1. “a very strong originalist argument for why Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen…” Sorry, I don’t think so. As I have pointed out before, there are twenty seven different possible combinations of parental nativity and place of birth. If you add in where someone grew up and his or her influences (for example, Obama raised in Indonesia), and consider this a part of the allegiance test which concerned the Framers of the Constitution, the equation gets even more complicated. The Framers did not intend for the definition of natural born citizen to be complicated. They intended its definition to be the plain use of the language in its day, which is why they included the title of Vattel’s book, “The Law of Nations” quite clearly in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10. The nbc definition can thus be found as plain as day in section 212 of this treaties which preceded the Constitution by thirty years! This is not rocket science and we don’t need any damn lawyers, especially ones from Harvard, to obfuscate and confuse the public on this issue.

2. How many editions were there of Vattel’s book?

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