[x]

John Adams wrote a very long book, A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States. It was a survey of republics throughout history: Athens and other Greek Cities, Rome, Florence, Venice, Holland, Switzerland and others. In one volume he uses the word "citizen" or "citizens" or "citizenship" over 500 times, so I'm going to say that the Founding Fathers were very acquainted with the word and idea of citizens and citizenship and didn't need to learn it from Vattel.

[DiogenesLamp]

John Adams wrote a very long book, A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States. It was a survey of republics throughout history: Athens and other Greek Cities, Rome, Florence, Venice, Holland, Switzerland and others. In one volume he uses the word "citizen" or "citizens" or "citizenship" over 500 times, so I'm going to say that the Founding Fathers were very acquainted with the word and idea of citizens and citizenship and didn't need to learn it from Vattel.

You may be quite wrong about that. Back when I was researching this stuff, I learned that John Adams was a member of a debating group in Boston. I forget the name of the group, but I can probably find it again. In any case, they loved the first edition of Vattel they received when it first came available in America, and it quite likely fired their imagination to create the United States. There is a section in it that says a Confederacy should be formed out of a collection of independent states. Nobody else in that era would dare to write such a thing!

I don't have time at the moment, but look up the young lawyer's social club that John Adams belonged to back in 1773 or so.

Adams was exposed to Vattel very early in his career.