Birthright

“ If there be such a thing as a natural birthright, I can conceive of none superior to the right of the child to be informed, at first by proxy through his guardians, and afterwards personally, of the life-history, medical and other, of his ancestry. The child is thrust into existence without his having any voice at all in the matter, and the smallest amend that those who brought him here can make, is to furnish him with all the guidance they can, including the complete life-histories of his near progenitors. ”

“ Let us believe in that sun, and find in its rays an earnest of that glory which was the birthright of our ancestors, and which, should be the birthright of our descendants from generation to generation. ”

“ You all have a birthright.
What that meant in the earliest times we do not fully know; but it meant at least to be the head or father of the family, a sort of domestic priesthood, [164] the chief of the tribe, or the head of a great nation. In our own times, in Great Britain the first-born son has by right of birth the headship of the family, inheriting the principal part of the property, and he is the representative of the estate. They call it there the law of primogeniture, or the law of the first-born. ”

“ The idea of the birthright can be explained by saying that in the days of which we are speaking the father used to be the king over all his children and their families and servants, that he used to lead them in war and judge all their disputes in time of peace, and that he was also their priest, who used to perform the sacrifices for them and lead them in their prayers and hymns to God, but that, when the father died, the oldest son got all these rights and this right of the oldest son to become priest and king after the death of the father is known as the birthright. ”

“ The conditions that direct the order of the whole of the living world around us, are marked by their persistence in improving the birthright of successive generations. ”

“ It is a natural consequence of the rights of property and of the sentiment named, that birth should produce some advantages, in a social sense, even in the most democratical of the American communities. The son imbibes a portion of the intelligence, refinement and habits of the father, and he shares in his associations. ”

“ A boy may thoughtlessly select the wrong state, or even a foreign country, as the site for his birthplace, and then the most exemplary life will not avail him. But hardest of all, perhaps, for one who aspires to the highest office within the gift of the people, is the selection of a house in which to be born. For this reason I have selected a few specimen birthplaces for the guidance of those who may be ignorant of the points which should be possessed by a birthplace. ”

“ Each child has both a father and a mother, and two grandparents on both sides, increasing as one goes back. But, besides drawing on a much wider ancestry than the immediate parents, we have more than we inherit, or where could the law of progress operate? Each generation, each child who is born, comes into a slightly different world, fed by more experience, blown upon by fresh influences. ”

“ Every child is born with a natural temperament or disposition, which is the product of two elementary factors. (1) Inheritance—those qualities which are transmitted by nature from one’s ancestors and (2) maternal impression—the impression made upon the plastic brain of the foetus. The first comes from generations of ancestry, whereas the last is entirely dependent upon the mother; the influence of what she sees, what she hears and what she thinks. These qualities combine for good or for bad, to influence the life of the child. ”

“ The adopted son, still more the son of the adopted son, became, in speech, in feelings, in worship, in every thing but physical descent, one with the gens into which he was adopted. He became one of that gens for all practical, political, historical, purposes. It is only the physiologist who could deny his right to his new position. The nature of the process is well expressed by a phrase of our own law. When the nation—the word itself keeps about it the remembrance of birth as the groundwork of every thing—adopts a new citizen, that is, a new child of the state, he is said to be naturalized. ”

“ I need hardly say that a traditional deference for high birth, a traditional preference for men of certain families in the disposal of elective offices, may go on when birth carries with it no legal privilege whatever. ”

“ By what right or reason, by what logic of character, can you, a democrat, renouncing all advantages of birth,--neither priding yourself on family, nor seeking to found one,--how therefore can you care for genealogies, or for this fantastic science of heraldry? ”

“ As nature imposes on man the necessity of being born, so it imposes on him the obligation to produce birth, and your parents bind you by maintaining you to the obligation of maintaining their grandchildren. In addition to this, fortune has given you a long period to listen to her appeals to you to perform this duty, while, in the meantime, your years have wasted away, and you have remained without the name of either husband or father. ”

“ Whether or no the importance of the issues at stake comes to be recognized fully by the nation at large, individuals and families have it in their power to act on the knowledge they have acquired.... When once more the importance of good birth comes to be recognized in a new sense, ... it will be understood to be more important to marry into a family with a good hereditary record of physical, mental, and moral qualities than it ever has been considered to be [Pg 238] allied to one with sixteen quarterings. ”

“ In the case of private individuals, noble birth is derived from either the father's or the mother's side, and on both sides there must be legitimacy; and, as in the case of a State, it means that its founders were distinguished for virtue, or wealth, or any other of the things that men honor, and that a number of famous persons, both men and women, young and old, belong to the family. ”

“ The reader will pardon so much about the place of my birth, on the score that it is always a fact of some importance to know where a man is born, if, indeed, it be important to know anything about him. In regard to the time of my birth, I cannot be as definite as I have been respecting the place. Nor, indeed, can I impart much knowledge concerning my parents. Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves. A person of some consequence here in the north, sometimes designated father, is literally abolished in slave law and slave practice. ”

“ Thus, a man will not only apply the term “father” to all the brothers of his father, to all the sons’ sons of his father’s father, and to all the sons’ sons’ sons of his father’s father’s father, to all the husbands of his mother’s sisters and of his mother’s mother’s granddaughters, etc., but he will also apply the term to all the members of his father’s clan of the same generation as his father and to all the husbands of the women of the mother’s clan of the same generation as the mother, even when it is quite impossible to show any genealogical relationship with them. ”

“ The legal issues regarding “natural born” citizenship and birth within the United States, without regard to lineage or ancestral bloodline, have been well settled in this country for more than a century, and such concepts date back to, and even pre-date, the founding of the nation. ”

“ Let this suffice for youth, old age, and the prime of life, and the characters which belong to each.
Chapter 15 Let us next speak of the goods that are due to fortune, all those, at least, which produce certain characters in men. A characteristic of noble birth is that he who possesses it is more ambitious; for all men, when they start with any good, are accustomed to heap it up, and noble birth is a heritage of honor from one's ancestors. ”

“ There had been a wondrous involution from centuries of great history, according to subtle, silent laws of hereditary inheritance, in very blood and life, of tone, and quality, and temper, and now there is evolved, evoked, just that of power which tells of kinship with those who have gone before. ”

“ The “common” understanding of the term “natural born” citizen during the revolutionary period, the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and in the generation after, was clearly that of one who was a citizen “at birth,” and the determining factor in the United States was the place of birth in the territory of the United States, rather than that of ancestry, lineage, or descent, except as provided in statute. ”

“ Possibly we have here an explanation of some hereditary phenomena in human beings. If there is an unequal division, and more of the male than of the female nucleus, the child might, as a result, inherit more of the father's than of the mother's characteristics, or the reverse. ”

“ Each child of us, though really born to the broad light of a democratic age, is reared in the patriarchate. Each child of us sees the father, dispenser of benefits, arbiter and ruler of the family; and, so reared, each child of us repeats from generation to generation the mistakes of personality. ”

“ They must not only be born again but they must be born again each one of them of a new father and of a new mother and of a different line of ancestry for many generations before their minds could become supple enough to learn anew. ”

“ And, as it seems that you are not destined to become the father of a coming generation, you should, at least, endeavor to become the progenitor of your ancestors and the father of your fathers. Ancestors are born to you as children are to others, and, if I am not mistaken, you are already the possessor of three. ”

“ A child is born to a certain father; is then torn from that father against his will, and brought up for twenty years out of his reach. What claim has that child, when mature, upon the father—beyond, of course, a claim for reasonable provision—unless he chooses to acknowledge a further obligation? ”

“ What is this naturalization, however, but a sort of parable of human life? Are we not always trying to adjust ourselves to new relations, to get naturalized into a new family? Does one ever do it entirely? ”

“ In this hereditary knowledge, and in the proper use of it, (according to the different stations of life in which men subsist in this world,) consists the equality of all mankind in the sight of God, and also in the eye of the law, I mean the common law and rules of natural justice, which are formed upon the self-evident conclusions of human reason, and are the necessary result of the above mentioned hereditary knowledge in man. ”

“ Each one rises out of another, which chronologically preceded it—the strongest and noblest types being the parents of offspring, which reproduce in still higher forms their special excellencies. He who would pretend in our day to stand free from all obligations to Christianity, would boast as absurdly as he who should deny his obligations to his parents, his ancestors, and all the antecedents of his family and nation. ”

“ What, then, is taught in the following words: "She displays the nobility of her birth, having her dwelling with God?" [6] To what does birth refer but to parentage? And does not dwelling with the Father claim and assert equality? ”

“ A little observation and reflection will show us that during this change in the ideas relative to a creative principle, or God, descent and the rights of succession which had hitherto been reckoned through the mother were changed from the female to the male line, the father having in the meantime become the only recognized parent. ”

“ For birth is an aid towards an individual’s becoming famous, and distinguished, and talked about; viz., when a man’s parents happen to be in a position of rank and influence, and are possessed of wealth, and are able to spend it upon the education of their son, and when the country of one’s birth is great and illustrious ”

“ The children of naturalized citizens, if under age at the time of the naturalization of the father, and if dwelling in the United States, are to be considered as citizens; so are the children of citizens born abroad. ”

“ Altho inheritance comes from two lines of ancestry, the prospective [187] mother may be able to control and supervise the tendencies from her line. She must do all in her power before the birth of a child to sway it for good. She may then save herself years of worry and sorrow and the race an unworthy example. ”

“ Descent here is clearly maternal, but the form of paternal descent is preserved, a plausible condition for a people who; having become maternal, still stick at least in form to the traditional inheritance from the father. ”

“ If you pretend to give birth to a boy, or even to a great bearded man who has not a drop of your blood in his veins, then, in the eyes of primitive law and philosophy, that boy or man is really your son to all intents and purposes. ”

“ At this point, again, the law of heredity comes into play, for if the parents, and the children which they bring along with them, are not rachitic, the chances are that the children and children's children born in America, will not be rachitic either. ”

“ In a paternal relation there are always two parties, a father and a child; and when we use the paternal relation metaphorically, it is of the first importance to know who is to be father and who is to be child. The rôle of parent falls always to the Forgotten Man. What he wants, therefore, is that ambiguities in our institutions be cleared up, and that liberty be more fully realized. ”

“ What, let me ask, are the principal phenomena of heredity? There must be physical continuity between parent, or parents, and offspring, so that the offspring is, as Erasmus Darwin well said, a kind of elongation of the life of the parent. ”

“ One of these laws is that of hereditary transmission, by which qualities and states both of body and mind descend from parents to their offspring. The existence of this law is a condition, necessarily attendant upon the great relation of parent and child, by means of which the human race, once created, was to be continued. ”