The Colonists by and large were actually not “natural born subjects” of the British crown.
Rather, most all of them having been born in North America and thus “beyond the realm” of England and Scotland, the Colonists were, in point of fact as well as in law, only “considered as” natural born subjects. In other words, the Colonists of British North America always were, and were moreover bound always to remain, the equivalent of naturalized citizens from the perspective of their British cousins (most all of whom were, of course, full-fledged natural born subjects of the crown, in that they were natives or “naturels” who enjoyed all the additional rights and advantages, but also bore all the additional responsiblities, that went along with being who they were, rather than merely being “considered as” natural born subjects).
Hello PJ,
My response is to all of your posts. You are someone who really gets it regarding the nbC requirement. Kudos to you for that!
I used to argue the meaning nbC citing some of the documents that you have cited (and that is always valuable, especially in a legal setting), but I have come to realize that most people don’t respond well to a wall of text and that the naysayers use the details and minutia to waylay and wear down a discussion, so I now try to concentrate on “words mean things” and lead the ignorant and enemies of the Constitution to concentrate on the meaning, purpose and added value of the word “natural” to the phrase “born citizen.”
Natural means by nature, not by man or man’s law, and its value is to exclude foreign intrigue or influence from the executive (but you obviously know that). I try to get the ignorant to explain why “natural” was added to the phrase and what purpose does it serve? The naysayer may come up with horribly convoluted reasons, but Occam’s razor and common sense lead to only to the Founders’ understanding.
I wish the Founders had written the requirement to be “born and raised free of all foreign citizenships and allegiances” (obviously that was their intent). In fact, Vattel’s definition may have been used because it was well known at the time and was an easy “bright line” definition.
Times have changed and global travel is easy and commonplace, so being born somewhere does not mean being raised there, weakening Jus soli. Also, many modern nations allow dual citizenship and even our own naturalization process was watered down by aka obama to no longer require renunciation of all foreign citizenships (may be wrong about this), so there now is a new avenue for citizens of naturalized parents to be born with dangling allegiances (the founders must be spinning in their graves).
The bright line nbC requirement excludes citizens born at high seas or born to USA tourists briefly abroad in countries that make no Jus soli claim (thus no dangling allegiances), so in this way it is slightly unnecessarily restrictive compared to the allegiance at birth test, but I suppose this category was considered to be tiny enough to be sacrificed for expediency.
Also, the nbC requirement lets through children of naturalized citizens who still retain alien citizenship (of course, the Founders could not have anticipated this).
I am interested in your thoughts on these matters.