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To: DiogenesLamp; Jeff Winston

“this is the transition period”

Did the transition period continue until June, 1798?

“Resolve Requesting the Senators and Representatives in Congress to Propose an Amendment to the Constitution Providing, that None but Natural Born Subjects be Eligible to Certain Offices”

http://books.google.com/books?id=rnYQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA211&dq=massachusetts+natural+born+subject+amendments&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mxOpUI3PN83rigLNmYGgAw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=massachusetts%20natural%20born%20subject%20amendments&f=false

In the body of the resolve it uses the term “natural born citizen”.

During the transition period what would have been the definition of “natural born citizen”?

BTW, the English considered their legal system to be based on Natural Law.


1,489 posted on 03/14/2013 12:50:38 PM PDT by 4Zoltan
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To: 4Zoltan
Did the transition period continue until June, 1798?

“Resolve Requesting the Senators and Representatives in Congress to Propose an Amendment to the Constitution Providing, that None but Natural Born Subjects be Eligible to Certain Offices”

I do not find it objectionable to believe it did. I think you mistake habit of language for endorsement of principle. Having newly departed a Monarchy (for the first time in History) it is not peculiar to see examples of people still speaking with Monarchistic terms.

During the transition period what would have been the definition of “natural born citizen”?

The only definition that mattered to Federal law is what the term was accepted to mean by the Constitutional Delegates and by the Ratifying State Legislators. It is quite plausible that they were not all of the same mind, but also weren't aware that they were not unanimous in their understanding of the term.

BTW, the English considered their legal system to be based on Natural Law.

This argument is a fallacy. You are saying that since one part of what you say is true, the whole thing must also be true. My understanding of the Origin of the Jus Soli aspect of English Common law has to do with the Need to legitimize the ascent of James I to the Throne of England, but because he was born in Scotland of Scottish Parents, the use of Jus Sanguinus would have disallowed it.

Lord Coke cobbled together the arguments necessary to rationalize what they wanted to do anyway, and it was the law of England thereafter. The prior Roman law was "Jus Sanguinus." (As the name ought to imply.)

At least that is my current understanding.

1,496 posted on 03/14/2013 1:23:25 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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