Hey guys, forgive the interruption.... But Leo likely did not mention the 1772 change because it frankly is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. He was describing the original source of the tern Natural Born Citizen, and informing all that there are profound differences between NBS and NBC.
He was giving what amounts to a historical account of the origination of the term so that we can understand why the founders chose not to refer to the people of the USA as subjects and instead chose “Citizen”. That seems pretty clear to me. I have never seen the historical background of the term so I found the research and information to be very enlightening!
“Hey guys, forgive the interruption”
Not a problem.
“1772 change because it frankly is irrelevant to the discussion at hand”
Oh, I agree, it may have a bigger relevence to the first naturalization law (1790). And I think Steve and I came to an understanding.
“there are profound differences between NBS and NBC.”
But that’s the part that needs more explanation. The Founders used both terms. In fact, in Massachusetts, they used “natural born citizen” and “natural born subject” in the exact same way, in the exact same context (individual acts of naturalization)as late as 1790. And the Massachusett’s Constitution drafted by John Adams in 1780 used both terms the “citizens of the Commonwealth” and the “subjects of the Commonwealth”. There are other examples from other states where the term “natural born subject” was used.
So while there are profound differences between the terms, it doesn’t appear that anyone was fight a duel because someone else called them a subject instead of a citizen.