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> But today if a US citizen visits a country that also considers him a citizen, and that country drafts him into the military, the USA has nothing to say about

by kd5bjo 7y ago

> But today if a US citizen visits a country that also considers him a citizen, and that country drafts him into the military, the USA has nothing to say about it. I imagine that they might have something to say about it if the other country considered all US citizens to also be citizens of that other country. It's been a long time since I got this in school, but I also seem to recall that they weren't conscripting US citizens visiting Britain, they were boarding US merchant ships at sea to conscript the sailors.

btilly 7y ago
It was not all US citizens. It was ones who were also UK citizens by Great Britain's laws. That said, there were a lot of problems with how impressment worked. But that was separate from the question of whether becoming an American citizen made someone no longer a British citizen.
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  I admit that I don’t know the details of how citizenship was handled after the American revolution, but that was only about 30 years prior. My understanding is that the vast majority of American citizens were considered by the Crown to be British citizens. It was definitely pitched to me that way in grade school, that until 1812 England basically considered the US to be a self-governing piece of the empire instead of an independent country.
  - btilly 7y ago
    My understanding is that Americans born in America were recognized not to be British citizens, but those born in Britain who later emigrated were considered British citizens. That said, over a third of sailors on American ships were British citizens who were pursuing higher pay and better conditions. And then per https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/1812-impressment.html https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/1... there is the case of Charles Davis, an Englishman impressed into the US navy. We have no records of how common that was.

by kd5bjo 7y ago

btilly 7y ago

It was not all US citizens. It was ones who were also UK citizens by Great Britain's laws. That said, there were a lot of problems with how impressment worked. But that was separate from the question of whether becoming an American citizen made someone no longer a British citizen.

kd5bjo 7y ago
I admit that I don’t know the details of how citizenship was handled after the American revolution, but that was only about 30 years prior. My understanding is that the vast majority of American citizens were considered by the Crown to be British citizens. It was definitely pitched to me that way in grade school, that until 1812 England basically considered the US to be a self-governing piece of the empire instead of an independent country.
- btilly 7y ago
  My understanding is that Americans born in America were recognized not to be British citizens, but those born in Britain who later emigrated were considered British citizens. That said, over a third of sailors on American ships were British citizens who were pursuing higher pay and better conditions. And then per https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/1812-impressment.html https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/1... there is the case of Charles Davis, an Englishman impressed into the US navy. We have no records of how common that was.