A reader makes an obvious and important point:

A statute cannot override the Constitution. Were the Supreme Court to rule that the phrase “natural born” in the Constitution meant “born on US soil” then the statute would be unconstitutional and void ab initio.

True — although the court has made no such ruling. Congress cannot define a constitutional term by statute. It cannot, for example, pass a statute defining “cruel and unusual punishment” and then expect to have the courts use it to interpret the Eight Amendment.So we are left with the fact that there are only two ways of becoming a citizen. John McCain was, at birth, a citizen of some country. To my knowledge, he has never been naturalized as a citizen of the United States (I doubt that he applied for the 1986 amnesty). So either he was a citizen from birth (in the absence of a valid legal definition, that sounds a lot like “natural born”), or he should be deported to Panama. Blackstone would probably argue that the Panamanians have no reason to take him, since his father was there on a military assignment from the United States government.

Yet the children of the king’s embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador.

If McCain is neither a natural-born American nor a Panamanian, he is a “stateless person.” Or perhaps we have discovered a third way for someone to become an American citizen without naturalization and without being ”natural born.” Anyway, just my thoughts. Probably a better idea to visit Bench Memos, where they actually know what they’re talking about.