You say: First, your complaint was 'natural born citizen' was nowhere to be found in Vattel. And I showed you. I say: You showed me a lie. NBC was not found in any translation until years AFTER the Constitution was written and ratified. There were MANY English translations of Vattel’s book available throughout the world before the Constitution was written but the words NBC were not interposed until 1797. This is a 1760 version in English that was available and it did not contain the term natural born citizen.
Natural Born Citizen translated into the French would be “citoyen de naissance.” You will not find that in any French version of Vattel’s book. You will find NATURELS which translated = adj. natural, inartificial, unaffected; easy, unsophisticated; organic, inbred; and INDIGENES = adj. indigenous, native; nm. native, someone who is indigenous, resident of a certain place from the time of birth You say: THEN you complained it was only once, and demanded a direct connection. and I showed you. I Say: Did you know that one sentence is the only time in Vattel’s book that indigenes (the closest meaning to NBC that can be found) is used? In the next sentence, Vattel continues: “The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.” In French, however, Vattel writes, “Le patrie des peres est donc celle des enfants; & ceut-ci devienment de veritables citoyens par leur simple consentement tacite.” Interestingly, if one looks at the citizenship law of France from the time, one finds: Les citoyens, les vrais et naturels Fran�§ais, suivant la definition de Bacquat, sont ceux qui sont nes dans l’etendue de la domination francaise. The true and natural French citizens are those born within the French dominion. Citoyen = Citizen. It is clear in Vattel that that is what he was using, and it is clear in contemporaneous French law that citoyen is the word one uses when talking about citizens. Finally you say: THEN you complained that that connection wasn't specifically for that particular clause. I say: There is no evidence that Vattel had anything to do with citizenship issues. It has been repeatedly noted that Vattel was referenced in terms of international commerce by the Founders. There is no dispute or controversy on that. Nor is that relevant to the issues of citizenship, the topic of this thread. Surely you know the difference between international commerce and citizenship? So where did the term Natural Born come from? The Founders were smart people, many of them experienced lawyers. They knew that there was an English phrase Natural Born Subject, which had been in use in England for 400 years. This same phrase, Natural born subject was used in the Constitutions and Charters of the colonies. Despite there existing this phrase, Natural Born Subject, that everyone knew, that had been used by each of the colonies, and which formed the backbone of many of the legal Arguments the Revolutionaries made in supporting the Revolution, YOU think they scrapped the meaning of natural born. Now here’s where it gets outlandishly dumb – instead of choosing a different phrase than the one that was 400 years old, and in common use, natural born, according to you and other misguided individuals, the Framers used the SAME phrase and expected that people would just get that they meant to refer to Vattel’s book- even though Vattel’s book was in French and never said natural born citizen! I with I could have put all that in capital letters and shout it out to you. The Founders didn’t once say to themselves, “maybe we should use ‘indigenes,’ like Vattel did. They didn’t once write down, “We mean ‘natural born citizen’ to be completely different from ‘natural born subject.’ We know it might cause confusion but we really like that Vattel guy and we’re sure that if he was translated right, he would have written it that way.” In your world, the framers were complete imbeciles, aren’t they?
YOU think they scrapped the meaning of natural born. I never said any such thing.
It was my belief that you were contending that -
1) The federal government had the authority to decide who was or was not a natural born citizen, and
2) That the Founders considered jus soli citizenship and jus sanguinis citzenship to be the same thing.
Is that belief in error?
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There were MANY English translations of Vattel’s book available throughout the world before the Constitution was written but the words NBC were not interposed until 1797.
Um. The link I've been giving says its the 1758 edition. You also forget most of the Founders WERE fluent in French. Are you saying they did a poor job of translation?
The later English version contained the term natural born citizen whereas older ones said 'natives or indigenes'.
You again bypass the civilization factor.
Natives or indigenes just means indigenous, a generic term for 'people'. Whether those people are nomads scratching out a living off the land or living in the most shining example of civilization, they're still 'indigenous'.
It's 'the country of the father is the country of the children' that's the important part. If that father lives in a country recognized AS a country by other countries, and he is a recognized part of that country, he is a 'citizen'. His citizenship passes down to his children just as HIS fathers citizenship passed down to him.
It does NOT include children of foreigners or aliens who just happen to be in the county when they made their appearance OR children who are born before their parents become naturalized citizens themselves.
As Vattel said they are in the country, but not of it.
Book I / CHAP. XIX
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
........ I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
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The Senate ordered copies of Vattel's Law of Nature and Nations on March 10, 1794.
Ordered, That the Secretary purchase Blackstone's Commentaries, and Vattel's Law of Nature and Nations, for the use of the Senate.
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Vol 2, page 44
So it's almost a certainty THAT was the edition they were using concerning the definition of NBC in 1797.
The Library disables links, but the page can be found here:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsj&fileName=002/llsj002.db&recNum=42&itemLink=D?hlaw:13:./temp/~ammem_LF5V::%230020043&linkText=1
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Please have the courtesy to format future posts. I don't expect you to wade through a massive, unparagraphed rant, so you really shouldn't expect me to either.