Yes it does, but what did it mean in 14th century English? What does it's roots imply?
Yes it does, but what did it mean in 14th century English? What does it's roots imply?
The term originally applied to an inhabitant of a city or town, back when people primarily so identified, rather than with a nation or country.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/citizen
Sense of "freeman or inhabitant of a country, member of the state or nation, not an alien" is late 14c.
It implies someone who, by either birth or naturalization, is a member of a political community, owing allegiance to the community and being entitled to enjoy all its civil rights and protections; a member of the civil state, entitled to all its privileges.
In England, the members of the political community were also subjects of the king. In the newly formed United States, the members of the political community were its citizens, but were not subjects of a monarchy. They could not be natural born subjects because they were not subjects.
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765), Vol I, p. 361.
The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien.
Jus albinatus equals the law of alien confiscation.
The U.S. closely followed the English law, and not the French law.