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To: higgmeister

“Natural born citizen” didn’t mean anything different from “citizen from birth” to them.


92 posted on 06/22/2024 5:36:49 PM PDT by x
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To: x
“Natural born citizen” didn’t mean anything different from “citizen from birth” to them.

You claiming that does not make it true.

94 posted on 06/22/2024 5:53:31 PM PDT by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken! )
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To: x
“Natural born citizen” didn’t mean anything different from “citizen from birth” to them.

Here is the dilemma that I find in a statement like this.

Today, "birthright" is interpreted to mean citizenship at birth (born here).

I would suggest that in the 1790s, travel in and out of the United States was impossible for most citizens. Only the most wealthy (or ambassadors of the United States) could afford passage on sailing ships to England or France for a six-week voyage under hardship conditions. If someone did manage to obtain such passage, they would stay in Europe for years before returning to the United States.

Regarding jus soli or jus sanguinis, people's lineage to the land was well-known. I would think that to be true of most people in the 1790s; the townspeople of any town in the post-colonial United States would have known who begat whom through the generations (they used to document that in family Bibles), and so "land" was a proxy for citizenship by parentage, too.

That means they knew who the newcomers were, too. Many people could trace their ancestry back to the first settlers of the colonies. Given that people didn't travel far distances back then, "land" and "parentage/ancestry" were synonymous in practice.

It's my belief that "born here" as the sole determinant in "natural born citizen" in 1789 had a completely different interpretation than "born here" does in 2024.

-PJ

97 posted on 06/22/2024 6:19:39 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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