[DoodleDawg]

We don't argue that "citizen over 35" or "14-year resident citizen" are additional forms of citizenship, so why the insistence that "natural born citizen" IS a form of citizenship to be rejected, when the context is clearly to further qualify what type of citizen is eligible to be President?

Because it's not hard to define "citizen over 35" or "14-year resident citizen". But you cannot point to a definition of "natural-born citizen". And considering that the Constitution was written at a time when some nations defined it jus solis and some defined it jus sanguinis then your claim that using the "common understanding" should suffice doesn't hold water. Common understanding held by who?

[Political Junkie Too]

This is when I usually post my boilerplate of Thomas Paine when he wrote in 1791 about "foreigners" and "half a foreigner" not being eligible to be President. I posit that "half a foreigner" is a person with one citizen parent and one non-citizen parent.

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

And considering that the Constitution was written at a time when some nations defined it jus solis and some defined it jus sanguinis then your claim that using the "common understanding" should suffice doesn't hold water.

Also consider that those countries were European, where countries shared many borders.

In the United States in 1789, foreign travel was much rarer given ocean travel, so a common understanding would likely have meant Americans birthing Americans.

-PJ