SUBJECT OR CITIZEN

The distinction between a subject and a citizen sits at the foundation of American law, and most people have never thought about it. A subject under British common law owes perpetual allegiance to the crown by birth. Blackstone described it as feudal: a debt of gratitude that cannot be forfeited, canceled, or altered. The Declaration of Independence rejected that doctrine outright. Edward Erler's Imprimis essay lays out the stakes, and Clarence Thomas has been making the same point in speeches: the founders asserted that sovereignty belongs to the individual, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that signing the Declaration was treason under British law precisely because it denied the king's claim on them.The 14th Amendment introduced the word "citizenship" into American law for the first time, and it did so with the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." That phrase was small, intentional, and underdeveloped, which is why birthright citizenship is now back at the Supreme Court. The 1868 Expatriation Act, passed alongside the 14th Amendment, called the right to renounce allegiance "a natural and inherent right of all people," which is the exact opposite of British perpetual subjectship. An American can renounce citizenship and leave. An American cannot renounce citizenship and stay. The unresolved question is whether someone born on US soil to parents who owe allegiance elsewhere becomes a citizen automatically, or whether jurisdiction means something more than physical presence.Secession is the same question at a different scale. If the individual is sovereign, can the individual withdraw? Can a state? South Carolina tried in 1861 and lost a war over it. Parts of Idaho, Oregon, and Alberta still raise the question. Thomas Jefferson believed the answer was yes. Current law says no.The Southern Poverty Law Center has been indicted by a grand jury in Alabama. According to the indictment, the organization was funding the Ku Klux Klan and other groups to manufacture the hate it then claimed to be fighting, soliciting donations on the back of a problem it was paying to keep alive. Shell bank accounts. Money allegedly sent to organizations involved in the Charlottesville riots. The endowment sits at $700 million. If the conviction holds, the federal government gains legal access to donor records that have been kept secret, and a lot of people who gave money will need to decide whether they were complicit or victims. The pattern echoes Lois Lerner at the IRS in 2012, when roughly 350 conservative organizations were denied tax-exempt status during the Obama administration, locking them out of bank accounts and the political process for a full election cycle. Nobody was indicted.The same logic applies to the California governor's race. Six Democrats remain on the debate stage, soon to be five. Steve Hilton looks likely to lock in one of the top-two primary slots. Tom Steyer, a white male billionaire, may well take the other, which will be entertaining to watch the party rally around. Medicaid fraud across blue states runs in the tens of billions, and a Republican governor with subpoena power is the only mechanism that can expose it. That is the existential threat, and it explains why Swalwell had to go.One thread runs through all of it: power flows to whoever controls the definition of who counts, what's hateful, and which laws get applied to whom.For more episodes and resources, visit ⁠fromourgeneration.com.⁠Dive deeper with Giants of Political Thought at ⁠giantsofpoliticalthought.com⁠.