That was never the point of the post, MamaTexan.
The point of the post was that the Massachusetts legislature used the two terms “natural born subject(s)” and “natural born citizen(s)” interchangeably.
First they said “natural born citizens.”
Then, in the exact same place, in the wording of a measure that was basically identical except for the people they were naturalizing, they said “natural born subjects.”
Then, they switched back: “natural born citizens.”
Then, they capitalized it: “natural born Citizens.”
Then they switched back again: “natural born subjects.”
Historically, we are told that we changed from “subjects” to “citizens.” It’s only reasonable and obvious that “natural born subject” changed to “natural born citizen.” Unless, of course, the Founding Fathers very clearly told us they were creating a new term that meant something very different from what the old term had meant.
The way that the Massachusetts legislature used the two terms anonymously and interchangeably absolutely supports the obvious idea that there was nothing different between the two terms except for the difference between “subject” and “citizen.” “Subject” implies subjection to a king. “Citizen” doesn’t.
And in fact, there really doesn’t exist any evidence that I’ve ever seen that would make even a half-decent argument against this obvious idea.
Yes, someone in 1797 - ten years after our Constitution was written - translated Vattel’s “natives, ou indigenes” as “natives, or natural-born citizens.”
But “natural-born citizens” is an obvious MISTRANSLATION of “indigenes.”
“Indigenes” implies people who are indigenous to a place. Just like the American Indians, or “Native Americans,” were INDIGENOUS to North America.
I’ve even looked it up in French. There seem to be two meanings. One is “native.” The other is very much “indigenous people” in the sense of the people who lived in a place before it was colonized by other people (generally, Europeans).
So what Vattel is saying is that he considers the really native, or the really indigenous people of a country, to be those born in that country of parents who were citizens before them.
His writing has nothing to do with natural born citizens in the United States of America, a country that didn’t even exist when he wrote his book. He never uses the term “natural born citizens,” and when his writing is translated using that term, it’s a mistranslation. Because “natural born” had a very specific meaning in law, and that meaning is not what Vattel was referring to.
The mistranslation was made 10 years after our Constitution was written. And no, it wasn’t translated that way because of our Constitution. The 1797 English translation of Vattel’s book, which used “natural born citizens” for the first time, was done in London, England.
So the historical evidence is clear. “Natural born citizen” is so intimately related to “natural born subject” that nobody ever even remarked on the difference. It is simply a modification of “natural born subject,” in which we replaced the word “subject” with the word “citizen.”
And there is nothing of any substance at all that might link the term to Vattel’s “natives, ou indigenes.”
Show me what you asserted Jeff.
Show me where,
IN THAT TEXT,
as you asserted
it said they were 'natural born citizens'.
Don't rationalize, don't theorize, don't marginalize.....
SHOW ME!!
Of THAT one no. But you've been trying to build your entire argument on that fallacy for the last week over 2 threads.
So PROVE IT.