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To: OA5599
Some here think if you can get arrested, then you are subject to the jurisdiction thereof. (Basically posters like woodpusher claim only diplomats and hostile enemies are not subject to the jurisdiction thereof.)

Basically posters such as woodpusher cite and quote U.S. Supreme Court and other court precedents and posters such as OA5599 spew their own brainfarts.

U.S. Supreme Court: Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36, 73 (1872)

The first observation we have to make on this clause is that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been the subject of differences of opinion. It declares that persons may be citizens of the United States without regard to their citizenship of a particular State, and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States. That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase, "subject to its jurisdiction" was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.

U.S. Supreme Court: Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 649, 658-59:

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.

In re Look Tin Sing, Circuit Court, California, 21 Fed R 905 (1884), Opinion of the Court by U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1863-1887) Stephen Field, sitting as a Circuit Court justice.

At 21 Fed R 906:

The first section of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the state wherein they reside.” This language would seem to be sufficiently broad to cover the case of the petitioner. He is a person born in the United States. Any doubt on the subject, if there can be any, must arise out of the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” They alone are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States who are within their dominions and under the protection of their laws, and with the consequent obligation to obey them when obedience can be rendered; and only those thus subject by their birth or naturalization are within the terms of the amendment. The jurisdiction over these latter must, at the time, be both actual and exclusive. The words mentioned except from citizenship children born in the United States of persons engaged in the diplomatic service of foreign governments, such as ministers and ambassadors, whose residence, by a fiction of public law, is regarded as part of their own country. This ex-territoriality of their residence secures to their children born here all the rights and privileges which would inure to them had they been born in the country of their parents.

At 21 Fed R 908-909:

With this explanation of the meaning of the words in the fourteenth amendment, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” it is evident that they do not exclude the petitioner from being a citizen. He is not within any of the classes of persons excepted from citizenship, and the jurisdiction of the United States over him at the time of his birth was exclusive of that of any other country.

Ludlam v. Ludlam, 84 Am. Dec. 193, 26 New York 356 (1863), first Headnote at 193,

Common Law at Time of Adoption of Federal Constitution Determines Question of Citizenship, in the absence of any other law upon the subject.

Munro v. Merchant, 26 Barb. 383 at 384 (1858) headnote states,

“A child born in this state of alien parents, during its mother’s temporary sojourn here, is a native born citizen.”

At 400-401, Opinion of the Court

It is further contended, on the part of the defendant, that the plaintiff himself is an alien. He was born in Ballston Spa, in this state, while his father was a resident of Canada, and returned to his father's domicil, with his mother, within a year after his birth. His mother was temporarily there—without any actual change of residence, either on her part or that of his father. It is argued that, at common law, a natural born subject was one whose birth was within the allegi­ance of the king. (Bac. Ab. tit. Alien, A. Com. Dig. A. and B. 7 to 18. Bl. Com: 336, 74.) The cases of children of ambassadors, born abroad, and of children born on English seas were considered exceptions. Chancellor Kent, in his commentaries, defines a native born citizen to be- a person born within, and an alien one born out of, the jurisdiction of the United States. (2 Kent's Com. 37—50.) In Lynch v. Clarke, (1 Sand. Ch. B. 583,) the question was pre­cisely as here, whether a child born in the city of New York of alien parents, during their temporary sojourn there, was a native born citizen or an alien; and the conclusion was, that being born within the dominion and allegiance of the United States, he was a native born citizen, whatever was the situa­tion of the parents at the time of the birth.

Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, No. 49D10-0812-PL-055511, 2009 WL 1632611 (Ind. Marion County Super. Ct. Mar. 16, 2009) (dismissing challenge to McCain’s and Obama’s eligibility), aff’d, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009) (holding that Obama, who was born in Hawaii, is a “natural born citizen” eligible to be president), transfer denied, 929 N.E.2d 789 (Ind. 2010).

In Ankeny 916 N.E.2d 678 (2009), the Opinion of the Court of Appeals states:

The Wong Kim Ark Court explained:

The fundamental principle of the common law with regard to English nationality was birth within the allegiance—also called 'ligealty,' 'obedience,' 'faith,' or 'power'—of the king. The principle embraced all persons born within the king's allegiance, and subject to his protection. Such allegiance and protection were mutual,—as expressed in the maxim, 'Protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem,'—and were not restricted to natural-born subjects and naturalized subjects, or to those who had taken an oath of allegiance; but were predicable of aliens in amity, so long as they were within the kingdom. Children, born in England, of such aliens, were therefore natural-born subjects. But the children, born within the realm, of foreign ambassadors, or the children of alien enemies, born during and within their hostile occupation of part of the king's dominions, were not natural-born subjects, because not born within the allegiance, the obedience, or the power, or, as would be said at this day, within the jurisdiction, of the king.

This fundamental principle, with these qualifications or explanations of it, was clearly, though quaintly, stated in the leading case known as 'Calvin's Case,' or the 'Case of the Postnati,' decided in 1608, after a hearing in the exchequer chamber before the lord chancellor and all the judges of England, and reported by Lord Coke and by Lord Ellesmere. Calvin's Case, 7 Coke, 1, 4b-6a, 18a, 18b; Ellesmere, Postnati, 62-64; s. c. 2 How. St. Tr. 559, 607, 613-617, 639, 640, 659, 679.

The English authorities ever since are to the like effect. Co. Litt. 8a, 128b; Lord Hale, in Harg. Law Tracts, 210, and in 1 Hale, P.C. 61, 62; 1 Bl. Comm. 366, 369, 370, 374; 4 Bl. Comm. 74, 92; Lord Kenyon, in Doe v. Jones, 4 Term R. 300, 308; Cockb. Nat. 7; Dicey, Confl. Laws, pp. 173-177, 741.

* * * * * *

Lord Chief Justice Cockburn . . . said: 'By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled, or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.' Cockb. Nat. 7.

Mr. Dicey, in his careful and thoughtful Digest of the Law of England with Reference to the Conflict of Laws, published in 1896, states the following propositions, his principal rules being printed below in italics: "British subject' means any person who owes permanent allegiance to the crown. 'Permanent' allegiance is used to distinguish the allegiance of a British subject from the allegiance of an alien, who, because he is within the British dominions, owes 'temporary' allegiance to the crown. 'Natural-born British subject' means a British subject who has become a British subject at the moment of his birth.' `Subject to the exceptions hereinafter mentioned, any person who (whatever the nationality of his parents) is born within the British dominions is a natural-born British subject. This rule contains the leading principle of English law on the subject of British nationality.' The exceptions afterwards mentioned by Mr. Dicey are only these two: '(1) Any person who (his father being an alien enemy) is born in a part of the British dominions, which at the time of such person's birth is in hostile occupation, is an alien.' '(2) Any person whose father (being an alien) is at the time of such person's birth an ambassador or other diplomatic agent accredited to the crown by the sovereign of a foreign state is (though born within the British dominions) an alien.' And he adds: 'The exceptional and unimportant instances in which birth within the British dominions does not of itself confer British nationality are due to the fact that, though at common law nationality or allegiance in substance depended on the place of a person's birth, it in theory at least depended, not upon the locality of a man's birth, but upon his being born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the king of England; and it might occasionally happen that a person was born within the dominions without being born within the allegiance, or, in other words, under the protection and control of the crown.' Dicey, Confl. Laws, pp. 173-177, 741.

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, and 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. [13]

[916 N.E.2d 688]

Id. at 655-658, 18 S.Ct. at 459-460.

Also, as quoted in Wong Kim Ark, Justice Joseph Story once declared in Inglis v. Trustees of Sailors' Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 99, 7 L.Ed. 617 (1830), that "Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens, born in a country, while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government, and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjects by birth." Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 660, 18 S.Ct. at 461 (quoting Inglis, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) at 164 (Story, J., concurring)). The Court also cited Justice Curtis's dissent in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1856):

The first section of the second article of the constitution uses the language, 'a natural-born citizen.' It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.

83 posted on 12/24/2025 6:43:11 PM PST by woodpusher
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To: woodpusher

I await your wikipedia copy and paste to explain how children of Indians not taxed were not considered US citizens despite being subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Took passage of a law in the 20th century to make them citizens, not the 14A.

Maybe they were all children of ministers?


85 posted on 12/25/2025 4:39:51 AM PST by OA5599
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