Using British Common law hopefully won’t fly with our SCOTUS, I pray.
The framers of the Constitution were, of course, well-versed in the British common law, having learned its essential principles from William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. As such, they knew that the very concept of citizenship was unknown in British common law. Blackstone speaks only of “birthright subjectship” or “birthright allegiance,” never using the terms citizen or citizenship. The idea of birthright subjectship, as Blackstone readily admits, is derived from feudal law. It is the relation of master and servant; all who are born within the protection of the king owe perpetual allegiance as a “debt of gratitude.” According to Blackstone, this debt is “intrinsic” and “cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered.” Birthright subjectship under the common law is thus the doctrine of “perpetual allegiance.”
James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the Constitutional Convention as well as a Supreme Court Justice, captured the essence of the matter when he remarked: “Under the Constitution of the United States there are citizens, but no subjects.” The transformation of subjects into citizens was the work of the Declaration and the Constitution. Both are premised on the idea that citizenship is based on the consent of the governed—not the accident of birth.