Posted on 12/06/2008 7:17:21 PM PST by STARWISE
[I have collaborated on this with my sister and historian Greg Dehler, author of "Chester Allan Arthur", Published by Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2006 ISBN 1600210791, 9781600210792 192 pages. ]
I’ve been forwarded the actual naturalization record for William Arthur on microfiche, obtained from the Library of Congress. He was naturalized in New York State and became a United States citizen in August 1843.
Chester Arthur perpetrated a fraud as to his eligibility to be Vice President by spreading various lies about his parents’ heritage.
President Arthur’s father, William Arthur, became a United States citizen in August 1843. But Chester Arthur was born in 1829. Therefore, he was a British Citizen by descent, and a dual citizen at birth, if not his whole life.
He wasn’t a “natural born citizen” and he knew it.
We’ve also uncovered many lies told by Chester Arthur to the press which kept this fact from public view when he ran for Vice President in 1880. Garfield won the election, became President in 1881, and was assassinated by a fanatical Chester Arthur supporter that same year.
How ironic that the allegations started by Arthur Hinman in his pamphlet entitled, “How A British Subject Became President”, have turned out to be true…but not for the reason Hinman suggested.
Hinman alleged that Arthur was born in Ireland or Canada as a British subject. It was bunk.
It’s been definitively established that Chester Arthur was born in Vermont. But Hinman turns out to be correct anyway since Chester Arthur was a British citizen/subject by virtue of his father not having naturalized as a United States citizen until Chester Arthur was almost 14 years old.
That means Chester Arthur was a British subject at the time of his birth.
We’ve uncovered news clips exposing a thorough trail of lies, all of which served to obscure Chester Arthur’s true history of having been born as a British citizen.
Chester Arthur’s lies came during his Vice Presidential campaign in 1880. His fraudulent attempt to obfuscate family history provides context and evidence that in 1880 it was recognized that having been born as a British citizen would make one ineligible to be President or VP. His falsification of family history indicates he was aware of POTUS ineligibility.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Chester Arthur was in politics at the time of the 14th Amendment’s ratification. He was a lawyer and a politician while the 14th Amendment was being debated. It was ratified in 1867.
In that same year Chester Arthur rose to become chairperson of the Executive Committee of the State Republican Committee. He would have been fully cognizant of the natural born citizen issue and that should he ever run for POTUS or VP, problems could arise.
He would have known that if anybody found out his father naturalized after he was born, he could never be President or Vice President.
CHESTER’S LIES
The definitive biography on Chester Arthur is “Gentleman Boss” by Thomas Reeves. It’s an exhaustive reference.
Many of the blanks in Chester Arthur’s legend were filled in by this book which utilized interviews with family members and authentic documents like the Arthur family Bible. It was a necessary work since old Chester Arthur was a very wily protector of his strange history. He burned all of his papers. (See page 2365.)
“Gentleman Boss” establishes, on page 4, that Chester Arthur’s father William was born in Ireland, 1796, and emigrated to Canada in 1818 or 1819. His mother Malvina was born in Vermont and his parents eloped in Canada in 1821. They had their first child, Regina, in Dunham, Canada on March 8, 1822.
By no later than 1824, the Arthur family had moved to Burlington, Vermont. Their second child Jane was born there on March 14, 1824.
Chester Arthur was their fifth child, and he was born on October 5, 1829. Reeves established these facts (and the correct date of Chester Arthur’s birth) from the Arthur family Bible.
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Rest at link
The article stated Allen's mother was an American citizen.
I'm certain the founders didn't invent the term "natural born" on the fly.
Has anyone done an analysis of surviving period literature; Colonial, American, British and French to determine what "natural born" was understood to mean at the time?
He was a British subject or a dual national.
citizen of the United States , at the time of the adoption of this Constitution ... THAT is to granfather in the founders. They were all British subjects at birth.
What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child the return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues.
This makes perfect sense. However, what are we to do today, with so many people having connections outside the country? Many Jews, for example, became citizens of Israel just to help and pay taxes, and some fought for Israel in her early days of war. I don't know if Senator Lieberman or his father were among them, but he was a candidate for VP. Does Governor Richardson have a parent who was naturalized? It's not an easy answer for the future, besides the current situation with Obama.
Nothing has changed today. We wouldn't want somebody ,say from France, to direct what our country should do. Somebody who has dual allegiance might feel bound by those allegiances to not act in a way that might harm, or not benefit their other allegiance.
If someone has dual citizenship, such as some jewish people, they might be very good people, but the very fact that they took a second citizenship, no matter the reason, proves that their primary allegiance IS NOT to the US. It is to Israel, or this reason or that cause, but it is not to the US.
What amazes me are the people who fail to realize that as Obama seals all his records, and refuses to present a vault copy of his Certificate Of Live Birth, he is basically saying that he doesn't value the US, its history, its laws , or its people. And yet people still stand behind him.
You know,that is a good question
This is the exact question the high court must answer!!!
I have a bad feeling about Donofrio’s case......he’s UNDERMINING himself by saying this about Arthur and also about it doesn’t matter if Obama was born in Kenya or not....YES IT DOES!!!
“His falsification of family history indicates he was aware of POTUS ineligibility.”
Finally, rock-solid “evidence” that dual citizenship is bad.
By the way, why would we take Chester Arthur’s word for it that the Founders wouldn’t have excepted dual citizens? I mean, Chester Arthur wasn’t a Founder, nor a constitutional scholar. Should we take Cheney’s decision to be merely VP proof that he knew the Founder’s didn’t consider people with prominent sneers natural born citizens?
“Allen’s birthplace made him an American AT birth, but he was not a citizen BY birth because his father was a British subject.”
Huh? What point are you trying to make with the prepositions?
“Birthplace determines citizenship by operation of law.
Parents’ citizenship determines citizenship by operation of nature.
That’s the argument.”
You mean that we are not a nation of laws, as I had thought, but a nation under the benevolent dictatorship of Mother Nature?
Do you realize how nutty that sounds? Try arguing that the Founders understood citizenship to be by the right of blood. Drop the “nature” stuff.
That is part of what is underlying my discussion and some of the articles and briefs out there and in the works. It certainly would be part of any review conducted by the SCOTUS.
Any analysis must start with the framers’ intent, which clearly, according to the literature they created at the time, was to ensure that usurpers could not become President and, therefore, Commander in Chief. They were focused on limiting the office, so far as possible, to those who did not have foreign allegiance-—which, especially at the time, meant foreign citizenship. Since citizenship was passed by birth (by descent), the only way to accomplish their goal was to limit the presidency to those with American parents (or father, if at the time that was the parent who passed citizenship).
Effectively, the “natural born citizen” standard limited the presidency to those who were at least second-generation Americans.
A child born to a British subject, particularly a British father, would not be a second-generation American on his father’s side.
What’s your legal basis for concluding that a mother’s citizenship determined “natural born” status (citizenship by operation of nature) as opposed to merely citizenship (by operation of law)?
You may be right, but I’d be interested in your evidence.
“The first is citizenship attained by operation of law (as your post amply proves). The second is citizenship attained by operation of nature(that is, by descent).”
Okay, now I see what’s up with the prepositions. You realize of course this has nothing to do with the Constitution.
“the Naturalization act of 2000 states that a child born before 1983 has citizenship determined by the father’s nationality.”
If that’s true, it runs aground on past SCOTUS decisions that held dual citizenship to be a non-issue.
“there is a difference between natural born and native born.”
Nothing!
“Any analysis must start with the framers’ intent, which clearly, according to the literature they created at the time, was to ensure that usurpers could not become President and, therefore, Commander in Chief.”
You mean like demanding presidents be born on U.S. soil?
Alright, let's go with your terminology then:
There are two types of citizenship status:
(1) Natural born citizenship. This status is attained upon birth by operation of nature (that is, by descent). No law has ever been required to deem the child of two Americans an American citizen, regardless of place of birth. (2) Naturalized citizenship. There are two types (subsets) of naturalized citizenship:
(a) Automatic naturalization at birth. This status is attained upon birth by operation of law. The children of aliens born within a country / kingdom were deemed citizens of that place solely because the sovereign chose to accord them citizenship. Sovereigns could have made a different choice, therefore proving that this status comes only through law, not through nature.
(b) Voluntary naturalization some time after birth. This status is attained later in life by operation of law and volition. As such, it also is not a status that occurs by nature.
While "natural" citizenship status and "automatic naturalization" status are both attained upon birth, they are not the same and should not be confused.
That said, there is only one difference between the "natural" status and the "automatic naturalization" status: that is, that only the former makes one eligible to serve as President.
The framers' goal was to limit the presidency, and particularly the office of Commander in Chief, essentially to those who were at least second-generation Americans. A child who is automatically naturalized at birth---i.e., who is an American because American law says he is, not because his parents were Americans---is a first-generation American. That was too close to the old country for the framers.
“By right of blood” is the same thing as using the word “nature,” only more archaic.
It’s appropriate to use the word “nature” because that’s what the framers used (”natural”).
You seem to have a problem with it because of your views on nature and theology. Sorry.
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