I certainly understand all that, but frankly it was never part of my response to the original poster. So your abrupt insertion of some sort of accusation that I was crosswise with Justice Story caught me a bit flatfooted since Justice story had never been part of the discussion up till then.
So, if Story never held that Vattel’s work was US law, then I am not at odds with him in any way, am I?
but he did hold that the type of law which Vattel wrote about was what was followed by the Framers in matters of citizenship.