If a subject of England have a child by an Englishwoman in
France, whose subject is he? Not the King of England's; for he must
have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it. Nor the King of
France's, for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and
breed him as he pleases; and whoever was judged as a traitor or
deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being barely
born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain, then, by
the practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right
reason, that a child is born a subject of no country nor government.
He is under his father's tuition and authority till he come to age
of discretion, and then he is a free man, at liberty what government
he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to.
For if an Englishman's son born in France be at liberty, and may do
so, it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father being a
subject of that kingdom, nor is he bound up by any compact of his
ancestors; and why then hath not his son, by the same reason, the same
liberty, though he be born anywhere else? Since the power that a
father hath naturally over his children is the same wherever they be
born, and the ties of natural obligations are not bounded by the
positive limits of kingdoms and commonwealths.
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