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To: Mr Rogers
Yes, dimwit, we all KNOW there were translations prior to 1797. None of those translations used NBC. Since it was not translated thus until 10 years AFTER the Constitution was written, and since there is no indication his ideas on citizenship had any impact on US law, Vattel could not have been the source of the phrase NBC

You either ignorant, forgot, or conveniently do not wish to remember, that there is an example of the phrase translated into English prior to the Constitutional convention, in the research thread. I've taken the trouble to locate the example for you in the Congressional record of 1781.

Now what were you saying about nobody translated it that way until ten years after the Constitution was written?

Note also, this was the translation read by the ENTIRE CONGRESS in 1781. No doubt they became familiar with the term being translated in this manner. :)

240 posted on 12/06/2011 7:27:55 AM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp

And as I have pointed out to you, that is NOT what Vattel wrote. The phrase ‘les sujets naturels’ does not appear in Vattel.

That PHRASE, however, is translated “natural born subject” for the English, or NBC for Americans - showing that NBC = NBS. And since we all know that NBS includes those born to alien parents, and NBS = NBC...


241 posted on 12/06/2011 7:49:35 AM PST by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: DiogenesLamp
I should add that natural born subject was a very well known and established legal phrase. In the WKA decision, the Supreme Court gives a lengthy review of it and says, as you do, that NBS = NBC.

In fact, they say:

It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.

242 posted on 12/06/2011 8:06:53 AM PST by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: DiogenesLamp

The gentleman says that it is unfortunate in another point of view: it means to prohibit the introduction of white people from Europe, as this tax may deter them from coming amongst us.

A little impartiality and attention will discover the care that the Convention took in selecting their language. The words are, “the migration or importation of such persons, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation.”

It is observable here that the term migration is dropped, when a tax or duty is mentioned, so that Congress have power to impose the tax only on those imported.

‘it means to prohibit the introduction of white people from Europe, as this tax may deter them from coming amongst us.’

The debates on the adoption of the Constitution.


248 posted on 12/06/2011 8:54:55 PM PST by bushpilot1
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