Doug Miller wrote in
:

Quite the contrary, actually -- leading me to ask, again, if you
actually read that Harvard Law Review article, which discusses
_at_length_ the considerations that informed the founding fathers.

Well, I have some free time, so let's go thru this:

1 - The Harvard Law Review is a very prestigious journal. It
is not, however, law. The authors are highly respected, but
they are not writing law, they are writing their opinions.

2 - They say "All the sources routinely used to interpret the
Constitution confirm that the phrase 'natural born Citizen'
has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen
at birth". Note that they do not cite a law giving that
definition, they say the Constitution is "interpreted" to
have that meaning.

3 - they then argue that "British common law" defines the
term (and then confuse the issue by refering to statutes of
the 1700s). Common law refers to the practice of courts being
bound by prior decisions, not to laws enacted by a legislature;
in this case it means that, when a US law or precendent does
not exist, courts are bound by British precedent. The British
statues (and common law precendent) are largely concerned with
primogeniture and inheritance, and are of dubious relevance
to the question here - dubious enough that a court would have
to pass judgement.

4 - then then declare the Naturalization Act of 1790 is a
clear indication of the Framer's intent, because it does
define "natural born citizen". However, the Act of 1795
removed that, which might be equally well be interpreted as
the Framers realizing that it was a mistake, and intentionally
deleting it (alternatively, it may have been removed by
accident - again, something a court would have to rule on).

5 - then they suggest that the intent of the Framers is clear
from their other writings. This seems to be a stretch, if
anything is clear it is that the Framers were concerned about
foreign influence in government (as in the quote from John
Jay in the article).

6 - finally they conclude by tacitly assuming that their point
is proven, and therefor all candidates in question are to be
considered "natural born".

It is not a badly written article. It is not definitive, and
all it's points could be argued in a court of law. And, it
does not change the fact that there is no law which defines
"natural born citizen", because if there was the article would
never have been written in the first place.

John