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Remember that book that Cpn Kook loves to denigrate as being solely the work of one man who is a big nobody in the founding era? (He never bothered to look at the history of this "nobody".)

I have no reason to doubt Judge Roberts was good person and exercised his judicial duties with diligence and good conscience.

But my point remains that when the 39th Congress was debating the citizenship clause of the Civil Rights Act, it was stated repeatedly that the clause was declaratory of existing law. I gave you a bit of that history, wherein the report of the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee was referenced. Here it is again.

And what are the authorities for "existing law" were reported to the House? Blackstone, Kent, Sandford (Lynch v. Clarke), William Rawle, the Naturalization Act of 1802 (the one St. George Tucker described as "accordant" with Blackstone). These among many others.

Now, by contrast, who WASN'T cited to the Congress on the matter of birth-citizenship: Vatttel, G. Washington, Adams, Franklin, Wilson, Jay, B. Washington, Marshall.

And no mention of Samuel Roberts.

And when the SCOTUS argued and presented both sides of the first and greatest case on birth citizenship (Wong Kim Ark), which authorities were cited by the majority: Coke, Blackstone, Joseph Story, Kent, Sandford (Lynch v. Clarke). Among a host of others. Now which authorities weren't cited as to birth citizenship, not even by Chief Justice Fuller in his dissent urging Vattel supply the rule of decision: G. Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jay, B. Washington, Marshall. Oh, and Samuel Roberts.

Like I said, I'm sure Judge Roberts was a good man. But on the question of citizenship, his book is a bit of a tree that falls in a forest with no one hearing it. Unfortunately for you, he is the only one of your writers who actually purports to say our law here differs from England while citing Vattel. Your other sources say that only in your imagination.

I have no reason to doubt Judge Roberts was good person and exercised his judicial duties with diligence and good conscience.

And this is a measure of your naivete. Samuel Roberts received all of his legal training from William Lewis a delegate of the Pennsylvania Convention. Furthermore that book wasn't just an offering from the latest "book of the month" club, it was a LAW BOOK, intended for use by lawyers in Pennsylvania, to include the members of the Pennsylvania Supreme court mentioned prominently in it, and of course William Rawle, among others. It was used in every courtroom and lawyer's office in Pennsylvania, if not beyond. It was widely distributed and widely used.

It was reprinted again in 1847.

There is no possibility that it was obscure or that William Rawle didn't know about it. (Not to mention that the Entire Supreme Court of Pennsylvania slapped him down ~1804 by unanimous vote a case in which he made his arguments for common law citizenship. He was trying to argue that a slave was free because according to the common law she was a natural born citizen.)

But now I see you want to argue about what people thought on the issue in 1866. I find this highly amusing because i've been down this road before, and you will not like what you find once you've researched it sufficiently.

Yes, i've seen that statement "declaratory of existing law" plenty of times before. Jeff used to use it a lot. He quit doing that when we showed him examples where the author clarified his understanding.

So you want to talk about the civil rights act of 1866? It is of course getting the cart before the horse, but let's look at it for a minute.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States;

That the act invokes the idea that someone can be born in the United States and Not be subject to any foreign power demonstrate that they believed the opposite was a real possibility. One does not invoke clauses that have no serious chance of occurring, so that clause right there is a tantamount admission by the congress that you *CAN* be born in the United States while being subject to a foreign power.

Now you are going to argue that they put that in there for the exceedingly rare exception of the children of ambassadors, but other commentary and writings of the time demonstrate this to be not the case. The act is primarily directed at former slaves and other people who are mundane and ordinary.

And there is a very good reason for that. I figured it out a long time ago, but I bet you aren't even thinking along the correct lines. Why would they prefer to cite English Law? Why did Rawle say it was what applied when he was most seriously disabused of that notion in his own legal circles?

I think i'll let you twist in the wind while pondering this for awhile. I'll send a private message to Mamma Texan so she can verify that I have an answer to these questions when the time is appropriate.

But you think on it. :)