Nice quote mining by Binney & Gray, the original text of the Calvin case wherein they take that quote reads as follows:
Concerning the local obedience, it is observable, that as there is a local protection on the King’s part, so there is a local ligeance of the subject’s part. And this appeareth in 4 Mar. Br. 32. and 3 and 4 Ph. and Mar. Dyer 144. Sherley a Frenchman, being in amity with the King, came into England, and joyned with divers subjects of this realm in treason against the Kingand Queen, and the indictment concluded contra ligeant’ suae debitum;51 for he owed to the King a local obedience, that is, so long as he was within the King’s protection: which local obedience, being but momentary and incertain, is strong enough to make a natural subject; for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born subject: a fortiori[52. Ed.: so much the more so.] he that is born under the natural and absolute ligeance of the King (which as it hath been said, is alta ligeantia) as the plaintiff in the case in question was, ought to be a natural born subject; for localis ligeantia est ligeantia infima et minima, et maxime incerta.[53. Ed.: local allegiance is something mean and small, and extremely uncertain.] And it is to be observed, that it is nec coelum, nec solum,[54. Ed.: neither the climate (lit. sky) nor the soil.] neither the climate nor the soyl, but ligeantia and obedientia that make the subject born. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=911&chapter=106337&layout=html&Itemid=27#c_lf0462-01_footnote_nt_446
Interesting that the qoute from WKA was taken from Coke's explanation of what Ligeantia localis (local allegiance) is, not that of what a natural born is. Just more obsfucating of common law & thus the reason Gray & the court never declared WKA to be a natural born.
“is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen” . . . but NOT a natural born.
Born under English common law did NOT necessarily refer to the actual birth of a person, as it was NOT the soil that made the person a natural born subject, but his obedience to the King. And it was that birth of obedience that Gray & Binney quoted, not the actual birth of the child.
Coke was talking about a man who was born a Frenchman.
From your quote:
“Sherley a Frenchman, being in amity with the King, came into England, and joyned with divers subjects of this realm in treason against the Kingand Queen, and the indictment concluded contra ligeant’ suae debitum;51 for he owed to the King a local obedience, that is, so long as he was within the King’s protection: which local obedience, being but momentary and incertain, is strong enough to make a natural subject; for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born subject:”
Yes, the foreign born Frenchman owed local allegiance, as the Court says of aliens here in amity. That made him a “natural subject”, and if he had kids born there, THEY would have been “natural born subjects”.
In like manner, the child of a Kenyan (and American!) living in the USA and owing the USA “local obedience” is a “natural born citizen”.