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To: DiogenesLamp
Do you know who else was a member of the Philadelphia convention that created the Pennsylvania constitution in September of 1776? Thomas Smith. The Same Thomas Smith who was later on the Supreme Court of Pennyslvania, and who's work Samuel Roberts incorporated into his book "A Digest of Select British laws comprising those which according to the report of the Judges of the Supreme Court ... Appear to be in Force in Pennsylvania."

So Apparently Pennsylvanian legal authorities James Wilson, Thomas Smith and Benjamin Franklin recognized citizenship by descent, so how did RAWLE get it so wrong?

474 posted on 04/04/2013 2:08:07 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
I forgot to add that James Wilson is *THE GUY* who brought up Vattel in the Pennsylvania Debates on Ratifying the US Constitution. (Also, Later Supreme Court Justice Jasper Yates (from Samuel Roberts book) was there also.)

THE DEBATES IN THE CONVENTION OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

PHILADELPHIA, TUESDAY, November 20, 1787, P. M.

For the city of Philadelphia, George Latimer, Benjamin Rush, Hilary Baker, James Wilson, Thos. M'Kean.

For Lancaster county. Stephen Chambers, Robert Coleman, Sebastian Graff, John Hubley, Jasper Yeates, John Whitehill.

TUESDAY, December 4, 1787, A. M.
— Mr. WILSON.

...

A good deal has already been said concerning a bill of rights. I have stated, according to the best of my recollection, all that passed in Convention relating to that business. Since that time, I have spoken with a gentleman, who has not only his memory, but full notes that he had taken in that body, and he assures me that, upon this subject, no direct motion was ever made at all; and certainly, before we heard this so violently supported out of doors, some pains ought to have been taken to have tried its fate within; but the truth is, a bill of rights would, as I have mentioned already, have been not only unnecessary, but improper. In some governments, it may come within the gentleman's idea, when he says it can do no harm; but even in these governments, you find bills of rights do not uniformly obtain; and do those states complain who have them not? Is it a maxim in forming governments, that not only all the powers which are given, but also that all those which are reserved, should be enumerated? I apprehend that the powers given and reserved form the whole rights of the people, as men and as citizens. I consider that there are very few who understand the whole of these rights. All the political writers, from Grotius and Puffendorf down to Vattel, have treated on this subject; but in no one of those books, nor in the aggregate of them all, can you find a complete enumeration of rights appertaining to the people as men and as citizens.


475 posted on 04/04/2013 2:36:35 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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