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The founders understood what the phrase “all men are created equal” meant and the Southern Colonies were quite upset frankly that the language was included as it implied that Slaves were endowed by their creator with Life and Liberty.

They did not understand it to mean that or else they would have freed their own slaves. Especially the Author. And by the way, all the states were slave states in 1776.

The Declaration of Independence was an appeal to higher law in order to justify the separation of the Colonies from England. It was understood at the time that the colonists were British Subjects and subject to the King who held his throne by Divine Right. It was a document that was intended to appeal to God to show that the King had violated his sacred duties and was no longer fit to be their king and that their rebellion was, in fact, sanctioned by the same God who granted the King his divine rights.

You started out well, then muddled it there at the end. The listing of grievances was a courtesy. (and a political tactic) The larger point is that their newly found understanding of natural law informs them that they are entitled to be free of a King.

That being said, the Declaration of Independence - if taken in its purest form - was, in fact, an emancipation proclamation declaring that all men are created equal and that they have inherent rights, granted by God, which include the right to life and the right to liberty and the right to rule their own lives.

And that I think is either accurate, or very close to accurate. Certainly that was the concept Jefferson was trying to convey, though I doubt it was the one the rest wanted conveyed.

The Founders reliance on the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God were well meaning and I think in the end the words that brought America to the point ultimately where it was clear that enslaving men could no longer be tolerated.

I have, in the last year, come to some very different conclusions about that. As the London Spectator dryly observed in 1862, "The principle [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States" government."

Information which I have only seen in the last year points me to a very different conclusion regarding the cause of the Civil war. Basically it was about money.

I think people are not getting my point. There is no Natural Law as it applies to citizenship in a country.

Not any more, anyway.

I see people try to justify denying certain individuals the label of Natural Born Citizen and using “Natural Law” i.e, the laws of Nature and God, to justify denying that term to that individual.

They argue these things because they are in fact correct. There are conditions that make someone a natural citizen, and there are artificial conditions which can be created to make someone into a citizen, but they are not the same thing.

All Citizens, whether born or naturalized, are citizens in accordance with statutes that are on the books at the time of their birth or at the time of their naturalization.

And what statute created US Citizens? Point to the law that made a citizen of Martin Van Buren. There is no such statute. He was a citizen by Natural law.

As far as I can tell the only statute that defined “Natural Born Citizen” was the 1789 statute that George Washington signed into law. Under that statute everyone running for president right now would be a natural born citizen.

Now when you say things like this, it makes me think you aren't up to speed with the facts. That statute to which you refer, absolutely forbids citizenship to the child of a foreign father.

I do not see any distinction between a person who is born a citizen at birth and a natural born citizen. And in going back to slavery, if those people, by virtue of statutes that prevented them from obtaining their God given rights to life and liberty, were prevented from being numbered among the Natural Born Citizens, then the whole idea of Natural Born Citizen is a creation of statute and if Congress can take it away, then they can give it as well.

Waaaa... The past was racist and unfair! Why yes. Yes it was. But no, the concept of "natural citizen" was not created by congress, or by statute. It was created by applying the natural law principles then being promulgated around the states by that famous book written by Emerrich Vattel.

The normal English word for membership in a nation at the time was "Subject." This "Citizen" word was not even in vogue until we started using it.

Had we intended to follow the English meaning for membership in a state, we would have kept the English term for it.