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7/9/2025, 7:57:51 PM
>>509937992
>In 1825 William Rawle, President Washington's pick to be the US Attorney for Pennsylvania wrote a legal treatise on the Constitution.
>"It cannot escape notice, that no definition of the nature and rights of citizens appears in the Constitution. The descriptive term is used, with a plain indication that its meaning is understood by all, and this indeed is the general character of the whole instrument."
>"In a republic the sovereignty resides essentially, and entirely in the people. Those only who compose the people ..." (Who were "the people" in 1787?)
>"Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution ..." (but note the opposing context of the rest of the paragraph, and the later discussion of naturalization, which was limited to free white persons of good character).
>"The nature, extent, and duration of the allegiance due to the United States ... derived either from treaties or from the acts of congress, are beyond the control of the states ..."
>"The doctrine of indefeasible allegiance has a deeper root in England than in any other country in Europe"
>"The instantaneous result on our political character, from the declaration of independence, was to convert allegiance from compulsion [English sovereign] into compact, and while it still remained due to the sovereign, to see that sovereign only in the whole community [the American republic]." (This is why the English Common Law opinions have no merit wrt post-1775 American practice.)
>"Emigration in its general sense, merely signifies removal from one place to another; its strict and more appropriate meaning is the removal of a person, his effects and residence: but in no sense does it imply or require that it should take place with a view to become a subject or citizen of another country."
>In 1825 William Rawle, President Washington's pick to be the US Attorney for Pennsylvania wrote a legal treatise on the Constitution.
>"It cannot escape notice, that no definition of the nature and rights of citizens appears in the Constitution. The descriptive term is used, with a plain indication that its meaning is understood by all, and this indeed is the general character of the whole instrument."
>"In a republic the sovereignty resides essentially, and entirely in the people. Those only who compose the people ..." (Who were "the people" in 1787?)
>"Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution ..." (but note the opposing context of the rest of the paragraph, and the later discussion of naturalization, which was limited to free white persons of good character).
>"The nature, extent, and duration of the allegiance due to the United States ... derived either from treaties or from the acts of congress, are beyond the control of the states ..."
>"The doctrine of indefeasible allegiance has a deeper root in England than in any other country in Europe"
>"The instantaneous result on our political character, from the declaration of independence, was to convert allegiance from compulsion [English sovereign] into compact, and while it still remained due to the sovereign, to see that sovereign only in the whole community [the American republic]." (This is why the English Common Law opinions have no merit wrt post-1775 American practice.)
>"Emigration in its general sense, merely signifies removal from one place to another; its strict and more appropriate meaning is the removal of a person, his effects and residence: but in no sense does it imply or require that it should take place with a view to become a subject or citizen of another country."
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