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To: DiogenesLamp
Of course you are going to go off into the irrelevant weeds. Obviously the paying of taxes was regarded as tantamount to a form of naturalization. It was 1776 and a first attempt for these people. Give them a break if the document lacks polish.

No irrelevant weeds here, except for the fact that you posted this passage and tried to claim it supported your argument in the first place.

Wilson said clearly that, in the view and context of "citizenship" he was talking about - which was an equivalent to "having the rights to participate in the political process" - people who hadn't paid taxes in the past two years weren't citizens of Pennsylvania.

It didn't matter whether they were born there, of citizen parents or non-citizen parents. If they had been born in Pennsylvania of citizen parents whose grandparents had been born in the same town, lived in that Pennsylvania town their entire lives, and paid taxes 5 years ago, but hadn't paid taxes in the past 2 years, THEY WEREN'T "CITIZENS" (IN THE SENSE IN WHICH HE WAS USING THE WORD) OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Neither were women, or children, or sons of citizens. Unless those SONS (no daughters!) were between 21 and 22 years of age.

But this isn't what ANYBODY means by "citizen" today.

So obviously Wilson was not talking about "citizens" in any sense in which we really know them. When he used "citizen" in that passage, it wasn't a synonym for "a member of the society." It was a synonym for "someone who had the full right to participate in the Pennsylvania political process."

So are you now claiming that you have to live in a State for 2 years, and have to be male, and have to have paid taxes within the past two years, in order to be a citizen? Or else have a parent who hadn't necessarily gone through any naturalization process, but who had lived in the State for the past 2 years, and paid taxes, and yourself be between 21 and 22 years of age?

Because that's what Wilson said the requirements for "citizen" were.

257 posted on 05/10/2013 4:54:02 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston
No irrelevant weeds here, except for the fact that you posted this passage and tried to claim it supported your argument in the first place.

The Fact that it says "Son of a Freeholder" pretty much screws your argument. You see, according to YOUR theory, that passage shouldn't exist.

The Fact that it was created by James Wilson And Benjamin Franklin is also a serious blow to your theory. They were both delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

268 posted on 05/11/2013 10:44:14 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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