CITIZEN, persons. One who, under the constitution and laws of the United States, has a right to vote for representatives in congress, and other public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people. In a more extended sense, under the word citizen, are included all white persons born in the United States, and naturalized persons born out of the same, who have not lost their right as such. This includes men, women, and children.

2. Citizens are either native born or naturalized. Native citizens may fill any office; naturalized citizens may be elected or appointed to any office under the constitution of the United States, except the office of president and vice-president. The constitution provides, that " the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." Art. 4, s. 2.

3. All natives are not citizens of the United States; the descendants of the aborigines, and those of African origin, are not entitled to the rights of citizens. Anterior to the adoption of the constitution of the United States, each state had the right to make citizens of such persons as it pleased. That constitution does not authorize any but white persons to become citizens of the United States; and it must therefore be presumed that no one is a citizen who is not white. 1 Litt. R. 334; 10 Conn. R. 340; 1 Meigs, R. 331.

4. A citizen of the United States, residing in any state of the Union, is a citizen of that state. 6 Pet. 761 Paine, 594;1 Brock. 391; 1 Paige, 183 Metc. & Perk. Dig. h. t.; vide 3 Story's Const. 1687 Bouv. Inst. Index, b. t.; 2 Kent, Com. 258; 4 Johns. Ch. R. 430; Vatt. B. 1, c. Id, 212; Poth. Des Personnes, tit. 2, s. 1. Vide Body Politic; Inhabitant.

(The above is from:Bouvier 1856)

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The Fifth Article of Amendment uses the word 'Person' (which is used in a generic sense and not in the sense of the 'creature of law (lex) 'person'--not Citizen or citizen--and that Article of Amendment is Biblical in its origin. Nevertheless, a few sites:

"Citizenship is a privilege not due of common right, and one claiming it in justification or excuse of an act otherwise illegal may fairly be called upon to prove his claim good." Morrison v. California (1934) 291 U.S. 82, 54 S.Ct. 281, 78 L.Ed. 664.

The term "citizen" as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term "subject" in the common law. Hennessay v. Richardson Drug Co., 189 U.S. 25, 23 S.Ct. 532, 47 L.Ed. 697.

40th Cong., 3rd Sess. (Jan. 23, 1869) Suffrage, House, p. 559.

Mr. Boatel: One may, no doubt, be a citizen by birth as well as a subject, but subject and citizen are evidently words of different import, and it indisputably requires something more to make a citizen than it does to make a subject. It is, in fact, not the place of a man's birth, but the rights and privileges he may be entitled to enjoy which make him a citizen.

"The term citizen is derived from the Latin word civis, and in its primary sense signifies one who is vested with the freedom and privileges of a city. At an early period after the subversion of the Roman empire, when civilization had again begun to progress, the cities in every part of Europe, either by usurpation or concession from their sovereigns, obtained extraordinary privileges in addition to those which were common to the other subjects of their respective countries; and one who was invested with these extraordinary privileges, whether he was an inhabitant of the city or not. or whether he was born in it or not, was deemed a citizen. In England a citizen is not only entitled to all the local privileges of the city to which he belongs,but he also the right of electing and being elected to Parliament, which is itself rather an extraordinary privilege, since it does not belong to every class of subjects." (Com. Dig. Parliament, D. 6. 4Inst. 6.)

"If we go back to Rome, whence the term citizen has its origin, we shall find in the illustrious period of her republic, that citizens were the highest class of subjects to whom the jus civitatis belonged, and that the jus civitatis conferred upon those who were in possession of it all rights and privileges, civil, political, and religious."(Butler's Hor¦ Juridic¦, 26, 27.)

"When the term came to be applied to the inhabitants of a State, it necessarily carried with it the same signification with reference to the privileges of the State which had been implied by it with reference to the privileges of a city; and it is in this sense that the term citizen is believed to be generally understood in the United States.

This indeed evidently appears to be the sense in which the term is used in the clause [§ 1, 14th amend.] of the Constitution which is under consideration: for the terms 'privileges and immunities,' which are expressive of the object intended to be secured to the citizens of each State in every other, plainly import, according to the best usages of our language, something more than those ordinary rights of personal security and property which by the courtesy of all civilized nations are extended to the citizens or subjects of other countries while they reside among them."

"No one can, therefore, in the correct sense of the term, be a citizen of a State who is not entitled, upon the terms prescribed by the institutions of the State, to all the rights and privileges conferred by those institutions upon the highest class of society." * * * "Nordo we mean to say that it is necessary even for an adult to be a male citizen that he should be in actual enjoyment of all those rights and privileges which belong to a citizen. He may not only not be in the actual enjoyment of those rights and privileges, but he may even not possess those qualifications of property, of age, or of residence which most of the States prescribe as requisites to the enjoyment of some of their highest privileges and immunities, and yet be a citizen. But to be citizen it is necessary that he should be entitled to the enjoyment of those privileges and immunities upon the same terms upon which they are conferred upon other citizens, and unless he is so entitled he cannot, in the proper sense of the term, be a citizen." Amy v. Smith,11 Ky. (1 Litt.) 326 (1827). SOURCE: 40th Cong., 3rd Sess. (Jan. 23, 1869) Suffrage, House, p. 559.

An extract from Farrand's work

June 25-Edmund Randolph, "A preamble seems proper. Not for the purpose of designating the ends of government and human polities - This(business, if not fitter for the schools, is at least sufficiently executed) display of theory, howsoever proper in the first formation of state governments, (seems) is unfit here; since we are not working on the natural rights of men not yet gathered into society, but upon those rights, modified by society, and (supporting) interwoven with what we call (states) the rights of states - . . ." Max Farrand, rev. ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Yale University Press, 1937), vol. 4, p. 38.

The word "gathered" in 1787 meant 'to harvest'.

"The only reason, I believe why a free man is bound by human laws, is that he binds himself. Upon the same principles, upon which he becomes bound by the laws, he becomes amenable to the courts of justice, which are formed and authorized by those laws." Justice James Wilson in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, 456 (1793) supreme Court of the United States.

Wilson does not use the word "freeman' or 'freemen' but "free man".

What is a 'freeman'? A freeman is not a free man...

Albeit a "freeman" is bound by human laws (lex; legislation) by the mere status of being a "freeman".

"The freeman* of Massachusetts Bay who elected the governor [executive] and the General Court (legislature) were a close oligarchy of church members. *Freeman, as used in the Bay Colony, had nothing to do with the distinction between bondsman or indentured servant and a free man with no legal shackles.

Instead, it meant a man possessing 'the freedom of the company,' which usually but not always implied ownership of a share, in any case having the right to participate in its corporate proceedings." J.C. Furnis, The Americans: A Social History of the United States, 1587-1914 (N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Son, 1969), p.65.

Many would freely admit that they know of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and, too, declare that same "freed" the slaves without realizing exactly what "emancipation" is.

Lincoln's action, whether legal or not, are not material here...but "emancipation" is. There's a maxim, of which I do not recollect exactly, but it's gist is, 'Property is never left without an owner.' To emancipate a thing, i.e., property, free's the owner of rights in rem and which property is a conveyance...the owner is now 'free' of that property. Freeing of a slave, as you probably know, is 'manumission'. Lincoln 'freed' slaves, i.e., property, belonging to another. It'd be like me making a conveyance of a particular thing to you...once that conveyance is perfected I'm now 'free' of that property....my rights in rem in that property is conveyed to you.

To emancipate is to make a thing free but the only aspect of the 'free' is that I'm free of that property. Besides, slavery was never possible under the common-law but existed soley under civil-law. Manumission free's the person of the slave.

"At private law, a slave was treated for some purposes as a human being, for other purposes as a thing. When the slave was treated as a human, the legal position was almost identical with that of a son in paternal powers. When the slave was treated as a thing, the legal position was very much for other important things classified as res mancipi." Alan Watson, Roman Law & Comparative Law (University of Georiga Press, 1991), p. 116.

"The court also charged that by the principles of the civil law, under which slavery such as ours existed, the owner could free his slave, provided no statute prohibiting such manumission existed by simply discharging him from service and saying 'go, you are free.'" Jones v. Laney, 2 Tex. 342, 347 (1839).

Emancipate. (L.) From pp. of L. emancipare, to set free.-L. e. out; mancipare, to transfer property.-L. mancip-, stem of man-ceps, lit. one who takes property in hand or receives.-L. man-us, hand; capere, to take[.] Walter W. Skeat, The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology (Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1993, Reprinted 1994), p. 133.

"What then involved in this nexum or bond? A definition which has descended to us from one of the Latin antiquarians describes nexum as omne quod geritur per aes et libram, 'every transaction with the copper and the balance', and these words have occasioned a good deal of perplexity. The copper and the balance are the well-known accompainments of the Mancipation, the ancient solemnity described in a former chapter [Early History of Property], by which the right of ownership in the highest form of Roman Property was transferred from one person to another. Mancipation was a conveyance, and hence has arisen the difficulty, for the definition thus cited appears to confound Contracts and Conveyances, which in the philosophy of jurisprudence are not simply kept apart, but are actually opposed to each other. The jus in re, right in rem, right 'availing against all the world', or Proprietary Right, is sharply distinguished by the analyst of mature jurisprudence from the jus ad rem, right in personam, right 'availing a single individual or group', or Obligation. Now Conveyances transfer Proprietary Rights, Contracts create Obligations ... ." Sir Henry Sumner Maine, Ancient Law (1861), (Dorset Press, 1986), pp. 261-262.

Link below has many old pictures which depict the civil law clamor of the Republic, e.g., Minerva as America "America Triumphant and Britannica in Distress," Boston:
1782 Engraving Prints and Photographs Division Library of Congress.

"The Constitution of the United States, while retaining other Roman principles of public law, departed Rome altogether in separating Church from State." Philip P. Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), vol. 3, p. 690.

"History of Military Law. Military law and its civilian counterpart both have their roots in Roman law which came into existence about the first century B.C. The Roman law permeated western Europe during the first millennium A.D., and was then codified in Lombardy in the 11th century as the Libri Feudorum.

"The Roman law made no distinction between civilian and military systems of law since it was predicated upon a military society in which a state of war was the normal condition. However, after the Roman law was brought to England in 1066 by William the Conqueror, the need for a separate system applying to members of the Army and Navy began to manifest itself.

A Constable's Court had existed in England during medieval times separate and apart from other courts of law. When William made the Constable the commander of the royal Army, the Constable's Court was given jurisdiction over military crimes." Fundamentals of Military Law, ROTCM 145-85, Department of the Army, February 1973, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.