You said: “I believe you are making too much of the “parents who were it’s citizens” being plural. I believe common-law definition applies if either of the parents are citizens, and does not require both parents to be citizens.”
These are not my words. These are the words of the Supreme Court. I’m sure they were well-versed enough in the English language to say “parent who was a citizen” if that’s what they meant. When they say “parents who were its citizens”, I’m sure they meant BOTH parents.
Anyone who gets their citizenship by legislation can’t be “natural born”.
Vattel, whom the Founding Fathers were familiar with, in the Law of Nations says:
Ҥ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
Again, the word “parentS”.
And “...those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers...”
And “The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.”
This is all historical data that means nothing unless the Supreme Court GETS the case, and then they actually try to interpret it based on what the writers of the Constitution meant. Big leap of faith on our part. In the meantime, I’m getting a heck of an education.
In the case before the court, both parents were citizens, so they used the term parents.
But the term “parents” can easily mean one or both, and doesn’t have to mean just “both”. If the case had involved a single parent who was a citizen, we’d know for certain.
But as I have asked others, I’ll ask you. If you believe that both parents must be citizens in order for the child to be a citizen, what about the teenager who sleeps with a foreign exhange student and gets pregnant. Are you saying that her child isn’t a citizen?