Trump v. Barbara · ¶371

The English feudal principle “was not accepted by the American governments.” Report of 1868, at 95. As JUSTICE ALITO explains, the principle that birth on the soil made a person perpetually bound to the King was premised on the theory that the King was anointed by God to rule the people like children. Post, at 4–5 (dissenting opinion). John Adams famously wrote that the feudal theory meant that “the common people were held together, in herds and clans, in a state of servile dependence on their lords” in “a state of total ignorance of every thing divine and human.” 1 Papers of John Adams 113 (1977) (Adams). Americans “emphatically rejected” this theory. Post, at 5 (ALITO, J., dissenting). “[T]hey began their settlements, and formed their plan both of ecclesiastical and civil government, in direct opposition to . . . the feudal syste[m].” 1 Adams 114. They then dissolved “all Allegiance…

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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