The founders - by force of arms - freed themselves from being subjects and founded a government where the citizen was sovereign.
But prior to the Revolution - they were subjects - and subject to the laws of England - and born as “natural born subjects” of England.
My point is that there is or was NOTHING in English law to differentiate those born as subjects of England and those who were natural born subjects of England.
To be born a subject of England was to be a natural born subject of England.
I just showed you where Madison said PRIMARY allegiance goes to the colony (or the society of which the natives were members). He makes a point that it would take an act of the British legislature to NATURALIZE the colonists. To be a natural-born subject of Great Britain requires perpetual allegiance to the crown, so in order to accept themselves as citizens of the United States, the founders had to reject common law. Second, this ignores that the U.S. signed a treaty with Great Britain that in effect (and underscored in Shanks v. Dupont) made citizens of those who were loyal to the United States and made subjects of those loyal to Great Britain even if born on U.S. soil. There's no way that the founders considered place of birth as the only factor which made someone a citizen because they signed a treaty that said otherwise. The children of loyalists born in the U.S were considered British subjects. Under this same principle, Obama is a natural-born subject, not a citizen ... and that's providing he could legally prove he was born in the U.S.
If I understand correctly (and I may not), one was not a subject of "England" per se, but a subject of the "Crown" or the sovereign King of England as the divine ruler from God.
Since we don't have Kings in the United States, the concept of "subject" does not transfer easily. The closest thing to define "natural born," then, becomes born to citizens of the country, since the citizenry are sovereign.
This is why America was called the "great experiment," and why we have the phrase "American exceptionalism." It is because, until the Declaration and Constitution, all countries were formed by either conquest or by subjection to religious monarchies as laid out in Thomas Paine's The Rights Of Man. America was created as a Constitutional Republic, where the rule of law defined the nation, and that nation's natural citizenry were its descendents (or Posterity, as it's referred to in the Constitution).
From The Rights of Man, Applying Principle to Practice, Chapter 4 — Of Constitutions, Part 2 of 2:
If there is any government where prerogatives might with apparent safety be entrusted to any individual, it is in the federal government of America. The president of the United States of America is elected only for four years. He is not only responsible in the general sense of the word, but a particular mode is laid down in the constitution for trying him. He cannot be elected under thirty-five years of age; and he must be a native of the country.-PJIn a comparison of these cases with the Government of England, the difference when applied to the latter amounts to an absurdity. In England the person who exercises prerogative is often a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and always married to a foreigner. He is never in full natural or political connection with the country, is not responsible for anything, and becomes of age at eighteen years; yet such a person is permitted to form foreign alliances, without even the knowledge of the nation, and to make war and peace without its consent.
But this is not all. Though such a person cannot dispose of the government in the manner of a testator, he dictates the marriage connections, which, in effect, accomplish a great part of the same end. He cannot directly bequeath half the government to Prussia, but he can form a marriage partnership that will produce almost the same thing. Under such circumstances, it is happy for England that she is not situated on the Continent, or she might, like Holland, fall under the dictatorship of Prussia. Holland, by marriage, is as effectually governed by Prussia, as if the old tyranny of bequeathing the government had been the means.
The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the only one to which he is admitted. A foreigner cannot be a member of Parliament, but he may be what is called a king. If there is any reason for excluding foreigners, it ought to be from those offices where mischief can most be acted, and where, by uniting every bias of interest and attachment, the trust is best secured. But as nations proceed in the great business of forming constitutions, they will examine with more precision into the nature and business of that department which is called the executive. What the legislative and judicial departments are every one can see; but with respect to what, in Europe, is called the executive, as distinct from those two, it is either a political superfluity or a chaos of unknown things.