“That the common law as arose in the early nation was of necessity formed via colonial governments...”
His point was that in interpreting the US Constitution, which is NOT part of common law, the legal terms used by the lawyers who wrote the Constitution and ratified it were legal terms found in English common law.
And realistically, there IS a national common law, which is why the US Supreme Court decisions matter. If we had no national common law, the US Supreme Court would be a fairly trivial part of government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
Had the Framers intended to require a natural-born subject as President they were well familiar with that actual term in full and would have used that term. Otherwise “citizen” joins “natural” and is rendered yet another linguistic distinction without a difference, an unusual circumstance given the renowned rigor and economy with words of the Framers.
I've provided several examples this evening of colonial common law being formed, by consent of the governed, upon laws, customary or otherwise, from the Roman Republic. The specific language employed by numerous courts pertaining to the term natural-born citizen is in many instances drawn directly from or an accurate paraphrase of Vattel, no matter how frequently or how often that source is derided.
Therefore, the Common Law upon which elements of our Constitution is based is clearly not that of England. I'd go so far as to state that the only place it exists is in the Bill Of Rights.