Here is an interesting piece from http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm
” Despite the mainstream news media’s silence regarding this matter, an increasing number of Americans are concerned that Barack Obama might not be eligible, under the Constitution, to serve as President.
According to the U.S. Constitution, an individual born after 1787 cannot legally or legitimately serve as U.S. President unless he or she is a “natural born citizen” of the United States.
Among members of Congress and the mainstream news media, the consensus of opinion is that anyone born in the United States is a “natural born citizen”. However, when we researched this issue a bit more carefully, we found that the consensus opinion is not consistent with American history.
In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the Supreme Court said that, if you were born in the United States and both of your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you are, without doubt, a natural born citizen. In the same case, the Supreme Court also said that, if you were born in the United States and one of your parents was not a U.S. citizen when you were born, your natural born citizenship is in doubt. So far, the Supreme Court has not resolved this doubt because, until now, there has never been any need to do so.
With only two exceptions, every American President, who was born after 1787, was born in the United States, to parents who were both U.S. citizens. The two exceptions were Chester Arthur and Barack Obama. When Chester Arthur ran for office, the public did not know about his eligibility problem. Only recently did historians learn that, when Arthur was born, his father was not a U.S. citizen. The 2008 election was the first time in history that the United States knowingly elected a President who was born after 1787 and whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.
Barack Obama publicly admits that his father was not a U.S. citizen. According to Minor v. Happersett, there is unresolved doubt as to whether the child of a non-citizen parent is a natural born citizen. This doubt is not based on the imaginings of some tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists on the lunatic fringe of society. This doubt comes from what the Supreme Court has actually said, as well as a variety of other historical and legal sources which are presented and discussed here.
This Primer introduces and explains the Obama Eligibility Controversy, in question-and-answer format, for a non-technical general audience. We’ve double-checked the facts presented here, and we’ve cited the sources of each fact.”
Thank you!
This is a mischaracterization. This decision did not establish that doubt existed. In one section it mentions, in passing, the some people thought this way, but it wasn't a question the court had to decide. It says nothing towards giving credence to those unspecified people who thought that way.
Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y.Leg.Obs. 236, 1 Sand. Ch. 583 (1844)"Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen."
"The entire silence of the constitution in regard to it, furnishes a strong confirmation, not only that the existing law of the states was entirely uniform, but that there was no intention to abrogate or change it. The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. "No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President," &c. The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution ? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor that by the rule of the common law, in force when the ' the colonies and in the states, under the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born."
"III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."
This ruling, which is a ruling from the United States Supreme Court, says that the common law in England was that every child born in England of ALIEN parents was a "natural-born subject".
It explains that since the Constitution did not redefine the term, and that the US did inherit english common law in large part, that US common law holds the same. Further, that the definition "continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."
It therefore defines "natural born citizen" as including anyone born in the country, even if they had alien parents.