IMO the Founders intended the normal, common law definition of legal terms unless they explicitly state otherwise.
Well, then, General, can you cite a common law definition of "natural born citizen" that dates from the time of the adoption of the Constitution?
The Blackstone definition is for “subject,” of course, since that was the English common law equivalent of “citizen.” But it is basically jus solis, determination by location of birth, not by parentage.
Blackstone: 1765
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_4_citizenships1.html
There have been a number of Supreme Court decision with peripheral bearing on the issue, but none are definitive. In particular, the 14th Amendment may have altered the meaning of the terms used in the original constitution.
Personally I wish the Court would take such a case and just define the term. That is exactly what the Court should do, clarify ambiguous points in what the Constitution really means.
Thomas Jefferson wrote extensively on this topic:
In Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, Volume 21, Pages 250-251 (http://tinyurl.com/8zvmgy ), we see notes from Thomas Jefferson from December 1783.
The first question is
“Qu. 1. Can an American citizen, adult, now inherit lands in England?”
to which Thomas Jefferson begins his answer with
“Natural subjects can inherit–Aliens cannot.
There is no middle character–every man must be the one or the other of these.”
(In other words, dual nationality did not exist. Citizenship was singular.)
Thomas Jefferson also wrote this in his answer:
“An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowledges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowledges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.”
(So, in the context of these notes, an “alien” is an American citizen and not a British subject.)
The second question is
“Qu.2. The father a British subject; the son in America, adult, and within the description of an American citizen, according to their laws. Can the son inherit?”
and Thomas Jefferson answers, before dealing with an objection,
“He owes allegiance to the states. He is an alien then and cannot inherit.”
(For the adult “alien” citizen son, the state of the British father does not descend to him, neither with respect to nationality/allegiance nor with respect to property.)
The third question is
“Qu. 3. The father a British subject. The son as in Qu. 2. but an infant. Can he inherit?”
Thomas Jefferson’s answer:
“1st. by the Common law.
We have seen before that the state of the father does not draw to it as an accessory that of the son where he is an adult. But by the common law.”
(Thomas Jefferson wrote that there was “no middle character” between a “natural subject” and an “alien”. Further, he called the ADULT AMERICAN CITIZEN son of the British subject an ALIEN who could not inherit from the British father. So, it stands to reason that Thomas Jefferson is calling the MINOR son of the British subject a NATURAL SUBJECT by the common law in following the state of the father, even though the minor son is in America following the Treaty of Paris, called the “treaty of peace” in Thomas Jefferson’s answer to Question 1.)
“An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowledges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowledges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.”
REMEMBER: In the context in which Jefferson was writing, alien = natural-born U.S. citizen (i.e., an alien to Great Britain).
See #109. Blackstone's Commentaries was published about 20 years before the adoption of the Constitution.