There seems to me to be an enormous confusion, shared by the historic judiciary, current citizenry, pundits, commentators, and others about just what the English Common Law demands in terms of the imposition of subjecthood on the unwilling.
In fact two classes of persons were considered to owe lifetime allegiance to the British monarch from birth: those born of English paternity, born anywhere, and those of any paternity born in the Realm. That is, leaving children of diplomats out of the equation. The Framers felt that this was rapacious and unjust - and in fact British insistence on the British nationality of Americans of British bloodlines was a primary cause of the War of 1812 as self-identified Americans were pressed captured and pressed into British service.
Americans left citizenship up to the individual states. Only authority over naturalization was placed within the federal ambit. Rules for the devolvement of citizenship at birth were left to the individual states, and they varied. In some cases the states enacted NO statute, for example New York. Others emphasized paternity. In any case, the important thing is that native citizenship was NOT generally considered a matter to be determined by reference to English common law.
The unique citizenship requirement established in the Constitution is the requirement that the President be “Natural Born Citizen”. All other references to citizenship are bare, apparently including native born, naturalized, and natural born, where these mean in order, born in the land and not excluded from citizenship, having obtained citizenship by means of the operation of statute law under the naturalization power granted the federal government by the Constitution, and those born on US soil of US citizen parents, inclusive.
The reductio ad absurdum argument that birth on American soil of two citizen parents is not a perfect predictor of patriotism, loyalty or allegiance notwithstanding, the Framers thought that it was from this natural class that was most likely to produce those individuals with the characteristic most desired in a President: undivided loyalty to the Untied States.
And they were not wrong. Just look what our Constitutional carelessness has wrought: a President who places the interests of the United States on a par with those of Namibia or Venezuela. A man who does not see himself as uniquely American, but rather as a post-American, dialectic President of the world.
This is someone who actually apologizes for the pursuance of American interests by past governments and then holds himself up as redeemer - someone who will assiduously AVOID basing American policy on American interests. Thats why we have a policy on Honduras that is based on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan and Cuban interests. This “president” is exactly the type of allegiance-compromised individual the Framers tried their best to prevent from ever becoming President.
Shame on us all.
I’m trying like hell to avoid these threads from here on out, but do you have any quotes supporting this, “The Framers felt that this was rapacious and unjust.” I see it on the federalistblog.us Web site, from which I assume you are taking it. I see no cites to a Framer saying as such, but I will accept that they could be out there I just haven’t seen them. Have you? My google skills appear somewhat limited in this respect as so far my attempts at search terms don’t turn up anything.