The Naturalization Act of 1790 was superseded by the Naturalization Act of 1795. So the Naturalization Act of 1790 ceased to be law once the 1795 act was signed into law.
Regardless, the text of the 1790 law states:
“And 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.”
There is an interpretation issue here. Does the plural “citizens” refer to both parents, or does the plural “citizens” refer to the many covered by the law? Given the text says “and the children of” [plural], not “and a child of” [singular], it is probably the many covered by the law.
It is not clear from the text. Mark Levin interprets the 1790 law would confer Natural Born Citizenship status on Cruz if it were still the law today.
What is clear is if a woman traveled overseas and had a child of a foreign man who never was a U.S. citizen or resident, citizenship would not transfer.
It doesn’t matter which Naturalization law happens to be operative — the natural born concept is defined in the 1790 version and is locked into the Constitution.
“And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea...”
I think that would refer to the many covered by the law. However, you have to add in the fact, and Levin evidently covered it up, that when the Constitution was written, citizenship descended through the father exclusively. That was their mindset. So if a child was born overseas and the father was not a citizen, the child would not be a citizen. As for naturalization purposes, that held sway until it was changed by the Supreme Court in 1930. (The Constitution gives Congress the exclusively authority to control immigration and naturalization).
Also, according to original intent, a man who was a citizen of the United States, a natural born citizen born abroad of citizen parents, but who never resided in the United States would be incapable if transferring his citizenship to his child born abroad within the framework of the natural born clause in the Constitution. How much less then, than a foreign national who just happened to live a few years in the United States, leaves, and fathers a child in another country? That is laughable.
There are a few posters here who have done extensive research on Supreme Court cases and other cases where natural born was defined as a person born from two citizen parents.