From the first legal treatise written after Ratification:
And because this principle was supposed not to have been expressed with sufficient precision, and certainty, an amendatory article was proposed, adopted, and ratified; whereby it is expressly declared, that, "the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." This article is, indeed, nothing more than an express recognition of the law of nations; for Vattel informs us, "that several sovereign, and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without each in particular ceasing to be a perfect state. They will form together a federal republic: the deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member, though they may in certain respects put some constraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements."[57]
Of the Unwritten, or Common Law of England; And Its Introduction into, and Authority Within the United American States
George Tucker
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He didn’t write “natives, or natural-born citizens,” of course, he wrote “les naturels, ou indigenes.” Just because some (but not all) translators later decided that the established English expression “natural-born citizen” was a good way to render “indigenes” doesn’t mean the Framers had that definition in mind.
A great many of the Founders were fluent in French as all well-educated men were in those days.
As they would need no 'translation', I fail to see the purpose of the comment.
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“Children” have “parents.” I’ve always thought the insistence that both parents be citizens based on his use of the plural was a really weak argument.
Really? So how many parents do you think it takes to make a child?
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And it would have been so easy to just write that, wouldn’t it? Instead, they used this term that sounds so much like “natural-born subject,” whose definition did *not* require inheritance from parents.
Please source the English law in question.
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Look, I would very much like to have a discussion, but only with someone who wants to take an honest look at the evidence.
Your post seems quite indicative of someone who has already made up their mind.
If this is the case, please do have the courtesy and human decency to tell me so know as I'm sure we could both probably find a more productive use of our time.
Thank you.
What can I say? I gave you a quote from Vattel himself about what the law of nations is; you've quoted someone else quoting Vattel about how nations get formed. If you believe the law of nations governs how nations handle their internal affairs, I probably can't convince you otherwise.
A great many of the Founders were fluent in French as all well-educated men were in those days.
As they would need no 'translation', I fail to see the purpose of the comment.
You quoted a translation of Vattel to support your contention about what "natural-born citizen" means. Since so many Founders were fluent in French, they would not have needed that translation (or any translation--when you're fluent in a language, you just read it, you don't translate it). So there's no reason to think they thought "indigenes" meant the same thing as "natural-born citizen," especially given that the words "born" and "citizen" aren't even in the original.
Please source the English law in question.
I'm not sure there's an actual law that defines "natural-born subject." But there's lots of discussion of it in the Wong Kim Ark decision. One sample:
The English statute of 11 & 12 Will. III (1700). c. 6, entitled "An act to enable His Majesty's natural-born subjects to inherit the estate of their ancestors, either lineal or collateral, notwithstanding their father or mother were aliens,"....It may be observed that, throughout that statute, persons born within the realm, although children of alien parents, were called "natural-born subjects."Look, I would very much like to have a discussion, but only with someone who wants to take an honest look at the evidence.
I'm sure you know that it's possible for someone to take an honest look at the evidence and still disagree with you. The problem is that I've been looking at the eligibility evidence for 5 years now, and yes, I've pretty much drawn my own conclusions quite some time ago. You haven't presented any evidence that I haven't seen before. As you probably feel the same about me, I'm perfectly happy to end the discussion here.