| Calvin's Case | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Court | Exchequer Chamber |
| Decided | Trinity Term, 1608 |
| Citations | Calvin's Case (1608), 77 ER 377, (1608) Co Rep 1a, Trin. 6 Jac. 1 |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | Lord Ellesmere, and 14 judges, including Sir Thomas Fleming, Sir Edward Coke, Sir Lawrence Tanfield, Sir Thomas Foster, Sir Christopher Yelverton, Sir Thomas Walmsley, |
| Keywords | |
| Citizenship | |
Calvin's Case (1608), 77 ER 377, (1608) Co Rep 1a, also known as the Case of the Postnati,[1] was a 1608 English legal decision establishing that a child born in Scotland, after the Union of the Crowns under King James VI and I in 1603, was considered under the common law to be an English subject and entitled to the benefits of English law. Calvin's Case was eventually adopted by courts in the United States, and the case played an important role in shaping the American rule of birthright citizenship via jus soli ("law of the soil", or citizenship by virtue of birth within the territory of a sovereign state).[2][3]
- ^ Calvin's Case 7 Co. Rep. 1a, 77 ER 377, reprinted in The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, In Thirteen Parts, A New Edition, vol. 4, p. 1 (London, Joseph Butterworth and Son 1826).
- ^ Price, Polly J. (1997). "Natural Law and Birthright Citizenship in Calvin's Case (1608)". Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. 9: 74.
[Edward] Coke's report of Calvin's Case was one of the most important English common-law decisions adopted by courts in the early history of the United States. Rules of citizenship derived from Calvin's Case became the basis of the American common-law rule of birthright citizenship....
- ^ Swain, Carol Miller (2007). Debating Immigration. Cambridge University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-521-69866-5.
Nearly all scholarship on the origins of American citizenship acknowledges the singular importance of Calvin's Case in shaping the legal and philosophical principles upon which American citizenship was founded.