I’m curious why in the article you seem to separate the contested election of William Smith and the dissertation of Dr. David Ramsay.
Dr. Ramsay wrote the dissertation as part of his campaign to have Mr. Smith declared ineligible.
From his dissertation:
The following appear to be the only modes of acquiring this distinguishing privilege.
1st. By being parties to the original compact, the declaration of indcpendcnce.
2d, By taking an oath of fidelity to some one of the United States, agreeably to law.
3d, By tacit consent and acquiescence.
4th. By birth or inheritance,
5th. By adoption.
From his petition to Congress in the Smith case:
“that citizenship with the United States is an adventiontitious character to every person possessing it, who is now thirty years of age; and that it can, in no case, have been acquired but in one of the following modes: 1st. By birth or inheritance. 2d. By having been a party to the late revolution. 3d. By taking an oath of fidelity to some of the States. 4th. By tacit consent. 5th. By adoption”
Dr. Ramsay also wrote a letter to James Madison asking Madison to support his petition in Congress. In the letter he makes some of the same arguments as in his petition and dissertation.
From the Dissertation:
“From the whole it is plain, that no private individual, tho’ a native, who was absent from this country at the time independence was declared, could have acquired citizenship with the United States, prior to his returning and actually joining his countrymen subsequent to the recolution.”
From Dr. Ramsay’s letter to James Madison:
“You and I became citizens by being parties to the Declaration of Independence. By that act a new compact for a new government was form between the then residing and consenting inhabitants of the States. But an absent native neither lost his allegiance by the one nor acquired citizenship by the other. Such continued subjects while in Europe and under British protection and could become Citizens on their returning and by residence by an oath or by some other move manifesting their acquiescence in the revolution.”
BTW, Dr. Ramsay came in third in the election that William Smith won.
We know Congress voted down Dr. Ramsay’s petition. Along with Madison, four other signers of the Constitution voted against Dr. Ramsay.
If everyone agreed with everyone else on all points, we wouldn’t need a Constitution, a Congress or a website such as this one :-)
Yes, Madison and Ramsay disagreed on some points regarding citizenship. And most certainly on other issues as well. But from the evidence, the only major disagreement between them regarding citizenship was the effect of the fact the Mr. Smith was absent from the American Continent when the Declaration of Independence went into effect. And from his words, Madison might have reached a different conclusion had Mr. Smith not still been a minor at that moment.
It seems to me that that issue is too technical and too off-topic to be worth including in the essay.