{"id":2621641,"date":"2026-06-30T14:51:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/thomas-alito-in-birthplace-citizenship-ruling-john-roberts-imposes-feudal-darkness\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:55:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T18:55:25","slug":"thomas-alito-in-birthplace-citizenship-ruling-john-roberts-imposes-feudal-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/thomas-alito-in-birthplace-citizenship-ruling-john-roberts-imposes-feudal-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberts Imposes \u2018Feudal\u2019 System In Birthplace Citizenship Ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthomas-alito-in-birthplace-citizenship-ruling-john-roberts-imposes-feudal-darkness%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2621641&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In today\u2019s dissents, Supreme court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for relying on a medieval English feudal principle to justify birthright citizenship, contrasting this view with the Founders&#8217; rejection of such a system. Roberts\u2019s majority opinion was based on an 418-year-old case that linked citizenship to feudal allegiance to the english crown, a principle Thomas and Alito argued is historically inaccurate and inconsistent with American constitutional ideals. They emphasized that the Founders opposed feudalism, which treated people as subjects bound by soil and allegiance to a sovereign, and instead upheld a system based on consent and equal rights among citizens. congress also rejected feudal principles in the 19th century, affirming that citizenship could be changed and was not rooted in lifelong subordinate service. The Justices argued that Roberts&#8217;s interpretation incorrectly resurrects a historical system at odds with American values of sovereign self-determination and voluntary allegiance.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In dissents released today, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito slammed the historical illiteracy of Chief Justice John Roberts in imposing a \u201cmedieval English \u2018feudal\u2019 principle\u201d on the American people, allowing any foreigner to become a citizen simply by being born on American soil.<\/p>\n<p>In his majority <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/25pdf\/25-365_4hdj.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">opinion<\/a> for the court, Roberts strained to reimpose a form of feudalism soundly rejected by the American Founding. That <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >legal principle guarantees random foreigners<\/a> the privilege of American citizenship through an English common law basis that the Founders rejected. Feudalism reflected a king-subject relationship based on soil, and the Roberts court\u2019s reasoning imposed that alien tradition \u2014 that persons are subjects, not citizens \u2014 on the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Court\u2019s account is not historically accurate,\u201d Thomas wrote in his dissent, which was joined by Gorsuch. \u201cThe Court says that the Citizenship Clause incorporated the English feudal principle that subjects owed lifetime servitude to the King who owned the soil on which they were born, but Americans\u2014unsurprisingly\u2014rejected this feudal principle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even the English, Thomas wrote, \u201cmoved on from \u2018the darkness of the middle ages&#8217;\u201d that Roberts just revitalized.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore saddling the Nation with a medieval rule, we had better be certain the Constitution requires it,\u201d Alito says his separate dissent, calling the system \u201cbirthright subjecthood.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018Master and Servant<\/strong>\u2018<\/h2>\n<p>Thomas noted Roberts\u2019 reliance on a 418-year-old English common law case called <em>Calvin\u2019s Case<\/em>, which established the principle of \u201c\u2018<em>jus soli.<\/em>\u201d Under <em>jus soli<\/em>, \u201cpeople owed perpetual allegiance to the King of England if they were \u2018born within the dominions\u2019 that he owned.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Roberts claimed the principle had been adopted into the understanding of American citizenship, and then \u201cincorporated [it] by reference in the Citizenship Clause.\u201d Thomas\u2019s dissent points out this is false:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The English principle was a rule of feudal servitude, not a rule of citizenship. \u2026 The English principle instead determined a person\u2019s permanent feudal bondage to the King, which he could not unilaterally abandon. It was based on the notion that \u2018[a] man owed personal service to the lord of the soil, the same as his master owed it to the king; and it was born with the child and only ended in the grave\u2019\u2014a relation of \u2018master and servant.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2026On the Court\u2019s telling, the law of citizenship in the United States was fixed to an English rule that everyone born on the soil was permanently bound to serve the sovereign. This principle of permanent feudal allegiance, according to the Court, was repurposed into a rule of citizenship and adopted by \u2018all of the states.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2><strong>The Founders Directly Rejected Roberts-Style Citizenship Feudalism<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>American Founders contemplated the subjection of English feudalism and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/spit-in-the-face-of-judicial-independence-gop-leaders-rise-to-condemn-dems-court-packing-plan\/\" title=\"\u2018Spit In The Face Of Judicial Independence\u2019: GOP Leaders Rise To Condemn Dems\u2019 ...-Pac... Plan\">roundly rejected<\/a> it out-of-hand. They believed Americans are not born into a state of subjection to a king, but rather, as citizens with rights equal to those of every other citizen, must consent to their government and its decisions. <\/p>\n<p>The social compact Americans create through their consent also requires current citizens\u2019 consent to expand their membership. Under the Founders\u2019 principles, foreigners cannot rightfully obtain citizenship merely by showing up or even obtaining a place to live in our land; they have to obtain the affirmative consent of current citizens to permanently join our society. Anchor babies and their parents do exactly the opposite \u2014 violating citizens\u2019 consent to obtain our privileges through essentially theft and fraud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJohn Adams famously wrote that the feudal theory meant that \u2018the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/thomas-massie-to-newsmax-house-mask-rules-about-theater\/\" title=\"Thomas Massie to Newsmax: House Mask Rules &#039;About Theater&#039;\">common people<\/a> were held together, in herds and clans, in a state of servile dependence on their lords\u2019 in \u2018a state of total ignorance of every thing divine and human,&#8217;\u201d Thomas noted, before citing the Declaration of Independence to back his argument.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Americans \u2019emphatically rejected\u2019 this theory. \u2018T]hey began their settlements, and formed their plan both of ecclesiastical and civil government, in direct opposition to . . . the feudal syste[m].\u2019 They then dissolved \u2018all Allegiance to the British Crown.\u2019 And, they set up a new system of government in which the people were not regarded\u2019as servile dependents. Instead, the people were sovereign, and the government derived its legitimacy from them. In this new system of government, feudalism had no place. The soil did not belong to the government, but to the people. And, those who were born on it did not owe the government a lifetime of obeisance or servitude.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In the same year as the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, Congress passed a statute \u201crejecting the feudal principle and explaining that it supported the right of all persons to expatriate and change their citizenship,\u201d Thomas notes.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Reconstruction Congress expressly opposed the feudal principle that the Court claims that it adopted. As its Committee on Foreign Affairs saw the matter, \u2018[t]here is nothing American in the oath of the land barons of England.\u2019 It described the English rule\u2019s \u2018claim of indefeasible allegiance and perpetual service\u2019 as \u2018the symbol of feudalism and force.\u2019 Instead of the feudal principle, the congressional Report explained that American law viewed people as taking on a new citizenship, as relevant here, when they changed their \u2018domicile.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr>\n<p>      Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Justices criticize Roberts&#8217; flawed view of citizenship history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":2621642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-30-132408.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[7161,43482,81980,5045,11006],"class_list":["post-2621641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-citizenship","tag-constitutional-law","tag-feudalism-2","tag-government","tag-roberts"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-30-132408.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2621641"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2621645,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621641\/revisions\/2621645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2621642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2621641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2621641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2621641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}