“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.”
and C.J. Waite in Minor V. Happersett 88 U.S.162:
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”
And, while we've seen the obfuscation for the past year, just a reminder, the 14th Amendment never mentions the words "Natural born citizen." Its principal author , John Bingham, in an address to a joint congressional session, repeats C.J.Waite and the Vattel definition precisely. There have been twenty four attempts by congress to amend article II Sect I, the latest in 2003 by Orren Hatch; none, I believe, cleared the Senate (though I haven't read them all), for ratification by three fourths of the states.
There has been a great deal written about natural born citizenship. The author of the legal dictionary, Law of Nations, used by our founders for much of the Constitution and the Declaration, de Vattel, was on lecturer Barack Obama’s reading list for a course on immigration law at UofC. He knows the definition, but believes the Constitution is an historical document to be used when it is useful to achieve an objective - like many attorneys.
Thanks, Spaulding. I will have to make a file of my own with that info since it seems to keep coming up.