Oh, man did you muff that call.
Marshall’s concurrence in Venus excerpts Vattell at length! Including the exact passage at issue:
Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.”
.. and the lengthy excerpt continues.
“Natives or indigenes” is “natives or natural-born citizens” in other translations and “natuerels ou indigenes” in the French.
You are correct that he does not capitalize “law of nations.” But he does indeed to go on to quote Vattel at tlenght.
This indicates that the law of nations is, generally, the Law of Nations, and Vattel is the authority. The generic term is interchangeable with Vattel.
Ha! Thanks Plumnz. I had decided that my time could be used to more affect than responding to an obfuscator.
While reading decisions provides glimpses of the history I didn’t study as scientist, I have always been in awe of thinkers who discern the heart of the issue. Vattel, in his chapter, Our Native Country, and Several Things That Relate to It, first defines a Country, and then the two categories of citizenship, citizens and natural born citizens. He explains what most of us know, intuitively (which is why it was called natural law) that a person’s allegiances are most likely to be formed after his parents. That is why swearing allegiance, as in when becoming a naturalized citizen, is good enough for every official of our nation except for the presidency, of whom our founders required a natural born citizen. MarkoMalley clearly wanted to obfuscate the point.
As soon as he raised the Naturalization Act of 1789-1790, the game was clear. In 1790, the authors of the act made a flagrant mistake, defining someone of citizen parents but born on foreign soil as a natural born citizen. It is a ploy used frequently by obfuscators. The Act was corrected in 1795, and the term natural born citizen explicitly removed. Some Obots still claim that proved that citizen and natural born citizen were therefore equivalent.
Misleading claims are always a clue. I wonder what people who protect Obama think there will be left of THEIR liberty if Obama is allowed to succeed?
Then if I muffed that call so bad, maybe you could tell me what Venus was about, what the decision of the court was, and in what context both Justice Washington and Chief Justice Marshall cited Vattel.
On the other hand, again, if I muffed that call so bad, perhaps you could tell me which immigration statute that the court ruled unconstitutional in Venus, because a concept in the statute disagreed with Vattel (or for that matter Burlamaqui or Grotius, who were also cited in the opinion of the court).
Or, if not case, please give me a citation where Vattel is used as the basis for overturning a statute as unconstitutional.
If I muffed that call so bad.