Actually, his step=father (Samuel Shoemaker) was the British Mayor of Philadelphia. His real father (Francis Rawle)died when he was about three.
Why are you insistent on splitting hairs? Is not the adopted child of a step father referred to as "Son"?
“... trained in England in explicitly British Law, ...”
As were many of the Founders. In fact, one of the Framers, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, attended the same London law school as Rawle (Middle Temple). Mr. Pinckney also attended the lectures of Justice William Blackstone, the author of “Commentaries of the Laws of England”.
The difference is, Mr. Pinckney et al were familiar with America's decades long infatuation and enthusiasm for the writings of Vattel, and in Constitutional deliberations they adopted many ideas that were explicitly contrary to their English Law training. Our argument is that among them, they replaced the Old Feudal Common law basis of subjectude with the Vattel principle of Citizenship in a Republic.
Benjamin Franklin (a Framer) was also a President of the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania (at the time it was called the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery). He sent Congress a petition in 1790 asking them to abolish slavery.
John Jay (not a Framer, but author of the “Permit me to hint” letter) was also an abolitionist (although he argued for a more gradual freeing of slaves). In 1777, he introduced legislation to end slavery in New York. In 1785, he was President of the New York Manumission Society. As the Governor of New York in 1790, he signed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
Abolition was waxing during that era, and the freedom we won from England inspired many to push for freedom for the slaves. The argument is not that supporting abolition is unusual, its that some passionate people appear to have intentionally pushed the "English Law" version of citizenship because it suited their goals, and not because it was correct. Rawle is the most influential of these.
Franklin and others have committed acts and written commentary indicating that they did not follow the English Common law theory of perpetual subjectude by birth on the King's land. In other words, they didn't agree with Rawle.
Alexander Hamilton: In a 1795 legal brief on carriage taxes, Hamilton begins by saying it is shame that some terms in the Constitution are ill-defined. And he ends the brief by saying, “... where so important a distinction in the Constitution is to be realized, it is fair to seek the meaning of terms in the statutory language of that country from which our jurisprudence is derived.”
Yes, but this only applies to the statutory language of those British Statutes which carried over into the United States. Statutes like "Corruption of blood" "Primogeniture", Debtor's Prison, etc. were thrown out, along with the Official State Church and Lese Majeste.
Hamilton's meaning is not wrong, it just doesn't apply to statutes we didn't keep. The Statute of Perpetual allegiance by birth on the King's land is one of those we did not keep. Why would we? It's positively feudal.
By now, you've certainly seen this:
Jeff would have us believe this is merely the Opinion of Samuel Roberts, (tacky little podunk judge from bugtussel sticks Pennsylvania.) as if he could have gotten away with that for forty years, and a second publishing of his widely circulated and referenced Pennsylvania law book. But Jeff is a fool.
Oliver Ellsworth: As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the 1797 district court of Connecticut’s Case of Isaac Williams wrote, “The common law of this country remains the same as it was before the revolution.”
In that, he is explicitly contradicted by James Madison.
Here, and Here, and quoted below.
What can he mean by saying that the Common law is not secured by the new constitution, though it has been adopted by the State Constitutions. The common law is nothing more than the unwritten law, and is left by all the constitutions equally liable to legislative alterations. I am not sure that any notice is particularly taken of it in the Constitutions of the States. If there is, nothing more is provided than a general declaration that it shall continue along with other branches of law to be in force till legally changed. The constitution of Virga. drawn up by Col Mason himself, is absolutely silent on the subject. An ordinance passed during the same Session, declared the Common law as heretofore & all Statutes of prior date to the 4 of James I. to be still the law of the land, merely to obviate pretexts that the separation from G. Britain threw us into a State of nature, and abolished all civil rights and Obligations. Since the Revolution every State has made great inroads & with great propriety in many instances on this monarchical code. The "revisal of the laws" by a Committe[e] of wch. Col. Mason was a member, though not an acting one, abounds with such innovations. The abolition of the right of primogeniture, which I am sure Col. Mason does not disapprove, falls under this head. What could the Convention have done? If they had in general terms declared the Common law to be in force, they would have broken in upon the legal Code of every State in the most material points: they wd. have done more, they would have brought over from G.B. a thousand heterogeneous & antirepublican doctrines, and even the ecclesiastical Hierarchy itself, for that is a part of the Common law. If they had undertaken a discrimination, they must have formed a digest of laws, instead of a Constitution.