That Congress attempted, wrongly, to legislate natural born citizenship to children of citizens born abroad in 1790 says to me that the matter was not regarded as being quite so clear cut, patlin.
Doubts remain. Those doubts are evidenced by the various Bills sponsored in an attempt at amending the Constitutional natural born citizenship requirement to encompass children born abroad to parents in service to the military.
I don’t think Congress in 1790 wrongly decided it. What they did not contemplate was being brought into another war so soon. They also did not contemplate England refusing the right of expatriation they reclaimed for themselves and unfortunately, the Treaty of Paris did not specifically address this right as it pertained to naturalized British immigrants in the US.
The doubts in Minor v Happersett pertained to the feudal doctrine fo “jus soli” that still existed in a few of the states after the Declaration of Independence during the Confederacy but prior to the adoptio of the US Constitution.