How Birthright Citizenship Sort of Saved Christmas
How did Clement Clarke Moore get to be a US citizen?
Photographer: Lawrence Thornton/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In 1830, the US Supreme Court determined that despite having been born in New York City in the 1770s, Anglican Bishop John Inglis of Nova Scotia was not a US citizen and therefore not eligible to inherit property in New York, which at the time did not allow aliens to do so. Inglis v. the Trustees of the Sailor’s Snug Harbour was thus a landmark early ruling on birthright citizenship, a topic back before the Supreme Court.
It was not the clearest of rulings. The verdict didn’t end up hinging on the citizenship question; the justices didn’t all agree on whether Inglis was a citizen; and the most-cited part of the decision today seems to be Justice Joseph Story’s dissent. But the case illuminates much about early US thinking on birthright citizenship. Plus, there’s a Christmas angle.