This is an error of fact. British common law was to varying degrees adopted in the colonies, although not all colonies. This is also true after those colonies became independent states.
When the states joined together as the United States neither government established by them, neither the Articles of Confederation nor the Constitution, incorporated British common law.
The impossibility of incorporating British common law into the Federal government is ably explained in this 1798 letter.
Gray makes two errors. The first is in believing British common law was uniform throughout the colonies. The second is stating that it continued in the United States afterwards.
British common law was not the law of the United States predating the Fourteenth Amendment. It never has been.
There are other problems with Ark.
Gray deliberately misinterprets the jurisdiction clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The 14th Amendment:
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment explained the jurisdiction clause:
Rep. Bingham:The jurisdiction clause is specifically stated to be political allegiance, not territorial bounds.The Fourteenth Amendment is “simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
Sen. Trumbull:
“‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ What do we mean by ‘complete jurisdiction thereof?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.”
Sen. Williams:
Senator during the drafting of Amend. XIV, later as US Attorney General ruled the word “jurisdiction” under Amend. XIV “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.” “Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to anyone else.”
Ignoring legislative history Gray “presumes” the intent of the jurisdiction clause:
The words “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution must be presumed to have been understood and intended by the Congress which proposed the Amendment, and by the legislatures which adopted it, in the same sense in which the like words had been used by Chief Justice Marshall in the well known case of The Exchange and as the equivalent of the words “within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States,” and the converse of the words “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States” as habitually used in the naturalization acts. This presumption is confirmed by the use of the word “jurisdiction” in the last clause of the same section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids any State to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It is impossible to construe the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the opening sentence, as less comprehensive than the words “within its jurisdiction” in the concluding sentence of the same section; or to hold that persons “within the jurisdiction” of one of the States of the Union are not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment make clear that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is political and not geographic bounds, specifically stating “allegiance”. Gray ignores their intent conflating “jurisdiction” in the first sentence with the last. The first sentence confers citizenship, the last sentence applies law. These are entirely different matters, in the first instance political and in the last instance geographical.
Having misconstrued the jurisdiction clause as territorial Gray then proceeds to examine the common law of England.
To lend a sheen of legitimacy Gray cites State v. Manuel:
The term “citizen” as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term subject in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people – and he who before was a “subject of the king” is now “a citizen of the State.”State v. Manuel is an 1838 case before the North Carolina Supreme Court. The following is the first portion of the paragraph containing the cited sentence:
It has been said that before our Revolution, free persons of colour did not exercise the right of voting for members of the colonial legislature. How this may have been, it would be difficult at this time to ascertain. It is certain however that very few, if any, could have claimed the right of suffrage, for a reason of a very different character than the one supposed. The principle of freehold suffrage seems to have been brought over from England with the first colonists, and to have been preserved almost invariably in the colony ever afterwards. In the act of 1743, ch. 1, (Swan’s Revisal, 171,) it will be seen that a freehold of fifty acres was necessary to entitle the inhabitant of a county to vote, and by the act of 2d Sept. of 1746, ch. 1, Ibid. 223, the freeholders only of the respective towns of Edenton, Bath, Newbern and Wilmington were declared entitled to vote for members of the Colonial Legislature. The very Congress which framed our constitution, was chosen by freeholders. That constitution extended the elective franchise to every freeman who had arrived at the age of 21, and paid a public tax; and it is a matter of universal notoriety that under it, free persons without regard to colour, claimed and exercised the franchise until it was taken from free men of colour a few years since by our amended constitution. But surely the possession of political power is not essential to constitute a citizen. If it be, then women, minors, and persons who have not paid public taxes are not citizens – and free white men who have paid public taxes and arrived at full age, but hove not a freehold of fifty acres, inasmuch as they may vote for one branch and cannot vote for the other branch of our legislature, would be in an intermediate state, a sort of hybrids between citizens and not-citizens. The term “citizen” as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term subject in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people – and he who before was a “subject of the king” is now “a citizen of the State.” Considering therefore the defendant as having a right to the protection of the clauses in the constitution and declaration of rights on which he relies, we proceed to the examination of the alleged repugnancy between these and the act of 1831. The 39th section of the constitution is in these words: “The person of a debtor, where there is not a strong presumption of fraud, shall not be continued in prison after delivering up bona fide all his estate, real and personal for the use of his creditors in such manner as shall be hereafter regulated by law.” ….It is quite clear that Judge Gaston’s references to “our law” and “our constitution” are references to the statutes and Constitution of North Carolina. As North Carolina has a reception statute the cited sentence is true in North Carolina. The same can not be said for the federal government which does not incorporate common law via Constitution, reception statute, or other method. The cited sentence is inapplicable to the federal government.
Gray’s cite of Manuel to justify use of English common law is dishonest.
Gray ignored legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment and interpreted the intent of the jurisdiction clause territorially rather than politically ignoring the specifically stated intent of its Framers.
Quite correct.
Gray in his WKA opinion excepted below in a short paragraph dismisses the original intent of the 14th Amendment as not being relevant that he characterizes as only "debates" so he can gives himself carte blanche to say whatever he wants the 14th Amendment to be.
Gray - "“Doubtless, the intention of the congress which framed, and of the states which adopted, this amendment of the constitution, must be sought in the words of the amendment, and the debates in congress are not admissible as evidence to control the meaning of those words.”
"Must be sought in the words" - "not admissible as evidence..."? Wuut? You kind'n me? The guy had an agenda like any activist judge we see today.
Gray did live up to his name as an obfuscater - being in a 'Gray area'. LoL.
The Fourteen Amendment isn't the first, only, or last time a Federal Court has ignored legislative history, but post-Marbury, the Federal Court's interpretation is the interpretation, until it's overturned by a higher Federal Court or by additional legislation.
Here, the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken and Congress has taken no action to override the Supreme Court's interpretation.
Arguments about the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment are irrelevant at this point unless the issue of Fourteenth Amendment citizenship arises as the issue in question before another Federal Court, preferably the U.S. Supreme Court.
The original intent arguments certainly aren't going to change the minds of anyone in Congress.