Dug this old post out of the mothballs:
Here’s some information to shed light on what you stated from another thread where these issues were discussed:
If the Framers did not intend for the phrase they put into the Constitution - Natural Born Citizen - to mean what it meant at the time they wrote it, they would have written out a definition into the Constitution to redefine it. Since they did not, we can only assume it meant what the phrase meant when they wrote it out - the English common law definition - those born within the borders of the realm are naturally born citizens.
There are a number of court cases where it is defined in this manner with regard to those born with far looser connections to the United States than Marco Rubio, Chester Arthur, (or Kamala Harris). The first case where it seems this was dealt with by a court was Lynch vs. Clarke in New York over a dispute with who could inherit property - there was a law on the books stating that only a “U.S. Citizen” could inherit property, and the presiding judge (apparently in this court the judge was called a “Vice Chancellor”) made this declaration: “Suppose a person should be elected president who was native born, but of alien parents; could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the Constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor, that by the rule of the common law, in force when the Constitution was adopted, he is a citizen...Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen. It is surprising that there has been no judicial decision upon this question.” In another case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court over the citizenship of a person born who was born to Chinese parents (it was illegal at that time for Chinese immigrants to become U.S. Citizens) it was declared that he was a natural born citizen by virtue of having been born in the United States, and Justice Field, who wrote the opinion, actually referenced the Lynch v. Clarke decision in the ruling of the Court: “After an exhaustive examination of the law, the Vice-Chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen, and added that this was the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind.” This case was In re Look Tin Sing. Another U.S. Supreme Court case was United States v. Wong Kim Ark https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649 dealing with the same issue of a child born to Chinese parents made the same ruling and also declared him to be a natural born citizen in the ruling by virtue of his right to citizenship by birth. All of those cases were in the 1800s.
There was a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1939 with the title Perkins v. Elg http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/307/325.html which dealt with the issue of a woman who was born in the U.S. to Swedish citizens who returned to Sweden with her when she was four years old. Her father was naturalized prior to this as a U.S. Citizen and held dual citizenship. She then came back to the U.S. and was admitted entry as a citizen at the age of 21. For whatever reason, her father later did away with his U.S. Citizenship status and the equivalent of the INS at the time declared she was to be deported. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against this, finding she was a natural born U.S. Citizen by right of birth and even declared she was eligible to be President of the United States in the ruling. A past President, Chester Arthur, was born with an Irish father who was not yet naturalized as a U.S. Citizen, though his mother was born in Vermont where Arthur himself was born.
Detractors like to ignore all of information and court cases and instead rely totally on a case Minor v. Happersett - seeming to deliberately misquote the ruling - indeed, the justices specifically stated they were not making a finding of every scenario that constitutes a natural born citizen in their ruling: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. ***For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.***” Minor v. Happersett - full text of ruling https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/88/162
Nobody knew it at the time and it was only discovered years after his death. In fact, I think it was just discovered around 2008 when this topic was being discussed.
Arthur did everything he could to cover it up.
Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents.
So the courts mention "other authorities" which are the ones you guys like. I can tell you the name of one of them. It was William Rawle. He did more to spread the notion that American citizenship followed British Common law than any other person.
But who are the "authorities" that said it required the parents to be citizens?
Are you curious?