[DiogenesLamp]

The foundational ideas of the United States are completely different from and incompatible with the ideas of England.

And there it is in a nutshell. By the Common law of England, everything we did was illegal. There is no justification for our actions under the Common Law of England. Our actions in creating a new government and new CITIZENS were completely outside the comprehension of the Common Law.

Thank you for posting that illuminating article about how the common law was regarded during this era. As it should happen, I have something similar. Remember that book that Cpn Kook loves to denigrate as being solely the work of one man who is a big nobody in the founding era? (He never bothered to look at the history of this "nobody".)

Well, the book was the consequence of the Legislature of Pennsylvania ordering the court to distinguish which English laws ought to be adopted by statute from those that should not.

In the first seventy-five years of our independence, many Americans – lawyers included – attacked the common law and advocated strongly for codification of all American law, in part, for the better security of citizens from arbitrary rule by judges. The common law was denounced as a barbaric, feudalistic relic of medieval England that imposed ex post facto, retroactive law on parties whenever judges found a new tort or new common law crime.50 Jefferson wrote in a private letter in 1788 that courts in America should be forbidden to cite any English decision since the accession of Lord Mansfield to the bench (in 1756),51 and in a private letter in 1812 that it was improper to quote in American courts any English authorities later than the accession of George III (in 1760).52 During the early codification movement three states – New Jersey in 1799,53 Kentucky in 1808,54 and Pennsylvania in 1810, 55 passed statutes specifically forbidding citation of English cases decided after July 4, 1776. The statutes did not last long in force, and there is some evidence that they were not enforced.56 In New Hampshire, a rule of court was adopted forbidding English citations.57

Which explains what motivated the Pennsylvania legislature to create this directive.

Which then created *THIS*:

Of which this is a prominent feature.

[CpnHook]

Remember that book that Cpn Kook loves to denigrate as being solely the work of one man who is a big nobody in the founding era? (He never bothered to look at the history of this "nobody".)

I have no reason to doubt Judge Roberts was good person and exercised his judicial duties with diligence and good conscience.

But my point remains that when the 39th Congress was debating the citizenship clause of the Civil Rights Act, it was stated repeatedly that the clause was declaratory of existing law. I gave you a bit of that history, wherein the report of the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee was referenced. Here it is again.

And what are the authorities for "existing law" were reported to the House? Blackstone, Kent, Sandford (Lynch v. Clarke), William Rawle, the Naturalization Act of 1802 (the one St. George Tucker described as "accordant" with Blackstone). These among many others.

Now, by contrast, who WASN'T cited to the Congress on the matter of birth-citizenship: Vatttel, G. Washington, Adams, Franklin, Wilson, Jay, B. Washington, Marshall.

And no mention of Samuel Roberts.

And when the SCOTUS argued and presented both sides of the first and greatest case on birth citizenship (Wong Kim Ark), which authorities were cited by the majority: Coke, Blackstone, Joseph Story, Kent, Sandford (Lynch v. Clarke). Among a host of others. Now which authorities weren't cited as to birth citizenship, not even by Chief Justice Fuller in his dissent urging Vattel supply the rule of decision: G. Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jay, B. Washington, Marshall. Oh, and Samuel Roberts.

Like I said, I'm sure Judge Roberts was a good man. But on the question of citizenship, his book is a bit of a tree that falls in a forest with no one hearing it. Unfortunately for you, he is the only one of your writers who actually purports to say our law here differs from England while citing Vattel. Your other sources say that only in your imagination.