§. 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 Englishwoman 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 whoever was judged as a traitor 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 nor government. He is under his father's tuition
and authority till he come to age of discretion, and then he is a free man, 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 being a subject
of that 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
anywhere else? Since the power that a father hath naturally over his children
is the same wherever they be born, and the ties of natural obligations are not
bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms and commonwealths.
