The dissent in US v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), has a slighty different take on that.
Some of the founders had been born on what was and became American soil. The "grandfather" clause was literally to admit foreign-born people to obtain the presidency.
In the convention it was, says Mr. Bancroft, 'objected that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for that place; 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, on the 7th of September it was unanimously settled that foreign-born residents of fourteen years who should be citizens at the time of the formation of the constitution are eligible to the office of president.' 2 Bancroft, Hist. U. S. Const. 192.
“The dissent in US v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), has a slighty different take on that.
Some of the founders had been born on what was and became American soil. The ‘grandfather’ clause was literally to admit foreign-born people to obtain the presidency.”
If it was proposed that foreign-born people be explicitly included among those grandfathered in, I can understand that. I don’t however think it leads to a different take than what I said. I wasn’t speaking to who became a citizen or why. It could have been people born to people born on American soil, or people who fought in the revolution, or people who had established residency in America for a considerable period. None of that is directly relevant to the argument.
When we talk about who should have qualified as a citizen after the passage of the Constitution, we drift into territory not specifically outlined in the Constitution. The grandfather clause’s raison d’être was to open the presidency to anyone a citizen once the Constitution became law. Whoever those people were, none of them were born citizens. That’s the important point, to me.
When I said there was no America before there was an America, I really should have said there was no U.S. before there was. That’s more to the point. Before there was a U.S., there was no U.S. terrtiory, and thus no U.S. citizens by virtue of being born on U.S. territory. Just as there were no citizen parents to birth citizen children. Yet the blood-right Birthers somehow seem to believe the grandfather clause speaks only to the lack of citizen parents, and therefore a possibility of split-loyalty. There was a lack of U.S. soil, too. Which makes it impossible to say whether one or the other is more important by the clause itself.