Or one can as well postulate that the change is driven simply by recognition of the change in government -- that "citizen" became the more precise, more appropriate term. That is not your argument. Your argument is that the meaning and character is precisely the same, and that the nature of both derive from English Common Law. That there is no actual difference between them, and that it was just merely a whim to start using the term "citizen" and to eschew using the term "subject."
In other words, your argument is that between them there is a distinction without a difference.
Given that such is the view espoused by the legal commentators and SCOTUS, your simply repeating "but I can come up with another reason" gets you nowhere.
This is where you and I differ in methodology. I do not believe something merely because people unconnected to the events express an opinion. I care not what the opinions of "experts" happens to be, because I see this as the fallacy of false authority. We have seen numerous examples throughout history where the legal "experts" are just dead wrong, the latest example being "Obergefell v. Hodges".
Unless they have first hand personal knowledge regarding the events in question, or some reasonable connection to the same, their opinion is just an opinion, and may very well be wrong. I also believe that many later day "experts" deliberately steered the nature of "citizen" towards English Common law because they had an agenda, and not because it happens to be true.
In any case, "citizen" by no means necessarily signifies jus sanguinis. See explanation above.
You have not demonstrated this. There is more evidentiary support for the claim that it does than there is for the claim that it doesn't.
I'll agree here. Prior to 1787 there is a several hundred year usage in English of "natural born" having the meaning "having the nature or characteristic at birth." And there are documented instances between 1776 and 1787 of "nbs" and "nbc" being used in interchangeable fashion.
"Natural Born" is an adjective in this context for both "Subject" and for "Citizen", which are the nouns. The distinction in character is dependent upon the meaning of those, not on the modifier "natural born." As for interchangeability in public records, the usage of the term "citizen" does not appear to have began before 1776, where it slowly replaced the word "Subject" thereafter.
Again, the original "default" was "subject." It is foolish to believe they deliberately changed the word unless they intended to signify a change in the character described. Changing it without purpose does not make sense. Everyone was already accustomed to using the word "Subject."
This is stupid. The Declaration is a litany of Colonists' grievances that their common law rights were unjustly being denied.
And their solution to this problem was to break from the Common Law principle of perpetual allegiance to the King. To deliberately reject the "Divine Right" based principles of the Common law, chief among them being the feudal nature of land based allegiance to the liege lord. The principle that the soil ties subjects in a perpetual bond to the Lord on who's land they were born. In effect, a form of Ownership of people.
That "Divine Right" concept already had been tossed aside by the English when they executed Charles I. That was his argument. It failed rather spectacularly. Which means you need a better one, too.
Oh, didn't you hear? They put it back after Cromwell died.
Strawman alert. I never said he had no significance. To the contrary. My point is that his absence from the Federalist Papers and relatively fewer references elsewhere greatly weaken your argument that Vattel was just SO preeminent that it points to him as the foundation of the Article II citizenship terms.
Strawman alert yourself. You substitute the Constitution as the document most closely related with citizenship, when this is in fact incorrect. By 1787, the meaning was already defined. Citizenship was created by the Declaration, and *THAT* was heavily influenced by Vattel.
Yes, but here you're intimating the Vattel-birther conceit that "natural law foundation" means "from Vattel." This extraordinarily stupid example of selective sampling and tunnel-vision should have ended long ago.
Yeah, except for the Fact that Thomas Jefferson's copy of Vattel is littered with notes on the Declaration in the margins. That the very notion of States forming a Republic of "perpetual union" is right out of the pages of Droit des Gens.
There were MANY influential writers who discussed natural law. Burlamaqui wrote a treatise on it. And as my prior post notes, he was the first to speak of man's happiness being the end of the natural state.
Burlamaqui was also Swiss, and he had a few things to say on this topic.
And this:
Locke wrote on it. Blackstone wrote on it. Here, chew on this one, Chief. Blackstone's View of Natural Law and Its Influence on the Formation of American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Sure, but the most influential was Vattel.
The fourth of the Four Horsemen of American liberty is Emmerich de Vattel. Although last in this list of forgotten influences, it can be claimed, without exaggeration, that it is Vattel’s interpretations and writings on the subject of the proper constitution of government that was most influential on the Founders of the American Republic. As a matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson, indisputably one of the lead framers of our nation’s government, ranked Vattel’s seminal The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law as highly as similar treatises by Grotius and Pufendorf. Further proof of Vattel’s impression on the Founders is the fact that Vattel’s interpretations of the law of nature were cited more frequently than any other writer’s on international law in cases heard in the courts of the early United States, and The Law of Nations was the primary textbook on the subject in use in American universities.
This whole schpiel smacks of "Methinks the DumbDumb doth protest too much." You've rarely exhibited the talent to think even one step ahead. I seriously doubt you planned this one. I will admit to usually not bothering to take you seriously. One does not normally spend a lot of time trying to out think someone whom they regard as a clown. I am actually responding to you mostly because I find many of the other topics being discussed as rather boring.
As I have mentioned before, this topic was discussed ad infinitum before you ever showed up, and the time for you to have gotten a good fight was back when the topic was fresh and I could remember where I put the salient bookmarks. If it looks like I am half-assing it, that's because I am. You just take yourself too seriously while the rest of us don't.
Story lays out that under the general common law rule, birth in the realm suffices to make one a citizen, irrespective of the citizenship (ultimate allegiance ) of the father.
Yes, and then he points out the exception which renders the "general rule" of null effect, and oddly enough it depends on the allegiance of the parents. Whoda thunk?
If he was born after 15 September, 1776, and his parents did not elect to become members of the State of New York, but adhered to their native allegiance at the time of his birth, then he was born a British subject.
Yes, a deliberate contradiction to the "general rule." Madison et al, also had these contradictions to the general rule. That is why people need to quit thinking the general rule is the only criteria.
Oh, and while we're discussing Joseph Story, I will point out that he wasn't a Delegate to the Convention, or a member of a Ratifying legislature, so I don't consider him a primary source anyways. I regard him as one of those "authorities" that deliberately tried to steer "natural born citizen" into English Common Law because he had the same agenda as others who attempted to do this.
That is not your argument. Sheesh. Why not just hang a sign saying "I'm here employing the straw man argument fallacy." I think I know what my argument is, thank you.
Your argument is that the meaning and character is precisely the same,
No. I've not said that.
and that the nature of both derive from English Common Law.
I've not said that either.
That there is no actual difference between them,
I've not said that either.
and that it was just merely a whim to start using the term "citizen" and to eschew using the term "subject."
Nope, not that either. You've now run the table with 4 straight mischaracterizations. Great job.
What I've said is 1) that "citizen" is the term matched with the republican form of government (terms which originate outside the common law as England had not operated as a republic); 2) that "subject" often continued to be used after 1776 without those using it seeing any inherent discordance between a person being termed a "subject" within the now-recognized republican government; and 3) that the relationship between person and sovereign was seen as being transferred from the English king to the new sovereign as the King's successor.
The latter is illustrated by both James Madison and the court opinion in Ainslee v. Martin.
It was a relational distinction. I've not read anything by anyone contemporary to support your "change of character" distinction.
In other words, your argument is that between them there is a distinction without a difference.
The relationship has changed. But as to the rule by which that relationship was established by birth, you are correct: both subjecthood and citizenship were established by birth within the allegiance of the sovereign, King or Republic, as the case may be. There was no distinction made on that point.
This is where you and I differ in methodology. I do not believe something merely because people unconnected to the events express an opinion.
Yes, your methodology is to presume you want want the answer to be, then force-fit and elevate anything that seems to support your pre-determined answer, while categorically rejecting anything that is contrary. As I said two years ago, yours is a methodology shot-through with projection.
I care not what the opinions of "experts" happens to be, because I see this as the fallacy of false authority.
The only fallacy operative here is your misapplication of that fallacy. Persons speaking within the field of their expertise is NOT an instance of "false authority." That the great weight of historical and legal commentary on a point of history and Constitutional law is arrayed against you is simple fact. Your "fallacy of false authority" bit is something you've simply pulled out of your tushy to try to deny that fact.
We have seen numerous examples throughout history where the legal "experts" are just dead wrong, the latest example being "Obergefell v. Hodges".
With Wong Kim Ark one can demonstrate how the reasoning and precedent can be traced back through the 39th Congress, back through Lynch v. Clarke, back further through Justice Story, Rawle, Kent, and Tucker, and no later than Swift 8 years after the Constitution. Plus, add in the linguistic analysis (the interchangeable usage of "NBS" and "NBC") and it can be traced back to 1776.
The same cannot be said for Obergefell. Again, your silly methodology whenever you get faced with a SCOTUS opinion you don't like is to look around for some other one and proclaim on that basis you don't have to address it. Oh, but if you happen to find one that you think supports you (e.g., Minor v. Happersett) then suddenly for that instance the SCOTUS is credible.
Your M.O. boils down to: "If it supports me, then it's a true authority. If it doesn't, it's a false authority." Yours is a methodology that is persuasive to you, but to no one who actually has a knowledge of the topic.
Unless they have first hand personal knowledge regarding the events in question, or some reasonable connection to the same, their opinion is just an opinion, and may very well be wrong.
As I've pointed out, you've got no one was actually in attendance in Philadelphia who directly supports your view. All you've got is a bunch of imagined support which doesn't withstand a moment's scrutiny. Plus, you do things like discount Wm. Rawle (who was appointed directly by G. Washington) but get all gushy over the obscure Samuel Roberts (who can only be traced to Washington via an intermediary (Lewis)). It's a silly, result-driven methodology you employ.
You have not demonstrated this.
But I have. "Does not necessarily signify" simply requires me to identify an instance where "citizen" didn't come with a jus sanguinis rule attached to it. And I've demonstrated that in France. And, mind you, this isn't in context just some obscure counter-example; it happens to be the nation that - apart from England - was the best known to the Founders and Framers.
There is more evidentiary support for the claim that it does than there is for the claim that it doesn't.
Assertion without argument. Another of your tried methodologies. But, do tell, apart from the hagiographiy that you and others attempt to create as to Vattel, what is that "evidentiary support?" I predict here is yet another example of your selective sampling technique at work.
"Natural Born" is an adjective in this context for both "Subject" and for "Citizen", which are the nouns. The distinction in character is dependent upon the meaning of those, not on the modifier "natural born."
But the modifier has a meaning, and that meaning goes to the heart of the question "what it required to be a 'natural born citizen?' -- Does it suffice that one is born here and a citizen at birth? Or does it require some characteristic of the father (parents)?" As, as I've asserted, "natural born" in English usage (then as today) simply conveyed the meaning "having that nature or characteristic at birth" without any sense of "partaking of the nature or character of the father." To be a "natural born athlete" doesn't require the father have had great athletic talent. To be a "natural born citizen" didn't (and doesn't) require the father to have been a citizen.
You can hop up and down all day that you think there's some great character distinction between "subject" and "citizen." But that is just to evade the question whether to be a "natural born" subject or citizen required that the father have been a subject or citizen at that moment. The ansswer is "no." "Natural born" in English usage does NOT convey the meaning "of like parent(s)." It's fatuous to assert that the Framers utilized that modifier, intending a meaning which it hadn't had up to that point, and that they did so without any discussion among themselves or explanation for others.
Oh, didn't you hear? They put it back after Cromwell died.
LOL. And 30 years after Cromwell died, the English parliamentarians tossed out James II. It seems they missed another of your historical memos (along with Washington, Adams, etc., who didn't learn that we didn't have a "Revolution).
And what happened that next year? Oh, right, England passed the "Bill of Rights of 1689," the document that granted to English subjects things like protection against "cruel and unusual punishment," that taxes could be levied only by the legislative branch (Parliament), the people's right to petition, etc. Gosh, does this sound familiar? Do you think this was an inspiration for our Founders and Framers? Just maybe? :)
You substitute the Constitution as the document most closely related with citizenship, when this is in fact incorrect.
Rather, I correctly point to the Constitution as the document using the term "natural born citizen," and I correctly keep sight that it's that term that bears on the eligibility question that has been the topic of most of these threads.
Citizenship was created by the Declaration, and *THAT* was heavily influenced by Vattel.
The Declaration was influenced by many things and many writers. That Jefferson first penned "subject" in his draft suggests, does it not, that he may have had someone like Blackstone's writings open at the time? Again, see, Blackstone's View of Natural Law and Its Influence on the Formation of American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Or maybe in waxing lyrical about liberty, Jefferson then had another Englishman in view, John Locke. Remember this?
"Thomas Jefferson ranked Locke, along with Locke’s compatriot Algernon Sidney, as the most important thinkers on liberty."
Oh, wait. Silly me. Of course you don't remember. Your M.O. is to ignore anything that might interfere with your careful sampling of sources so you can pretend only Vattel was influential.
Burlamaqui was also Swiss, and he had a few things to say on this topic.
And he was the first to speak of happiness being the rightful end of man's natural state. But, in your "it can only be about Vattel" tunnel-vision view of history, that escapes notice.
But on this other thing he said you highlight:
XIII. Subjects are sometimes called cives, or members of the civil state; some indeed make no distinction between these two terms, but I think it is better to distinguish them. The appellation of civis ought to be understood only of those, who share in all the advantages and privileges of the association, and who are properly members of the state either by birth, or in some other manner.
"Civis" is the Latin word for "citizen." And Burlamaqui notes that "civis" and "subject" are often used without distinction!. And he notes the primary source of "cives" is "by birth" (and I see no reference to "father" or "parent" anywhere here).
This is but further proof there is hardly an historical source you can't misread.
Sure, but the most influential was Vattel.
And your source here is one that starts out by acknowledging that the authors I've been saying were hugely influential are widely recognized as having been hugely influential:
There are many illustrious names whose books and treatises were read and assimilated by our Founding Fathers. Some of those influences are still well known, and their names and their ideas (or at least a vague notion of their ideas) are still heard in lectures on government (Locke and Montesquieu, for example).
And then the author goes on to list 4 "forgotten" writers, listing Vattel 4th out of those four (after first discussing Sidney and Burlamaqui). And that "Jefferson "ranked Vattel’s seminal The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law as highly as similar treatises by Grotius and Pufendorf."
Well, duh, "ranked as highly as similar treatises" is a far cry from saying Vattel influenced Jefferson well above-and-beyond any other writer. Again, you see in a source only that which you wish to see and on top of that misread it to say more than it actually does.
If it looks like I am half-assing it, that's because I am.
Oh, you were just as stupid then as now. Back "then" was when you were making idiotic comments like "[Wong Kim Ark] never uses the term 'Natural Born Citizen.'" My not being around back then just means that my list of incompetent things you've said and argued is shorter than it might otherwise have been.
You just take yourself too seriously while the rest of us don't.
Who are "the rest of us?" If you haven't noticed, your "father citizen" (or "citizen parent") rule for "natural born citizen" has largely been dismissed on this Forum as being nonsense. You really are getting delusional -- both as to the alleged historical support you think you see as well as the support which your view currently holds.
Yes, and then he points out the exception which renders the "general rule" of null effect,
And this comment is just as silly as saying WKA never uses the term NBC.
There are rules. And there are recognized exceptions to those rules. But in your silly mind you look at the stated exception and draw the erroneous conclusion that there was no general rule to start. Nonsense.
Yes, a deliberate contradiction to the "general rule."
Nope. You still have no clue why the September 15, 1776, date is significant to Justice Story (nor why, since the circumstances of that date no longer exist, the exception to the general rule no longer applies either).
Do you need me to explain it to you this time?
Oh, and while we're discussing Joseph Story, I will point out that he wasn't a Delegate to the Convention, or a member of a Ratifying legislature, so I don't consider him a primary source anyways. I regard him as one of those "authorities" that deliberately tried to steer "natural born citizen" into English Common Law because he had the same agenda as others who attempted to do this.
Oh, you are too funny. It was barely a week ago that you were hauling out Justice Story, proclaiming " Nope, that was settled 11 years earlier, according to Justice Joseph Story." So Story has gone from a recognized authority who had "settled" a point under discussion to someone who really isn't much of an authority.
It's flip-flops and inconsistencies like this that make you so easy to mock.
Finally, while not directly on-topic, this does tie into your argument. You say of Vattel: "That the very notion of States forming a Republic of "perpetual union" is right out of the pages of Droit des Gens." So question: if this from Vattel provided the political theory for our Union, does the "perpetual union" mean that Southern state secession in 1861 was ultra vires ("illicit" to use another term)? I suspect that this is another point that you'll prove to be grossly inconsistent.