The Naturalization Act of 1790 is still an important consideration even though it was replaced by the Act of 1795:

“… the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens. Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States …”.

The Act is an important consideration, not because of its legislative content, but because it contains that reference to a ‘natural born citizen’ and hence reflects some insight on how our Framers understood the term. The Act of 1795 does not speak of the term.

The Act of 1790 does specify that a ‘natural born citizen’ is a citizen born of citizen parents. It denies even basic citizenship to foreign born children whose foreign born citizen fathers have not returned for a residency in the U.S. Thus, a foreign born father’s citizenship is a ‘qualified citizenship’ if or until the father might return and reside in the U.S. (In those days a wife would assume the same citizenship as her husband. So translating to modern times to achieve the same effect, both parents must be full citizens and not ‘qualified citizens’ without a prior U.S. residency.)

A ‘natural born citizen’ is a citizen born to citizen parents.

"And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens" (Naturalization Act of 1790). Notice it says "children of citizens" (plural). Ted's father was not a citizen.

I have previously quoted Vattel as saying "naturally [by the law of nature], it is our extraction, not the place of our birth, that gives us rights" (Bk. 1, Sec 216). I agree place of birth is not essential to the definition.

Response to part 1:

First, let us carefully distinguish between 'citizen' and 'natural born citizen'. A 'citizen' is a person legally linked either willingly or unwillingly to his host government. [In the U.S., we use the term 'citizen'. Other countries may use other terms such as, for example, 'subject'. But a 'natural born citizen' is a person so characterized by virtue of having been born to citizen parents.

In the U.S. our Constitution recognizes both 'natural born citizens' and 'naturalized citizens'. We have no constitutional authority to un-citizen-ize. Other countries can assume such authority. 'Birthright citizenship' is the right of parents to expect an extension of their citizenship to their children. As Vattel describes it, the natural thing is that when their children reach the age of maturity, they would have a right to decline that citizenship. 'Natural born citizens' are 'citizens'; so they are subject to citizen law. If a country wishes to reject its 'natural born citizens', it can do so.

Thus 'natural born citizens' are potentially subject to citizenship law, but the term 'natural born citizen' is not subject to redefinition.

Response to part 2:

You said "To LIMIT the COTUS in such a manner is to LIMIT the Congress of ALL of its 'enumerated powers'." Presumably you're suggesting the 'enumerated powers' could not be exercised apart from a legal interpretation of their specification. But if that were strictly true, then we might as well tear up our Constitution since it would have no practical value. Our Constitution was written with the intent that we-the-people should be able to understand it.

You said "In the final analysis it is ONLY the CIRCUMSTANCES that were observed and expressed by Vattel, Aristotle and others that are of ANY relevance." But no; Vattel synthesized his observations, his raw data, into that single coherent source used by our Framers. Our Framers drew from it as appropriate for our new nation.

The idea that a 'natural born citizen' is a person born of citizen parents usually comes with a variety of supplemental conditions. But because our Framers used the phrase in our Constitution simply and without qualification, our Framers could only have expected that we would read and understand that term in its most primitive form, e.g. without a confusion of supplemental conditions.

Lest anyone following our conversation be confused, we are seeking to understand the phrase 'natural born citizen'.

I have said: "If a child is born of parents, mother and father both citizens of country XYZ, then the 'natural' thing is that the child would inherit his citizenship from his parents and would be a 'natural-BORN' citizen of country XYZ. Alternatively if anyone else (child or adult) would become a citizen, then he would become a citizen by virtue of law. He would become a 'natural-IZED' citizen."

You have said that the 'natural born citizen' phrase constitutes a "term of words" within our Constitution and is therefore subject to the rules of statutory construction which could include a consideration of post-constitutional law. [This is contrary to my view since post-constitutional law would only bias the pre-constitutional definition.]

My view as previously discussed was based primarily on Vattel, a study of constitutional history, and analysis. [In my previous life I was a professional analyst.] 'Statutory construction' starts in about the same way. The big question is who should determine the definition? I say the definition can only be "determined" individually by we-the-people when they go to vote. Thus my goal has been to display the definition and logic with sufficient clarity that we-the-people will understand the Framer's original intent.

"Is" is a word in our Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 3, para. 6). So you're saying that the word "is" should now be regarded as constitutional law and subject to redefinition. That does help explain why Bill said "It Depends on what the meaning of the word is is" - especially true when one realizes that 'Art. I, Sec. 3, para. 6' deals with impeachment.

If our Framers had intended all "terms of words" in our Constitution to be subject to redefinition, their writing of our Constitution would have been pointless.

Natural-BORN means natural-born. It's not a question of law; it's a question of semantics.

At the time when our Constitution was written, there were no laws to "provide for the circumstances ...." Our Framers did provide for a then future establishment of naturalization, which dealt with citizenship, but that would not alter the meaning of the phrase 'natural born citizen'. Indeed it would take a constitutional amendment to change the constitutional intent of the 'natural born citizen' phrase. By law we amend terms for citizenship, but we do not redefine 'natural born citizenship'.

"If a child is born of parents, mother and father both citizens of country XYZ, then the 'natural' thing is that the child would inherit his citizenship from his parents and would be a 'natural-BORN' citizen of country XYZ. Alternatively if anyone else (child or adult) would become a citizen, then he would become a citizen by virtue of law. He would become a 'natural-IZED' citizen. Thus there are two paths to citizenship, natural-BORN and natural-IZED." [continued in following link] https://www.facebook.com/notes/reginald-carl-jack...

If one believes Obama's BC, then Obama's father was Obama Sr. Since Obama Sr. was not a citizen of the U.S., then Obama is not a 'natural born citizen'. Hence Obama does not meet our constitutional standard to be president.

"A natural born citizen of the United States is a child born of two citizen parents. In order to confer NBC status, a father must also have been a prior resident of the U.S. In order to retain NBC status, a natural born citizen must retain an exclusive U.S. citizenship."
Since Cruz was born in 1970 but his father was naturalized until 2005, Cruz was not a son of two citizen parents. Hence, he is not eligible to the presidency.