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To: Ray76
Twelve of the colonies adopted some form of English common law.

Without consulting my notes, I believe you are correct on that point.

And the thirteenth adopted the common law rule for citizenship.

This made the common law rule for citizenship unanimous throughout the thirteen original states.

The federal government did not.

Again, correct. However, we are repeatedly told by authorities such as Framer Alexander Hamilton and the US Supreme Court that the Constitution was framed in the language of the English common law, and it is that language we should look to in order to understand the terms used therein.

So when the Constitution says "natural born," it means the same thing that "natural born" had always meant, which, incidentally, came from the common law of both England and America.

Secondly, the first known court case to adjudicate the meaning of "natural born citizen" WAS a State court case, in New York, in 1844. Vice Chancellor Sandford looked carefully at the history of "natural born citizen" and concluded, quite clearly, that ALL the early American States had adopted the same common law rule for citizenship; and that therefore, the common law rule for the United States as a whole was the same common law rule as had always existed in both England and the United States.

He also concluded, quite clearly, that children born in the United States were NATURAL BORN CITIZENS and eligible to the Presidency without any regard at all to the citizenship of their parents.

Was that good precedent, or not? The US Supreme Court in 1898 reviewed Sandford's decision, quoted it approvingly, and said essentially the same thing as he did: That the SAME RULE had always applied in regard to citizenship. First, in England. Then, in the American Colonies. Then, in the United States after Independence. Then in the United States AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.

And by that rule, children born in the country were NATURAL BORN subjects or citizens (whichever term was in vogue at the time), unless the children of foreign ambassadors or invading armies.

Your posting of these cases is crap. You intend to put it over that these cases are relevant when they are not. YOU are the twister.

Sorry, but this understanding of history and law is agreed upon by pretty much every significant legal authority throughout American history - conservative, liberal, or otherwise.

It is virtually unanimous. And the only people who currently disagree are a bunch of stubborn, nutcase, Constitution-twisting, conspiracy-theorist loons, and those gullible folks whom they have deceived with all of their slick double-talk and fallacious arguments.

Historically speaking, it's not even close.

91 posted on 04/14/2013 11:23:20 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston
"And the thirteenth adopted the common law rule for citizenship."

Cite the statute or state Constitution reception.


The doctrine of "natural born subject" includes perpetual allegiance. The United States has NEVER adopted this doctrine.

As a consequence of perpetual allegiance Great Britain recognized double allegiance. The United States did not.

The Parliament of Great Britain enacts statutes determining which foreigners may be admitted as "natural born subjects". Each Colony adopted select portions of English common law and statutes up until the reign of various monarchs. As a consequence the common law and statutes adopted varied from one Colony to the next. The statutes admitting foreigners as "natural born subjects" varied from one Colony to the next.

Great Britain did not have a naturalization process. The United States does.

The difference between "natural born subject" and "natural born citizen" are manifest. It is common sense.

Here is David Ramsay:

People changed from subjects to citizens [and] the difference is immense. Subject... means one who is under the power of another; but a citizen is an unit of a mass of free people, who, collectively, possess sovereignty. Subjects look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others. Each citizen of a free state contains, within himself, by nature and the constitution, as much of the common sovereignty as another.

93 posted on 04/15/2013 12:31:51 AM PDT by Ray76 (Do you reject Obama? And all his works? And all his empty promises?)
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