[MNDude]

I believe President Arthur had a foreign born parent

[freedumb2003]

I believe President Arthur had a foreign born parent

Another good reason people should LET IT GO.

[Kolokotronis]

Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) is the only president born of two immigrants, both Irish. Presidents with one immigrant parent are Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), whose mother was born in England, James Buchanan (1857-1861) and Chester Arthur (1881-1885), both of whom had Irish fathers, and Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), whose mothers were born respectively in England and Canada.

[Halcontent]

Chester Arthur was an unelected President and his lack of qualification was not known until after his term.
He hid the fact that he was a British subject by descent and a dual citizen at birth, if not for his entire life.

[sourcery]

The Presidency of Chester Arthur sets no precedents, neither de jure nor de facto. Without a court decision, there is no legal precedent. Without the public and Congress knowingly allowing Arthur to serve in spite of the fact his father was a British subject, there is no de facto precedent, either. And we know beyond any reasonable doubt that neither the public nor Congress knew about Arthur's father not being a citizen, because of an article published in The American Law Review in 1884, while Arthur was President.

The article was written by George D. Collins, Esq. Attorney Collins was the Secretary of the California Bar Association. His name was recognized nationally for cases in the federal courts and moreso due to his regular publishing of articles via The American Law review. The article was entitled "ARE PERSONS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IPSO FACTO CITIZENS THEREOF?", and was an in depth discussion and review of the legalities of US citizenship.

The article makes a compelling case that "natural born citizen" means exactly what de Vattel meant by "les naturels, ou indigenes": persons born on the soil of a nation both of whose parents were citizens of that same nation. But here's the point: There is no way the article could have been written, or published by the American Law Review, while the current sitting President is shown by the article to clearly fail the Constitutional requirement of being a natural born citizen, unless it was not generally known that such was the case. No way in Dante's Inferno could any such thing have happened, especially not in 1884!

[jaydee770]

MNDude wrote: "...I believe President Arthur had a foreign born parent..."

Spiro Agnew also had "natural-born" issues; however, past errors do not invalidate the U.S. Constitution, nor do they set a valid precident.

[NoLibZone]

That others were unable or unwilling to enforce the laws is of no use to conservatism.