What did Snug Harbor say?
“What are the rights of the individuals composing a society and living under the protection of the government when a revolution occurs, a dismemberment takes place, and when new governments are formed and new relations between the government and the people are established? A person born in New York before 4 July, 1776, and who remained an infant with his father in the City of New York during the period it was occupied by the British troops, his father being a loyalist and having adhered to the British government and left New York with the British troops, taking his son with him, who never returned to the United States, but afterwards became a bishop of the Episcopal Church in Nova Scotia; such a person was born a British subject, and continued an alien, and is disabled from taking land by inheritance in the State of New York.
If such a person had been born after 4 July, 1776, and before 15 September, 1776, when the British troops took possession of the City of New York and the adjacent places, his infancy incapacitated him from making an election for himself, and his election and character followed that of his father, subject to the right of disaffirmance in a reasonable time after the termination of his minority, which never having been done, he remained a British subject, and disabled from inheriting land in the State of New York.
The rule as to the point of time at which the American ante nati ceased to be British subjects differs in this country and in England, as established by the courts of justice in the respective countries. The English rule is to take the date of the Treaty of Peace in 1783. Our rule is to take the date of the declaration of independence.
The settled doctrine in this country is that a person born here, but who left the country before the declaration of independence and never returned here, became an alien and incapable of taking lands subsequently by descent. The right to inherit depends upon the existing state of allegiance at the time of the descent cast...
...The British doctrine therefore is that the American ante nati, by remaining in America after the peace, lost their character of British subjects, and our doctrine is that by withdrawing from this country, and adhering to the British government, they lost, or perhaps more properly speaking, never acquired the character of American citizens.”
So the birth in country is critical, but it needs to be recognized as the US at the time - thus disputes about those who were born before and lived after the Revolution - the ‘ante nati’.
Sorry, but your theories are way out of line with American law, as practiced and accepted for hundreds of years. Which is why those who adhere to your theories LOSE...
It didn't matter whether they left the country or not. As long as they resided in the US under the protection of the British government, showing where their loyalty lied, they were still British at birth. Birth on the soil could not be used to gain access to the rights of citizenship and there in lies the crux of the debate. It was formally announced prior to the revolution that parents who were loyal to the revolution became citizens as well as their wives and all their descendants, whether born before or after the revolution. And children born in the US to natives or aliens who made it known that they wished to retain their foreign citizenship, were deemed to be aliens. It all goes to inheritance and children of aliens could not inherit in the US and vice versa. This was the FINAL ruling in Snug Harbor. The child was born prior to the revolution & taken from the country by the father, even though the mother stayed in the US, could not inherit; because prior to Sept 1776 the family moved into NY under the protection of the crown and the mother remained living under the protection of the crown. At no time during the revolution did the father & child come back and move the family back under the protection of the United States. As the court stated, had the parents changed their minds and taken action to throw off their allegiance to the crown prior to the Treaty of 1783, the child would then have become a US citizen. It didn't matter when or where the child was born, on US soil or not, it was the action of the parents becoming citizens that made the child a citizen.
Not so fast there buster. That ‘ante nati’ thangy, according to the court it was connected to the parents, if the parents didn't possess ‘ante nati’ to the US, neither did the child. If it wasn't the case, then the child would have been able to inherit.
The settled doctrine in this country is that a person born here, but who left the country before the declaration of independence and never returned here, became an alien and incapable of taking lands subsequently by descent. The right to inherit depends upon the existing state of allegiance at the time of the descent cast.
Do you not understand the concept of descent?
When new governments are formed and new relations between the government and the people are established? A person born in New York before 4 July, 1776, and who remained an infant with his father in the City of New York during the period it was occupied by the British troops, his father being a loyalist and having adhered to the British government and left New York with the British troops, taking his son with him, who never returned to the United States, but afterwards became a bishop of the Episcopal Church in Nova Scotia; such a person was born a British subject, and continued an alien, and is disabled from taking land by inheritance in the State of New York.
New forms of government, new forms of relations and that would be new forms of relations regarding citizenship & the laws of inheritance. According to Snug Harbor soil no longer held any ‘ante nati’. The ‘ante nati’ naturally attached to the child born on US soil through the citizen parents or by the consent of an adult through naturalization or statute as in the case of children born abroad to citizen parents.
All the congressional debates of 1790 speak of the father or single mother. Theirs is the political citizenship that attaches the family to the country. Wives & children held derivitive citizenship therough the husband or father respectively. This was the actual law on the books:
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/5596748?action=jp2resize&op=j&imagesize=1200&pvHeight=2400&pvWidth=2400&n=1&rotation=0&bbx1=0&bby1=0&bbx2=87&bby2=130&jp2Res=0.25&pres=0.5&jp2x=0&jp2y=0&large.x=5&large.y=11
Please show me where it distinguishes between children born to aliens abroad or on US soil? This is NOT am ambiguous law. It follows the exact law that was in place from July 1776 forward which was the law that was applied in Snug Harbor.