Trump v. Barbara · ¶64

The trouble is that there is scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view. Certainly no one said that such a change had occurred. Indeed, even as the antebellum Americans hotly debated whether the Declaration of Independence had abrogated one aspect of the British common law—that natural allegiance was indefeasible, no matter a person’s desire to expatriate—all agreed that such allegiance was owed in the first place. See Lynch, 1 Sand. Ch., at 657 (“perpetual allegiance . . . does not stand upon the same reason or principle as the common law doctrine of allegiance by birth”); Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 2 Cranch 64, 120 (1804) (noting unsettled question of whether an American citizen “can divest himself absolutely of ” his citizenship, but simply presuming that any “person born within the United States” was a natural-born citizen).

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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