I don’t disagree with a thing you’ve presented NoNukes, and perhaps like you, I’ve yet to see anyone at all suggest that a Federal ‘U.S. citizen’ was recognized within the original vision of the Constitution.
I think Dred Scott made it abundantly clear that such was not the case. But we don't live with the Constitution as it existed prior to 1865 and I don't pine for those good old days. I've heard pundits raving about how democratic this country was in the 1830s, but in my opinion those pundits are idiots.
We've done the experiment, and the original definition of citizenship was an abysmal failure. The original constitution had a lot of baggage in it, much of which was cleaned up with the 14th Amendment. And yet some fools want to remove it, or tinker with it in ways that could disenfranchise large groups of citizens.
In the end we all seem to agree they’re a later creation, gaining legal form and function through Amendments to the original document..
Yeah, and...