But what did it mean in 18th century Briton? If you think it meant the same thing as it means today, you are very much mistaken. I have been through several pre 1776 English dictionaries, and in that era, the word "citizen" meant "someone who dwells in a city."
Here is one example: A dictionary of the English language. by Samuel Johnson, 1768.
Only one place on earth did it mean a national. (Member of a Nation) That place was Switzerland, which is a nation that began as a Republic when 8 cities joined together around 1300. Their Charte des prêtres (1370)uses the word "Citoyen" in the context of members of a nation.
Having a nation that began as 8 cities joining together to form a Republic, makes it easy to see how the word went from meaning a "city dweller" to member of a republic.
Britons used the word "subject" because they had a monarchy.
So did the French. So did every country in the world *EXCEPT* Switzerland. It was the *ONLY* place that used "Citizen."
Americans wanted to do away with monarchy so they adopted the word "citizen."
Which came from Switzerland, and was constantly used by Vattel. It wasn't used much at all by Blackstone. I looked.
Was it really likely that the Framers threw out their whole inherited system of laws when they adopted one word in place of another?
They threw out a *LOT* of English laws, and the most important one they threw out was the "perpetual allegiance" a man owed the king from having been born on the King's land. They threw out the Feudal system, which made men the property of the King, the same as his livestock.
They kept a lot of English law, but they did not keep anything that conflicted with the natural law foundation upon which they based our system of governance.
Or did they simply replace "subject" with citizen?
This is what the advocates of the English common law theory of "citizenship" would have us believe, but the evidence says "no", and in my opinion, the very best evidence to demonstrate this is the usage of the word "citizen."
I saw one of the videos that Mike Zullo made for Joe Arpaio.
I haven't seen any of them, but I lost confidence in that group a long time ago.
Politicians don't release personal documents unless they have to, so there may be no big secret at all.
Well it is my belief that a guy who went around telling everyone he was from "Kenya" should *HAVE TO* thereafter provide proof that he wasn't a foreign national before any of the secretaries of state should let him on the ballot.
But of course they fell down on their job and refused to do due diligence, and instead merely accepted Nancy Pelosi's word that he was a "natural born citizen."
If you are not familiar with it, I urge you to go read about the "Asch conformity experiments." That, and the "Milgram Authority experiments" explain a lot of what happens in our society.
The 50 Secretaries of States had been conditioned to just accept him because he was black, and they would have been attacked mercilessly had they dared to do their job, so of course they chose not to go through that.