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.
Chief Justice Waite:
At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of [p680] parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.
These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further, and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents.
As to this class, there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts.
It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.
Justice Harland:
Before the Revolution, the view of the publicists had been thus put by Vattel:
The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.
As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.
The society is supposed to desire this in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation, and it is presumed as matter of course that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it.
The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children, and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.
We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born.
I say that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
Justice Nathan Clifford
Justice Noah Swayne
Justice Samuel Miller
Justice David Davis
Justice Stephen Field
Justice William Strong
Justice Joseph Bradley
Justice Ward Hunt
At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.
These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.