1) The United States did not exist when Elldred wa born.
2) A man born of Anericann slaves could not have tried to run for President until after the 14th amendment was ratified (not old enough).
My question is: would that have been illegal in, say,1920, on the grounds that our hypothetical candidate would not have been an NBC?
If he wasn’t born a citizen at all, it’s impossible for him to have been a natural born citizen. His children born after his becoming a citizen would be under the law at that time, since his wife would have derived her citizenship from his, making it a moot point.
Slaves were not citizens at all until after the Civil War, and some were being denied citizenship right up until the 14th Amendment.
The express intent of the 14th Amendment was to rectify this denial of citizenship to former slaves.
You may or may not be familiar with James Madison's defense of William Loughton Smith, but it has been argued quite a lot in these threads. To sum it up, Madison's argument was that every citizen of every state became upon July 4, 1776, a citizen of the United States. What applied to William Loughton Smith, also applied to Elldred, unless he chose to be a British loyalists.
This is a point which some of the "born on the soil" supporters simply don't comprehend. There were THOUSANDS of people born in the United States that were not considered citizens of the United States by either themselves, The British Government, or Our government as well. They chose to remain loyal to the British Government, and therefore were British Citizens, and where they were born had nothing to do with that fact. The issue is, and always was about Allegiance, and that is not imparted by dirt, it is imparted by Parents who convey it to their children.
2) A man born of Anericann slaves could not have tried to run for President until after the 14th amendment was ratified (not old enough). My question is: would that have been illegal in, say,1920, on the grounds that our hypothetical candidate would not have been an NBC?
It would be a legal technicality, just as it is today. One of the reasons I think the "natural born citizen" issue is pretty much ignored by most people is because they see it as nothing but a bunch of hair splitting about some rules. Other people, such as us "birthers" argue that it is not just some frivolous rule, it is a necessary safeguard which was bypassed, and the lack of this safeguard has now caused disastrous results.
In Any case, the examples of Mr. Elldred and Mr. McClure reinforce the point that just getting born on our soil did not make you a citizen in the eyes of our Government back then. Again, the examples of all those many thousands of British Loyalists ought to be a no-brainer for people to figure this out, but some people really want to believe crap they've heard.