I guess you missed my post above where I did rebut your argument @HoustonSam
https://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,436075.msg2424646.html#msg2424646
The founders were well aware of the lines of assertion to the throne of England and the fact that there was to be NONE of that in the United States of America which presented them with the knotty problem they intended to solve with this:
Article II Section one, United States Constitution
From this article that I linked to up thread and a VERY good primer on the subject: https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/the-constitution-vattel-and-natural-born-citizen-what-our-framers-knew/
Again
@Bigun I tip my hat to your research and scholarship, but I do not join in your conclusion. The reason for the natural-born clause is clear, the question is about the meaning of "natural born."
You make a strong case that the Founders were influenced by Vattel, and that he defined "natural born" as
jus soli exclusively. However dictionaries, commentaries, and other scholarly works are not themselves law; only law is law. I submit that the Founders' meaning of "natural born" much more likely came from the laws in which they had been educated. I have cited in this thread previously that English law had recognized
jus sanguinis citizenship since the 1300s, and I now cite specifically the British Nationality Act of 1730 (
http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1730.htm) from which I quote :
"May it please your most Excellent Majesty that it may be declared and enacted, and be it declared and enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That all Children born out of the Ligeance of the Crown of England, or of Great Britain, or which shall hereafter be born out of such Ligeance, whose Fathers were or shall be natural-born Subjects of the Crown of England, or of Great Britain, at the Time of the Birth of such Children respectively, shall and may, by virtue of the said recited Act, be adjudged and taken to be, and all such Children are hereby declared to be
natural-born Subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, to all Intents, Constructions and Purposes whatsoever. "
Born "out of Ligeance of the Crown of England" means born outside English territory. This clearly establishes what we now call
jus sanguinis citizenship as natural born, and would have been the Founders' understanding of "natural born". While Vattel's definition might be narrower, limited to
jus soli, I argue that the Founders would have used *prior statutory terms* rather than scholarly ones. As Originalists we are obligated to perpetuate the Founders' understanding absent an amendment.