Calvin's Case

Last updated

Calvin's Case
Coat of Arms of England (1603-1649).svg
Court Exchequer Chamber
DecidedTrinity Term, 1608
Citation(s)Calvin's Case (1608), 77 ER 377, (1608) Co Rep 1a, Trin. 6 Jac. 1
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Lord Ellesmere, and 14 judges, including Sir Thomas Fleming, Sir Edward Coke, Sir Lawrence Tanfield, Sir Thomas Foster, Sir Christopher Yelverton, Sir Thomas Walmsley,
Keywords
Citizenship

Calvin's Case (1608), 77 ER 377, (1608) Co Rep 1a, also known as the Case of the Postnati, [1] was a 1608 English legal decision establishing that a child born in Scotland, after the Union of the Crowns under King James VI and I in 1603, was considered under the common law to be an English subject and entitled to the benefits of English law. Calvin's Case was eventually adopted by courts in the United States, and the case played an important role in shaping the American rule of birthright citizenship via jus soli ("law of the soil", or citizenship by virtue of birth within the territory of a sovereign state). [2] [3]

Contents

Facts

Under the feudal system, the allegiance owed to a king by his subjects—connected as it was to the holding of interests in land—ruled out the possibility of any given individual holding land in two different kingdoms. Robert Calvin, born in Scotland in November 1605, was granted estates in England, but his rights to that were challenged on the grounds that, as a Scot, he could not legally own English land. [4]

As it happened, the child "Robert Calvin" was actually named Robert Colville; he was the son of Robert Colville, Master of Culross, and grandson of the courtier James Colville, 1st Lord Colville of Culross.

Judgment

The lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley, alongside 14 judges gathered in the Exchequer Chamber ruled in Calvin's favour, finding that he was not an alien and did have the right to hold land in England. [5] Two of those dissented: Sir Thomas Foster (1548–1612) and Sir Thomas Walmsley. [6] [7] [8]

Although not directly relevant to the case, Edward Coke used the occasion to discuss the position of "perpetual enemies", specifying "All Infidels are in Law perpetui inimici (perpetual enemies)" (166). Having accepted that a king who conquers a Christian kingdom is constrained by the continuance of such laws as exist until new laws are put in place, he continues, however, "if a Christian King should conquer a kingdom of an Infidel, and bring them under his subjection, there ipso facto the Laws of the Infidel are abrogated, for that they be not only against Christianity, but against the Law of God and of Nature." (170). Robert A. Williams Jr. argues that Coke used this occasion to quietly provide a legal sanction for the London Virginia Company to dispense with affording Native Americans any rights as they settled in Virginia. [9]

Significance

Postnati and antenati

James, King of Scots, inherited the throne of England in 1603, uniting both kingdoms under a single monarch. Nicholas Hilliard 020.jpg
James, King of Scots, inherited the throne of England in 1603, uniting both kingdoms under a single monarch.

The decision in Calvin's Case hinged on Calvin's status as one of the postnati—subjects born into the allegiance of the Scottish king James after he had become the king of England in 1603—and on the fact that the monarch into whose allegiance he was born (the same James, in his capacity as King of Scots) was also the English king at the time of Calvin's birth—meaning that Robert Calvin, in the judgement of the court, was just as much a subject of the king of England as if he had been born in England instead of Scotland. The judges of the court cited existing statutes—including particularly a 1351 statute, De Natis Ultra Mare , which granted the benefits of subject status to foreign-born children of the king's subjects—as supporting the concept that allegiance was tied to the person of the king, rather than to the kingdom itself or its laws. [10]

Calvin's Case did not extend English subject status to the antenati (Scots born prior to 1603). They remained aliens in relation to England, on the theory that King James had not yet become the king of England at the time of their birth. [11] Attempts had been made in the English Parliament, prior to Calvin's Case, to naturalise all of James's Scottish subjects—both those born after his English accession in 1603 (the postnati) and also those born before 1603 (the antenati)—but these legislative efforts had been unsuccessful. [12] Concerns had been expressed that extending the privileges of English subjects to all Scots would cause England to be flooded by "an influx of 'hungry Scots'". [13] Objections were also raised that granting naturalisation to all the Scots would have encouraged the legal philosophy, espoused by James, of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. [14] Even after Calvin's Case, the English Parliament could have enacted a naturalisation bill covering the antenati, but it never did so. [15]

Later influence

Calvin's Case contributed to the concept of the Rights of Englishmen. [16] [17] [18] Some scholars believed that the case did not fit America's situation, and thus reasoned that the 18th century colonists could "claim all the rights and protections of English citizenship." [19] In fact, one scholar asserts that the legal apologists for the American Revolution claimed they had "improved on the rights of Englishmen" by creating additional, purely American rights. [19]

Owing to its inclusion in the standard legal treatises of the nineteenth century (compiled by Edward Coke, William Blackstone, and James Kent), Calvin's Case was well known in the early judicial history of the United States. [17] Consideration of the case by the United States Supreme Court and by state courts transformed it into a rule regarding American citizenship and solidified the concept of jus soli as the primary determining factor controlling the acquisition of citizenship by birth, [20] for example in the 1898 case United States vs Wong Kim Ark. The case has also been cited as providing legal justification for the restriction of legal rights to Native Americans following their conquest and confinement in reservations by the federal government of the United States. [9]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Calvin's Case 7 Co. Rep. 1a, 77 ER 377, reprinted in The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, In Thirteen Parts, A New Edition, vol. 4, p. 1 (London, Joseph Butterworth and Son 1826).
  2. ↑ Price, Polly J. (1997). "Natural Law and Birthright Citizenship in Calvin's Case (1608)". Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. 9: 74. [Edward] Coke's report of Calvin's Case was one of the most important English common-law decisions adopted by courts in the early history of the United States. Rules of citizenship derived from Calvin's Case became the basis of the American common-law rule of birthright citizenship....
  3. ↑ Swain, Carol Miller (2007). Debating Immigration . Cambridge University Press. p.  41. ISBN   978-0-521-69866-5. Nearly all scholarship on the origins of American citizenship acknowledges the singular importance of Calvin's Case in shaping the legal and philosophical principles upon which American citizenship was founded.
  4. ↑ Price (1997), pp. 81–82.
  5. ↑ Sir Edward Coke, The Selected Writings and Speeches of Sir Edward Coke, ed. Steve Sheppard (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003). Vol. 1. 31 March 2017.
  6. ↑ Robert Zaller (14 May 2007). The Discourse of Legitimacy in Early Modern England. Stanford University Press. p. 321. ISBN   978-0-8047-5504-7 . Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  7. ↑ Williamson, Arthur H. "Colville, James". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/67449.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  8. ↑ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Walmesley, Thomas"  . Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  9. 1 2 Williams, Robert A. (1990), The American Indian in Western Legal Thought , Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN   978-0195050226, OCLC   18948630, OL   2058188M, 0195050223
  10. ↑ Price (1997), p. 101–102.
  11. ↑ Price (1997), p. 117.
  12. ↑ Price (1997), p. 96.
  13. ↑ Price (1997), p. 97.
  14. ↑ Price (1997), pp. 98–99.
  15. ↑ Price (1997), p. 119.
  16. ↑ Price, Polly J. (1997). "Natural Law and Birthright Citizenship in Calvin's Case (1608)". Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. 9: 73.
  17. 1 2 Hulsebosch, Daniel J., The Ancient Constitution and the Expanding Empire: Sir Edward Coke's British Jurisprudence. Law and History Review 21.3 (2003): para. 28–33. Found at History Cooperative website Archived 29 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  18. ↑ Arthur J. Slavin, Craw v. Ramsey: New Light on an Old Debate, in Stephen Bartow Baxter, ed., England's Rise to Greatness, 1660–1763 (University of California Press ), pp. 31–32. Found at Google Books. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  19. 1 2 Ellen Holmes Pearson, Revising Custom, Embracing Choice: Early American Legal Scholars and the Republicanization of Common Law, in Eliga H. Gould, Peter S. Onuf, ed., Empire And Nation: The American Revolution In The Atlantic World, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), ISBN   0-8018-7912-4, p. 102, n. 33; found at Google books. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  20. ↑ Price (1997), p. 138–139.

Related Research Articles

An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed, or freely committed, by the people, subjects or citizens to their state or sovereign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Coke</span> English lawyer and judge (1552–1634)

Sir Edward Coke was an English barrister, judge, and politician. He is often considered the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which held that "a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China", automatically became a U.S. citizen at birth. This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union of the Crowns</span> Personal union of the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland from 1603

The Union of the Crowns was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of the Kingdom of England as James I and the practical unification of some functions of the two separate realms under a single individual on 24 March 1603. Whilst a misnomer, therefore, what is popularly known as "The Union of the Crowns" followed the death of James's cousin, Elizabeth I of England, the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley</span> English politician (1540–1617)

Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley,, known as Lord Ellesmere from 1603 to 1616, was an English nobleman, judge and statesman from the Egerton family who served as Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor for twenty-one years.

The "rights of Englishmen" are the traditional rights of English subjects and later English-speaking subjects of the British Crown. In the 18th century, some of the colonists who objected to British rule in the thirteen British North American colonies that would become the first United States argued that their traditional rights as Englishmen were being violated. The colonists wanted and expected the rights that they had previously enjoyed in England: a local, representative government, with regards to judicial matters and particularly with regards to taxation. Belief in these rights subsequently became a widely accepted justification for the American Revolution.

United States citizenship can be acquired by birthright in two situations: by virtue of the person's birth within United States territory or because one or both of their parents is a US citizen. Birthright citizenship contrasts with citizenship acquired in other ways, for example by naturalization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet</span> English politician (1560–1625)

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet, of Blickling Hall, was an English politician who succeeded Sir Edward Coke to become Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Yelverton</span> English judge and politician

Sir Christopher Yelverton was an English judge and Speaker of the House of Commons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Bruce, 1st Lord Kinloss</span> Scottish lawyer and judge

Edward Bruce, 1st Lord Kinloss PC was a Scottish lawyer and judge.

The Citizenship Clause is the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was adopted on July 9, 1868, which states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

James Colville, 1st Lord Colville of Culross (1551–1629) was a Scottish soldier, courtier, and diplomat.

Events from the 1600s in England. This decade marks the end of the Elizabethan era with the beginning of the Jacobean era and the Stuart period.

<i>Case of Proclamations</i> 1610 English constitutional law case about limits to the powers of the sovereign

The Case of Proclamations [1610] EWHC KB J22 is an English constitutional law case during the reign of King James I (1603–1625) which defined some limitations on the royal prerogative at that time. Principally, it established that the monarch could make laws only through Parliament. The judgment began to set out the principle in English law that when a case involving an alleged exercise of prerogative power came before the courts, the courts could determine:

Sir Nicholas Fuller was an English barrister and Member of Parliament. After studying at Christ's College, Cambridge, Fuller became a barrister of Gray's Inn. His legal career there began prosperously—he was employed by the Privy Council to examine witnesses—but was hampered later by his representation of the Puritans, a religious tendency which did not conform with the established Church of England. Fuller was repeatedly in contention with the ecclesiastical courts, including the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission, and was once expelled for the zeal with which he defended his client. In 1593 he was returned as the Member of Parliament for St Mawes, where he campaigned against the extension of recusancy laws. Outside of Parliament, he successfully brought a patents case which not only undermined the right of the Crown to issue patents but accurately predicted the attitude taken by the Statute of Monopolies two decades later.

Birthright generation is a term used by immigrant advocates to identify US-born citizens, who are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. It grants American citizenship to all babies born on American soil even if the child is born to one or both undocumented parents. Birthright citizenship may be also conferred either by jus soli or jus sanguinis. Under American law, any person born within the US, including the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands and subject to its jurisdiction is automatically granted US citizenship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oath of Allegiance of James I of England</span>

The Oath of Allegiance of 1606 was an oath requiring English Catholics to swear allegiance to James I over the Pope. It was adopted by Parliament the year after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The oath was proclaimed law on 22 June 1606, it was also called the Oath of Obedience. Whatever effect it had on the loyalty of his subjects, it caused an international controversy lasting a decade and more.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacobean debate on the Union</span>

The Jacobean debate on the Union took place in the early years of the reign of James I of England, who came to the English throne in 1603 as James VI of Scotland, and was interested in uniting his Kingdoms of England and Scotland. With one monarch on the two thrones there was de facto a "regnal union", but since James was very widely accepted in England, the debate was not on that plane. A political union was more controversial and is often referred to as a "statutory union", underlining the fact that the legal systems and institutions involved were different, and had had distinct historical paths. That wider union did not in fact come about in the 17th century, but at the time of the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, arguments from the earlier period were again put into circulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plantation Act 1740</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Plantation Act 1740 or the Naturalization Act 1740 are common names used for an act of the British Parliament that was officially titled An Act for Naturalizing such foreign Protestants and others therein mentioned, as are settled or shall settle in any of His Majesty's Colonies in America.

Birthright is the concept of things being due to a person upon or by fact of their birth, or due to the order of their birth. These may include rights of citizenship based on the place where the person was born or the citizenship of their parents, and inheritance rights to property owned by parents or others.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.