Trump v. Barbara · ¶65

The only evidence the Government and the principal dissent can muster to show that some alternative (“primary”) conception of allegiance displaced the common law is a “funeral oration” for President Lincoln. Brief for Petitioners 23; see post, at 22–23. Ahistorical modifiers aside, the Government and the dissent identify no source that defined allegiance at birth as being based on domicile in the period from 1776 to 1868. Sources from that period instead defined “allegiance by birth” just as the British did—as “the tie or duty” owed by one who is “born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign.” Inglis, 3 Pet., at 155 (opinion of Story, J.); see also, e.g., 1 N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (“[e]very native” owes a “natural or implied allegiance” “to the government under which he is born”).

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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