They can let it go, but people cannot pretend it wasn't given to them by God. God positively grants citizenship to individuals? What are you talking about?
Now you may not know what is "natural law", and I wouldn't blame you, because I didn't know what it was either when I started looking into this issue, but "natural law" was the concept that God's workings in the affairs of man could be discerned by a logical mind with a few basic assumptions.
Now you're mixing metaphors and concepts. An "act of God" already has a defined legal definition: namely, a natural hazard outside human control for which no person can be held responsible. If you're referring to the natural way of things based on observations of reason in nature, then that is not an "act" of God in the proper sense.
Also, with regards to your citation of Samuel Rutherford, it would behoove to note that he distinguished the common law as being in existence before ratification by King and Parliament (underline is emphasis mine): QUEST. XLIII. Whether the King of Scotland be an absolute Prince, having Prerogatives above Parliament and Laws? The Negative is asserted by the Lawes of Scotland, the Kings Oath of Coronation, the Confession of Faith, &c.: "...The 1. Parl. of K. Iames the 6. 1567. approveth the Acts, Parl. 1560. conceived only in name of the States, without the King and Queen, who had deserted the same. So saith the Act, 2.5.4.20.28. And so this Parliament, wanting the King and Queenes authoritie, is confirmed, Parl. 1572. Act. 51. K. Ia. 6. and Parl. 1581. Act. 1. and Parl. 1581. Act. 115. in which it is declared, That they have been Common lawes from their first Date: and all are ratified, Parl. 1587. and Parl. 1592. Act. 1. and stand ratified to this day, by K. Charles his Parliament, An. 1633. The Act of the Assemblie, 1566. commendeth that Parliament, 1560. as the most lawfull and free Parliament that ever was in the Kingdome."
Now, notwithstanding your citation of Madison's letter to George Washington from 10/18/1787, his choice of adjective ("monarchical") is applicable only insofar as various aspects of the English common law in relation to the British monarchy (which would not fit within . A common law system, in and of itself by definition, is simply a system of law where precedent, custom, and long-usage is utilized over that of an actual civil code that prescribes the procedures and penalties of cases that can be brought to court; it's the entire reason why case precedent holds so much sway in our legal system, because a case decided in one way should be decided similarly in future cases of the same kind, unless the underlying facts and accidents of the future cases differ so much that they change the very nature of what's under deliberation.
And, as Madison himself admits in your own citation, the aspects of the common law which had not been altered by force of legislation were still in effect. (Keep in mind, he is also referencing George Mason — another Founding Father — in this discussion on the common law, as he is explicitly writing to George Washington about George Mason's objections related to a perceived lack of verbiage regarding the common law. This is the same Mason, mind you, whose objections regarding the Constitution forced Madison's hand enough to propose the Bill of Rights as amendments to the Constitution.)
The notion of Jus Soli is feudal in nature. It ties the man to the land, and thereby to the lord that owns the land. -It is anti-republican and violates the rights of man.
You're mixing concepts again. "Jus soli" (nationality or citizenship acquired by birth within a given territory) and "common law" are different things. We know this, for example, because every single country in South America operates off of a civil law system and not a common law system; meanwhile, every single one of them practices birthright citizenship/nationality to some degree or another.
Here is a citation from a law book I found at Boston University, some years back, but the link is dead. I only have the text because I cited it.
A quick search shows that this particular section is cited from a 2006 article by David J. Seipp: Our Law Our Law, Their Law , Their Law, History, and the Citation of F , and the Citation of Foreign Law eign Law . Context is important, because the author is criticizing the position that citation of foreign laws is somehow a new phenomenon in American jurisprudence (underline is emphasis mine):
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BAD HISTORY
The objection to citation of foreign law is bad history because it is a new complaint (that has been made to appear old) about an old practice (that has been made to appear new). The objection draws on a false history or myth about American and English common law.
A. A New Complaint
First, this is a new complaint. Criticism of lawyers as unscrupulous, greedy liars and judges as pompous, arrogant know-it-alls is as old as the law itself. Lawyers and judges hear these criticisms and we remember them. Nowhere in this vast torrent of vile abuse have I found a hint that citation of foreign law was one of our faults, before Justice Scalia's opinions from 1988, 1997, 2003, and 2005. Surely there would be some trace in the long historical record of criticism of lawyers and judges if a vast overwhelming majority or even a tiny fraction of the American people objected to citation of foreign law. Lawyers and judges have not heretofore been condemned for having read too many books, knowing too many languages, or being too well acquainted with the world.
In the first seventy-five years of our independence, many Americans - lawyers included - attacked the common law and advocated strongly for codification of all American law, in part, for the better security of citizens from arbitrary rule by judges. The common law was denounced as a barbaric, feudalistic relic of medieval England that imposed ex post facto, retroactive law on parties whenever judges found a new tort or new common law crime. Jefferson wrote in a private letter in 1788 that courts in America should be forbidden to cite any English decision since the accession of Lord Mansfield to the bench (in 1756), and in a private letter in 1812 that it was improper to quote in American courts any English authorities later than the accession of George III (in 1760). During the early codification movement three states - New Jersey in 1799, Kentucky in 1808, and Pennsylvania in 1810 - passed statutes specifically forbidding citation of English cases decided after July 4, 1776. The statutes did not last long in force, and there is some evidence that they were not enforced. In New Hampshire, a rule of court was adopted forbidding English citations.
But all of this was Anglophobia, not xenophobia. Proponents of American codification pointed with admiration and envy to the success of France's Code Napoleon, parts of which were translated almost immediately in America's first law journal, and other codes of law. Pennsylvania's statute expressly approved the citation of post-1776 British precedent about the law of nations. Justice Henry Brockholst Livingston's dissent in the 1820 case of United States v. Smith was not objecting to Joseph Story's citation of more than twenty-five sources of foreign law because it was foreign law, but rather was objecting to the open definition of a common law crime of piracy without prior statutory specificity. If Congress had named a statutory offense that could only be defined by reading dozens of relatively inaccessible American books, it seems Livingston would have had the same objection to such a common law crime. This broad-brush complaint about citing to or using foreign law is new.
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End quote.
I do not see criticisms of the common law in principle; rather, I see particularities of common law as practiced by England which were rejected due to incompatibilities with the new American government.
This can be seen from the fact that we have trials by jury at all, since this a feature which evolved within common law systems (England's most notably), as juries tend to be absent from civil law systems or Sharia law systems, where cases are usually bench trials by default.
In summary: a common law system is not inherently monarchical by definition.
Now, notwithstanding your citation of Madison's letter to George Washington from 10/18/1787, his choice of adjective ("monarchical") is applicable only insofar as various aspects of the English common law in relation to the British monarchy Which is exactly what jus soli is.
Are you not familiar with the feudal origins of being bound to the land?
You're mixing concepts again. "Jus soli" (nationality or citizenship acquired by birth within a given territory) and "common law" are different things.
No they are not, they are the same thing. Else, cite me the English statute that makes a man a subject from having been born within the realm of the king. You won't find it because it's "common law."
Calvin's case was not even unanimous.
We know this, for example, because every single country in South America operates off of a civil law system and not a common law system; meanwhile, every single one of them practices birthright citizenship/nationality to some degree or another.
They practice jus sanguinus.
England and it's derivatives are about the only places in the world that do it the wrong way, and this of course traces back to Calvin's case, which was decided exactly as the King *REQUIRED* it to be decided.
A quick search shows that this particular section is cited from a 2006 article by David J. Seipp: Our Law Our Law, Their Law , Their Law, History, and the Citation of F , and the Citation of Foreign Law eign Law .
Well i'm glad you found it, because I could not, but his point remains. The Colonies immediately rejected English Law and especially monarchical based English law.
I do not see criticisms of the common law in principle; rather,
*He* is not criticizing the common law, he is pointing out that during the early era in US history, the new leadership was criticizing the common law, just as Madison did in his letter.
In the past I have ran across many articles confirming that the early leadership eschewed anything that could be connected to Monarchy, as in jus soli.
Here is an official example of it.
... I see particularities of common law as practiced by England which were rejected due to incompatibilities with the new American government.
Exactly. Jus Soli is monarchical in nature. It is inherently monarchical. Let me give you an idea of what one contemporary thought of it.
Alexander Mcleod, d.d. (1815)