Sterngard Friegen wrote:
Isn't there a 160+ Year old New York state case defining natural born citizenship differently?
I seem to remember it . . . from my youth. (It's cited in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark if memory serves.)
Just a little one... obscure. I'm sure Bill just "forgot" about it when he stated a New York State case ruled in agreement with his two citizen parent meme.
Lynch v ClarkQuote:
It was thus the law of each and all of the states at
the Declaration or Independence, and so remained
until the National Constitution went into effect,
that a child born within their territory and
lieagance respectively, though of alien parents,
who were abiding temporarily, thereby became
a citizen of the state of which he was a native
[...]
The law on this subject which prevailed in all the
states, became the governing principle or common
raw of the United States, when the union
of the states was consummated, and their separate
legislation on the point was terminated. It
is, therefore, the law of the United States that
children born here, are citizens, without any regard
to the political condition or allegiance of their
parents.
Children of ambassadors, are, in theory, born within
the allegiance of the sovereign power represented
and do not fall within the rule.
[...]
It is an indisputable proposition, that by
the rule of the common law of England, if
applied to these facts, Julia Lynch was a
natural born citizen of the United States.
And this rule was established and inflexible
in the common law, long anterior to the
first settlement of the United States, and,
indeed, before the discovery of America by
Columbus. By the common law, all persons
born within the ligeance of the crown
of England, were natural born subjects,
without reference to the status or condition
of their parents. So if a Frenchman and
his wife, came into England, and had a son
during their stay, he was a liege man.
This was settled law in the time of Littleton,
who died in 1482.