[Political Junkie Too]

I'll go one step further.

The Preamble defines who is a natural-born citizen.

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"We the People" are citizens of the United States. "Our Posterity" are the natural born who follow -- the children of the People. The Constitution was "ordained and established" to "secure... Liberty" to its citizens and their children.

Whom else was the Constitution established to secure, if not the citizen People and their citizen children?

How else would the Founders attempt to secure the United States of America if not by limiting the qualifications for the highest office to the People and their Posterity that was the reason for establishing the Constitution in the first place?

That language seems plain enough to me. The whole Constitution must be read within the context of the purpose as stated by the Framers in the Preamble: the Constitution was framed specifically to ensure the country to its people and their children - the natural born of the country.

If you are an alien who becomes a naturalized citizen, you become one of We the People, and then your children that follow become the nation's posterity.

Natural-born citizens are the nation's "posterity" that the Constitution was ordained and established to secure.

-PJ

[Cboldt]

Very nice extension. I was trying to keep the analysis simple, and reject the premise that the constitution doesn't define NBC. In order for the citizen-at-birth=NBC argument to start, step one is to claim NBC isn't defined in the constitution. That means it's defined someplace else, and the proponent can point to extraneous material as "the authority."

The proponents of Cruz is NBC rely on framing the argument. NBC isn't defined in the constitution is one of the tools. Another is to work in a dichotomy of "either naturalized (by a naturalization process) or natural born, there is no other category named in the constitution."

[odawg]

“Natural-born citizens are the nation’s “posterity” that the Constitution was ordained and established to secure.”

Correct, also, the “posterity” of naturalized citizens, whose children become natural born citizens.

The Naturalization Act of 1790, which was written shortly after the Constitution, and by the same people who wrote the Constitution, defines the natural born clause that they wrote into the Constitution. It clearly defines what a natural born citizen is, and it only descends through the father. And the meaning associated with the term as it was understood at the time of adoption of the Constitution is locked into the Constitution and can only be changed through the amendment process.

Due to a Supreme Court decision in 1930, NATURALIZED citizenship can descend through the mother.

Under your screwy logic, the natural born clause would have been useless to insert into the Constitution as a qualification to be president.