And yet in 1898 it was recognized that it made children born in the US to Chinese parents eligible to be president.
“The common law rule has been finally affirmed by the Supreme Court in the recent case of the United States v Wong Kim Ark. The Supreme Court held that a child born in this country of Chinese parents domiciled here is a citizen of the United States by virtue of the locality of his birth. The whole subject is discussed at length in the opinions of this case. The effect of this decision is to make citizens of the United States, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons born in United States of alien parents and permanently domiciled here, except the children of the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers; and therefore, a male child born here of alien Chinese subjects is now eligible to the office of President, altho his parents could not be naturalized under our laws.” William Dameron Guthrie, in Lectures on the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Page 57
From the Government’s appellant brief:
“For the most pervasive reasons we have refused citizenship to Chinese subjects; and yet as to their offspring, who are just as obnoxious, and to whom the same reasons for exclusion apply with equal force, we are told that we must accept them as fellow-citizens, and that to because of the mere accident of birth. There certainly should be some honor and dignity in American that would be sacred from a foul and corrupting taint of a debasing alienage. Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred by the Constitution in recognition of the importance and dignity of citizenship by birth?”
My recollection is that their entire argument hinges on the 14th amendment. Anyone who relies on the 14th amendment for citizenship cannot be a natural born citizen. Those existed prior to the 14th and have no use for it.