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
And there are tens of millions, if not over a hundred million, people who meet the definition of natural born citizen. Thus this isn’t a wholesale discrimination - it just narrows the field for president down to maybe half the population at least.
Fortunately or unfortunately, does that mean we’d get President Biden instead of President Obama?
I think that depends whether the electors get a chance to vote for Obama or not.
That’s a case you could cite in a debate over illegal aliens (for your Arizonan jurists—”undocumented immigrants”) and the 14th Amendment, but what pertinence does it have to Article Two and the issue: Is B. Obama a natural born citizen?
http://federalistblog.us/2006/12/us_v_wong_kim_ark_can_never_be_considered.html
Well, I can clearly see why he gave up practicing law.
You’re kidding, right?
You see no room for argument in Article II, Section I, the rest of us see *no definition* of “natural born citizen” in Article II, Section I.
The Constitution simply states the standard. It does nothing to explain what it means.
And as for those “citizens at the time of the adoption of this Constitution”? They are all a little bit dead by now. This provision was a one-time grandfathering in of the people who were not natural born citizens because their parents were not Americans, nor had America even existed at the time of their birth.
It in no way opened eligibility to be president up in the future to non-natural born citizens. Once that generation was gone, the only standard for eligibility was “natural born citizen.”
Like I said before...This must have some merit.
The “Obots” seem to be coming to us ,asking questions
The Constitution does not define "natural born". However, with very narrow exceptions, it makes anyone born in the US a citizen at birth, and a citizen at birth is natural born. And a natural born citizen is eligible to be president if over the age of 35. The fact that another country may also claim him as a citizen is irrelevant. Thus, there was no problem with Chester Arthur's eligibility (although his electability might have suffered if he had been caught hiding his background).
A person who was not a citizen at birth may later become a citizen through the naturalization process. However, such a person may not be president.
I would think the Supreme Court would want to hear this case..but I fear that won't happen.
Here is another interesting excerpt:
As mentioned earlier, the Supreme Court had already tackled the meaning of the 14th amendment’s citizenship clause prior to Wong Kim Ark, and unlike the Kim Ark court, did consider the intent and meaning of the words by those who introduced the language of the clause. In the Slaughterhouse cases the court noted “[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”
http://federalistblog.us/2006/12/us_v_wong_kim_ark_can_never_be_considered.html
But no one is arguing that Obama is not a citizen. Donofrio claims he is not a “natural born citizen” whiich is mentioned but not explained in the constitution.
No, it’s just confusing. ;)
And here’s why:
First, no one knows for sure what the standard is. The Supreme Court has never squarely addressed what it takes to be eligible for the presidency as a “natural born citizen.” (And it’s not defined in the Constitution.)
Secondly, it’s confusing because if there is a distinction between being “naturally” a citizen (by descent) and “legally” a citizen (by operation of law), both are attained upon birth.
IOW, if your parents are American citizens when you are born, you are an American citizen upon birth simply because they are, and regardless of where you were born.
If you parents are not Americans citizens when you are born, but you are born in the U.S., you are an American citizen upon birth because U.S. law says you are.
So both citizenship statuses are attained upon birth. That’s confusing.
Moreover, there is **NO DIFFERENCE** between these two citizenships EXCEPT in one rather remote and specific circumstance that doesn’t affect most people: one’s eligibility to serve as president.
The argument is that only those who attained citizenship by descent (and, therefore, are at least second-generation Americans) are eligible. Those who attained citizenship by law (such as “anchor babies”) are not eligible (though their children, obviously, might be).
Since these statuses are in all ways the same except in regard to eligibility to serve as president, it’s easy to confuse the two and read caselaw as pertaining to both when it really might only pertain to citizenship by operation of law.
Apparently, Congress can rule Obama is a natural born citizen even if born in Kenya if they so choose.
Of course, this is Wikipedia so it may not be correct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen
Section 8 of Article I confers on Congress the power “to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization...” This power has been construed to include defining the characteristics of a “natural born citizen”, as well as the conditions of “naturalization”.
The 1790 Congress, many of whose members had been members of the Constitutional Convention, provided in the Naturalization Act of 1790 that “And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” In addition George Washington was president of the Constitutional Convention and President of the United States when this bill became law. If Washington disagreed with this definition, he could have vetoed this bill. However, in 1795 the Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1795 which removed the words “natural born” from this statement to state that such children born to citizens beyond the seas are citizens of the U.S., but are not legally to be considered “natural born citizens” of the U.S. This was done to clarify for those living at that time who was and who was not a “natural born citizen” per the framers intent at that time, since the 1790 Act had introduced confusion into that subject in regards to the use of those words in the Constitution. George Washington was also President in 1795, and thus he was aware of this change. And if he disagreed with the clarification and change in the wording in the new act in 1795, he would have vetoed the Naturalization Act of 1795.
What is your legal and/or constitutional basis for this conclusion?
I’m going to check that out now.
Obama either was or was not a citizen at birth. If he was not a citizen at birth, then not only is he not eligible to serve as president, he's not a citizen at all!
You sound like a lawyer and from your ID maybe you are a military lawyer.
I think your post should be linked when trying to explain this to Obamatrons who come to this site.
It is a confusing issue to most..and perhaps even to some lawyers.
“The `Obots’ seem to be coming to us”
As a political matter, for the past several months we’ve had McCainiacs screaming at us that if we didn’t support the GOP—e.g. “Not voting for McCain is a vote for Obama!”—we’d be stuck with Obama.
Now that we (conservatives and McCain supporters: united at last, or we should be) have an opportunity to toss this unabashed marxist out on his ear—while defending the Constitution, I’ll add—I can’t understand the adamant defense of the man.
Is it a hangover from the attempt by Romneybots, Huckleberries, Paulists and Fredheads to paint Juan as not a NBC? Time to move on!
To give the “Obots” the benefit of the doubt, OK—they are genuinely concerned about the Constitution. If that’s the case, then Article Two says, “natural born citizen”. Let that be the `polestar’ and let’s drop all this: “He was born in Hawaii (we don’t know that he was) or “His Mom was American... “ (see the statute) or “Gee, the liberals will be mighty unhappy ........ screw them and the Hawaiian/Kenyan/Indonesian they rode in on!
You are correct in your statement that he is not eligible if not a citizen. However, the question becomes is he eligible if he is native born but not natural born...and what is the definition of natural born.
The meaning of natural born goes beyond just being born on US soil, but also not having dual loyalties, one where your born and one by parental citizenship.
To be natural born, first BOTH parents must be US citizens, and then to be born on US soil.
Obama, even if he was born in Hawaii, was not natural born because his father, being Kenyan, was a British citizen at the time.
Also, I believe Obamas mother couldn't pass citizenship on to Barack as she wasn't a US citizen the required time.
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