United States v. Wong Kim Ark – 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Court observes how the statutes, declaring children born abroad to subject parents were not declarative of common law.
The earliest statute was passed in the reign of Edward III. In the Rolls of Parliament of 17 Edw. III (1343), it is stated that,
“before these times, there have been great doubt and difficulty among the Lords of this realm, and the Commons, as well men of the law as others, whether children who are born in parts beyond sea ought to bear inheritance after the death of their ancestors in England, because no certain law has been thereon ordained;”
and by the King, Lords and Commons, it was unanimously agreed that
“there was no manner of doubt that the children of our Lord the King, whether they were born on this side the sea or beyond the sea, should bear the inheritance of their ancestors; . . . and in regard to other children, it was agreed in this Parliament that they also should inherit wherever they might be born in the service of the King;”
but, because the Parliament was about to depart, and the business demanded great advisement and good deliberation how it should be best and most surely done, the making of a statute was put off to the next Parliament. 2 Rot.Parl. 139. By reason, apparently, of the prevalence of the plague in England, no act upon the subject was passed until 5 Edw. III, (1350), when Parliament passed an act entitled “A statute for those who are born in parts beyond sea,” by which — after reciting that
“some people be in doubt if the children born in the parts beyond the sea, out of the ligeance of England, should be able to demand any inheritance within the same ligeance, or not, whereof a petition was put in the Parliament”
of 17 Edw. III, “and as not at the same time wholly assented” — it was (1) agreed and affirmed
“that the law of the Crown of England is, and always hath been such, that the children of the Kings of England, in whatsoever parts they be born, in England or elsewhere, be able and ought to bear the inheritance after the death of their ancestors;”
(2) also agreed that certain persons named,
“which were born beyond the sea, out of the ligeance of England, shall be from henceforth able to have and enjoy their inheritance after the death of their ancestors, in all parts within the ligeance of England, as well as those that should be born within the same ligeance:”
(3) and further agreed
“that all children inheritors, which from henceforth shall be born without the ligeance of the King, whose fathers and mothers at the time of their birth be and shall be at the faith and ligeance of the King of England, shall have and enjoy the same benefits and advantages to have and bear the inheritance within the same ligeance as the other inheritors aforesaid, in time to come; so always, that the mothers of such children do pass the sea by the licence and wills of their husbands.”
2 Rot. Parl. 231; 1 Statutes of the Realm, 310.
It has sometimes been suggested that this general provision of the statute of 25 Edw. III was declaratory of the common law. See Bacon, arguendo, in Calvin’ Case, 2 Howell’s State Trials, 585; Westlake and Pollock, arguendo, in De Geer v. Stone, 22 Ch.D. 243, 247; 2 Kent Com. 50, 53; Lynch v. Clarke,1 Sandf.Ch. 583, 659, 660;Ludlam v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356. But all suggestions to that effect seem to have been derived, immediately or ultimately, from one or the other of these two sources: the one, the Year Book of 1 Ric. III, (1483) fol. 4, pl. 7, reporting a saying of Hussey, C.J.,
“that he who is born beyond sea, and his father and mother are English, their issue inherit by the common law, but the statute makes clear, &c.,”
— which, at best, was but obiter dictum, for the Chief Justice appears to have finally rested his opinion on the statute. The other, a note added to the edition of 1688 of Dyer’s Reports, 184a, stating that, at Trinity Term, 7 Edw. III, Rot. 2 B.R., it was adjudged that children of subjects born beyond the sea in the service of the King were inheritable — which has been shown, by a search of the roll in the King’s Bench so referred to, to be a mistake, inasmuch as the child there in question did not appear to have been born beyond sea, but only to be living abroad. Westlake’s Private International Law (3d ed.) 324.
The statute of 5 Edw. III recites the existence of doubts as to the right of foreign-born children to inherit in England; and, while it is declaratory of the rights of children of the King, and is retrospective as to the persons specifically named, yet, as to all others, it is, in terms, merely prospective, applying to those only “who shall be born henceforth.” Mr. Binney, in his paper above cited, after a critical examination of the statute and of the early English cases, concluded:
“There is nothing in the statute which would justify the conclusion that it is declaratory of the common law in any but a single particular, namely in regard to the children of the King; nor has it at any time been judicially held to be so. . . . The notion that there is any common law principle to naturalize the children born in foreign countries, of native-born American father and mother, father or mother, must be discarded. There is not, and never was, any such common law principle.”
Binney on Alienigenae, 14, 20; 2 Amer.Law Reg.199, 203. And the great weight of the English authorities, before and since he wrote, appears to support his conclusion.Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 17a, 18a; Co.Lit. 8a, and Hargrave’s note 36; 1 Bl.Com. 33; Barrington on Statutes, (5th ed.) 268; Lord Kenyon, in Doe v. Jones, 4 T.R. 300, 308; I: ord Chancellor Cranworth, in Shedden v. Patrick, 1 Macq. 535, 611; Cockburn on Nationality, 7, 9; De Greer v. Stone, 2 Ch.D. 243, 252; Dicey Conflict of Laws, 17, 741. “The acquisition,” says Mr. Dicey, (p. 741) “of nationality by descent is foreign to the principles of the common law, and is based wholly upon statutory enactments.”
It has been pertinently observed that, if the statute of Edward III had only been declaratory of the common law, the subsequent legislation on the subject would have been wholly unnecessary. Cockburn on Nationality 9.
Native and Natural Born Citizenship Explored 