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To: DiogenesLamp
I poked into Calvin's case, as it's better known.

Given the political situation at the time, the judges were absolutely going to give the King the ruling he absolutely had to have. Even so, there were dissents, which is weird, if it was like, a real thing, you know?

And it was the law of the land, and it so remained until it was changed by statute law in the UK in 1981.

There were two dissents. Were you trying to say it was only a 12-2 majority? It has been cited as, "the most important event in the history of English nationality law."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3663533

McINTYRE, Joe and MILNE, Sue - The Alien and the Constitution - The Legal History of the ‘Alien’ Power of the Commonwealth

pp. 15-16

The rule of birthplace, where birth in the King’s ‘ligeance’ made one a subject,130 can be traced to at least 1290,131 when it was laid down that ‘all persons born on English soil, no matter what their parentage, owed allegiance to, and were therefore subjects of the King.’132 Parliament133 and the Courts134 confirmed that persons born in any territory, outside England, though belonging to the King, were subjects.135 The Courts further recognised that an alien’s son, born in England, ‘is English, and not an alien’136 for the child ‘is a liege-man,’ despite alien parents.137 Alternatively, birth out of the allegiance of the King would make one an alien, irrespective of the nationality of the parents.138 This decision follows the distinction of the tract writer John Ratsell who stated:

Alyon is he who the fader is born and he hymselfe also borne out of the elegiaunce of our lord the kyng, but yf and alyon come and dwell in englond whyche is not of te kynges enemyes and here ad issu this is not aluin but englysh, also if an englysh man go over the see with the kyngs lycene and ther ad issu this issu is not alyon.139

By Littleton’s time the demarcation of aliens and subjects was clear,140 with aliens those ‘born out of the ligeance of our soveraigne lord the king.’141 English law was recognising this demarcation in practice long before it explained it in theory.142

However, it was not until Sir Edward Coke’s influential opinion in Calvin’s Case (1608)143 that a ‘theory of allegiance and subjectship was fully articulated.’144 This case, regarded as the ‘pure milk of the common-law doctrine of allegiance,’145 is the most important event in the history of English nationality law.146 Indeed, its importance as the ‘earliest, most influential theoretical articulation’147 of the jus soli was appreciated by those who heard it,148 with Coke nominating it the most ‘elaborately, substantially, and judicially argued’ case he had ever heard of. 149 Calvin’s Case summed up and adapted the existing nationality law to the conditions of the modern territorial state,150 and articulated the nature of the bond between Monarch and subject.151 Despite citing few precedents152 the decision closely followed existing practice,153 and is now accepted as a case ‘of the highest and undoubted authority.’154

Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 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 the early case of The Charming Betsy, (1804) it appears to have been assumed by this court that all persons born in the United States were citizens of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall saying: "Whether a person born within the United States, or becoming a citizen according to the established laws of the country, can divest himself absolutely of that character otherwise than in such manner as may be prescribed by law is a question which it is not necessary at present to decide." 6 U. S. 2 Cranch 64, 6 U. S. 119.

In Inglis v. Sailors' Snug Harbor (1833), 3 Pet. 99, in which the plaintiff was born in the city of New York about the time of the Declaration of Independence, the justices of this court (while differing in opinion upon other points) all agreed that the law of England as to citizenship by birth was the law of the English Colonies in America. Mr. Justice Thompson, speaking for the majority of the court, said: "It is universally admitted, both in the English courts and in those of our own country, that all persons born within the Colonies of North America, whilst subject to the Crown of Great Britain, are natural-born British subjects."


52 posted on 03/16/2026 2:56:42 PM PDT by woodpusher
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To: woodpusher
There were two dissents. Were you trying to say it was only a 12-2 majority? It has been cited as, "the most important event in the history of English nationality law."

Yes, I find that most amazing. The outcome of Calvin's case was crucial to the well being of the Kingdom. Had it gone the other way, it would likely have sparked a civil war.

I find it amazing that 2 judges dissented. The entire power of the King pushing for the decision to come out the way it did, and two Judges had the stones to dissent?

Amazing.

54 posted on 03/16/2026 3:23:47 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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