I think many of have been barking up the wrong tree on this topic for a long time. Last year I realized that the early courts did not count citizenship as having started June 21, 1788, (US Constitution ratified.) they regard citizenship as having started July 4, 1776.
It was the Declaration of Independence that created American Citizenship, not the US Constitution. Therefore, in order to understand the meaning of "natural born citizen", one must look to the document that created it, not the one that merely mentions it 11 years later.
The underpinnings of the Declaration of Independence are "Natural law", a very widespread and dominant philosophy of the early Republic. It's influence is acknowledged in the Declaration's preamble:
...and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,...
But who's version of "natural law" was the basis for the Declaration of Independence? The Monarchy had their version of natural law ("Divine Right of Kings") and then there was Vattel.
Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted.
Gee, That's the same Idea that the founder's had. How about that? :)
The Founders and Framers who were in Congress in 1790 passed a bill and President Washington signed it into law which said: “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens: provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States”.
The only piece of legislation to use the term “natural born citizen.”