Sec. 118. But, it is plain, governments themselves
understand it otherwise; they claim no power over the son,
because of that they had over the father; nor look on children as
being their subjects, by their fathers being so. If a subject of
England have a child, by an English woman in France, whose
subject is he? Not the king of England's; for he must have leave
to be admitted to the privileges of it: nor the king of France's;
for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and
breed him as he pleases? and who ever was judged as a traytor or
deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being
barely born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain
then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as by
the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no
country or government. He is under his father's tuition and
authority, till he comes to age of discretion; and then he is a
freeman, at liberty what government he will put himself under,
what body politic he will unite himself to: for if an
Englishman's son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so,
it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father's being a
subject of this kingdom; nor is he bound up by any compact of his
ancestors. And why then hath not his son, by the same reason,
the same liberty, though he be born any where else? Since the
power that a father hath naturally over his children, is the
same, where-ever they be born, and the ties of natural
obligations, are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms
and commonwealths.
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