law, in force when the ' the colonies and in the states, under the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen. old confederation."

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born."
"III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."