But edge919, they haven't been retained, in substance or in fact. The entire section of the 1790 Nationality Act mentioning natural-born citizens was rescinded, never to appear again. Justice Waite didn't say “children either born on our soil or overseas, to parents who were its citizens.”
Was it carelessness? The statement was made in a paragraph based upon Article 1 Section 8, the creation by Congress of an Uniform rule for Naturalization. The justices were masters of the syllogism, so the opening sentence established the context of the following sentence. It was a discussion of the early attempts to establish naturalization laws. Waite makes the comment that the early efforts have been retained “in substance”, but doesn't attempt to address how they have changed. The 1795 Nationality Act made overseas-born children of citizens into citizens - by naturalization.
Justice Gray stressed in Wong Kim Ark, citizens have all the rights of natural-born citizens, only the privilege of becoming president was not permitted, but was not a right.
It appears that Justice Waite is considering that the substance of naturalization laws involves who may naturalize, or be considered, as established by the 14th Amendment, a citizen, naturalized at birth - not the same as a natural-born citizen. He clearly states that there are but two classes of citizens, natural and naturalized. But Justice Waite did not assert that the 1790 Naturalization Act was in effect after 1795. He was providing historical context, which also happened to have illustrated the constant evolution of naturalization law, justifying the use of the only citizen defined in the Constitution, a natural born citizen, to establish Virginia Minor's citizenship before the 14th Amendment.
I have some sense of how much our framers resorted to Vattel’s compendium of natural law. It was, after all, our nation's first law book, made the core curriculum at our first law school, created at William and Mary in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson. But our framers explicitly rejected some of Vattel’s provisions. One that I might have kept was a notion that a nation had a right to prevent citizens with critical skills from expatriating, at least until they had taught a replacement the skills essential to the health of his community. Another not adopted was Vattel’s provision that the children of military of diplomatic corp citizens be “reputed” natural born citizens. It wasn't incorporated either, but would have made McCain eligible.
I understand what you’re trying to argue, but when Waite says the provisions have been retained, then it complements why he made a distinction between the classes of persons born in the country to citizen parents and those born in the country without citizen parents. The first class had no doubts about their citizenship. The same is true, in context, when he says the provisions were retained from the naturalization state, that children born abroad to citizen fathers are also citizens with no doubt.