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Unless and until you have something that says otherwise, then being born on U.S. soil is sufficient. People born on U.S. Soil are citizens in every way shape or form. They can get a U.S. Passport just by showing their birth certificate and they can be drafted (should it come to it).

The question is a highly academic one: whether the citizen by birth provision of the 14th Amendment supersedes the "natural born" citizenship qualifier for President in Article II Section I. Citizenship alone, it's well-established, is NOT enough to be President - otherwise we'd have Arnold Schwarzenegger (naturalized citizen) trying to run.

I've studied the Constitution, from a variety of perspectives, for almost 25 years now (since AP Constitutional History my Jr. year of high school, and through college where I was a PoliSci major and took a LOT of Constitutional analysis classes) and to be really blunt I don't know the answer to that.

It's a HUGE ambiguous hole in the Constitution as amended. The fact is that the Radical Republicans who put the 14th Amendment together screwed up, at least in the sense that they didn't foresee, and act to mitigate, the possibly unintended consequences of their wording.

>>It’s a HUGE ambiguous hole in the Constitution as amended. <<

It is an even HUGER loser argument for the current situation.

The Birthers (now Birth-bots) demanded the COLB — when it was produced, they want to move the goalposts. The original supposed “fake” documents also listed the father as Kenyan, yet few, if anyone, made the “daddy” argument.

Constitutional scholars can argue this until the cows come home, but in the end for the current situation the bulk of law is on the side of the TOTUS-reader.

And, yes, if it was put to them that is where SCOTUS is likely to go.

This IS splitting hairs and beyond almost everyone on this thread.

The difference is I recognize it.

The fact is that the Radical Republicans who put the 14th Amendment together screwed up, at least in the sense that they didn't foresee, and act to mitigate, the possibly unintended consequences of their wording.

”All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.” (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862))