OK. They spent half the decision discussing something that had no relevance at all to anything they were deciding.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“This still ignores that the opinion of the court said: “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, ...”
And why was that?
According to the decision:
“The resolutions of the convention of New York of 16 July, 1776, have been relied upon as asserting a claim to the allegiance of all persons residing within the state. But it may well be doubted whether these resolutions reached the case of Charles Inglis. The language is
“that all persons abiding within the State of New York, and deriving protection from the laws of the same, owe allegiance to the said laws, and are members of the state.”
Charles Inglis was not, within the reasonable interpretation of this resolution, abiding in the state and owing protection to the laws of the same. He was within the British lines, and under the protection of the British army, manifesting a full determination to continue a British subject.”
The decision accepts that during a civil war, a person may not be a citizen of a new country, even if the new country tries to claim him. The two concurring opinions said the child would be a citizen during those months, because the new state COULD claim him.
During a civil war, with control sweeping back and forth, there was doubt about the obligations of someone living in the disputed territory. That condition only exists during a civil war. If Hawaii had been involved in a civil war, with England claiming Honolulu at different times, then the question would be murky.
However, Hawaii was NOT in a civil war against England during the 1960s. The control was absolute under the US, and anyone born in the USA would, without exception, owe subjection to the US.
It appears to me that upon principles of public law as well as of the common law, he must if born a British subject, be deemed to adhere to, and retain the national allegiance of his parents at the time of the treaty. Vattel considers the general doctrine to be that children generally acquire the national character of their parents, Vattel, B. 1, ch. 19. sec. 212, 219, and it is certain, both by the common law and the statute law of England, that the demandant would be deemed a British subject.
...still his national character was derivative from his parents, and was under the peculiar circumstances of this case, liable to be changed during the Revolutionary War, and that if his parents reverted to their original character as British subjects and adhered to the British Crown, his allegiance was finally fixed with theirs by the treaty of peace.