Like many people I thought this case of the “certificate gate” or whatever was unique and the first time we as a country had faced this particular challenge. Wrong!
Over the course of our history this issue has come up before. (Yet no one has done anything about creating a method for preventing it.)
I’m not talking about Roger Calero, the candidate from the Socialist Workers Party, who has been on the ballot in the previous two elections in spite of the fact that it is well known that he was born in Nicaragua and is not even a citizen but a permanent resident alien and therefore ineligible. (He has a green card) That is a different story. Though one can’t help but wonder why would he run knowing he is ineligible and why would his party put him on the ballot knowing this? (Shouldn’t there be some recourse against this as it is fraud of the highest degree?)
I’m referring to President #21, Chester Arthur, who apparently became President when one of his ardent supporters shot and killed President Garfield making Arthur, then Vice President, the President.
Apparently there was some question as to whether or not he met the “natural born” qualification and it was a very similar argument to the one the Supreme Court Justices are hearing in a conference today. Eerily similar in many ways.
As many already know Leo C. Donofrio, an attourney from New Jersey, has filed a lawsuit to stop the Electoral College from casting their votes for Barrack Obama under the claims that he is not a “natural born citizen” under the law and that even if he was born in Hawaii, Mr. Donofrio assumes that he was unless the evidence shows otherwise, he is a dual citizen due to his father being a British/Kenyan citizen and his mother, a US citizen was not old enough at the time to have legally passed her citizenship on to her son.
There IS a precedent for this line of thinking which the case of Chester Arthur shows. There is also a similar pattern of trying to cover one’s tracks as you will see in the story I’m linking to below.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/president-chester-arthur-et-al-why-they-aren%e2%80%99t-precedent-for-obama%e2%80%99s-eligibility/
Chester Arthur …or the strange lies of our 21st President
And here we have a very interesting story full of intrigue. Arthur became President when one of his supporters shot President Garfield with an exclamation of joy that Arthur would now be President.
More relevant to our discussion is that during his Vice-Presidential campaign, Chester Arthur was accused by an attorney named Arthur Hinman of having been born abroad. But there was absolutely no merit to the charge. Hinman first accused Chester of being born in Ireland, then he switched his claim to Canada. Hinman, a new York lawyer, wrote an accusatory pamphlet under the heading, “How A British Subject Became A President of the United States.”
The definitive biography on Chester Arthur is “Gentleman Boss” by Thomas Reeves. It’s an exhaustive reference chock full of notes. 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. Also, Chester Arthur 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 to Canada in 1821. They had their first child, Regina in Dunham, Canada on March 8, 1822.
THE MYSTERY – When was William Arthur naturalized? I don’t know. The only reference historian I know who ventured a date said it was 1843, but that historian also said he got that from “Gentleman Boss” and I could not find such a reference in the book. I spent a few hours with the book today. I examined every reference to William in the index and also went over the early years with a microscope. No reference to the naturalization date.
FACTS
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.
It gets interesting here because of the Naturalization Act of 1802. That act set the requisite of five years residence in the United States for those who wanted to become naturalized citizens. Doing the math, we know that William Arthur had moved to Vermont no later than 1824. Chester was born in October 1829. So if William had taken action on being naturalized in his first year, then he very well could have been a US citizen when Arthur was born. William studied law and taught school before he became a preacher in 1827, so he should have been familiar with the process of acquiring citizenship.
CHESTER ARTHUR’S FIRST LIE
From “Gentleman Boss”, page 5… regarding Chester’s birthday:
“…on October 5, 1829, Malvina Arthur gave birth to her fifth child. (The traditional date 1830 is incorrect. Arthur made himself a year younger, no doubt out of simply vanity, some time between 1870 and 1880…)”
Perhaps it was out of vanity, but perhaps he had a more sinister motive. Reeves establishes Chester changed his date in the decade of his most serious political career, 1770-1780. Chester was also a very skilled New York lawyer. If he had a problem with his father’s naturalization date, then moving back his birthday by a year might have fixed it. We will revisit this later. Suspend judgment for now.
CHESTER ARTHUR’S SECOND LIE
And this is where our villain Hinman returns. But was he a villain to Arthur? Hinman made a big stink in various New York publications alleging that Chester Arthur was born abroad as a British subject, much like those who are trying to say Obama is not a US citizen. It wasn’t true. Chester was born in Vermont. But this scandal had the effect of keeping public attention off of the issue of whether Chester Arthur’s father William was a British subject which would have made Chester a British subject “at birth” even though he was born in Vermont.
Does any of this sound familiar?
From “Gentleman Boss”, page 202 and 203:
“…Hinman was hired, apparently by democrats, to explore rumors that Arthur had been born in a foreign country, was not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and was thus, by the Constitution, ineligible for the vice-presidency. By mid-August, Hinman was claiming that Arthur was born in Ireland and had been brought to the United States by his father when he was fourteen. Arthur denied the charge and said that his mother was a New Englander who had never left her native country — a statement every member of the Arthur family knew was untrue.”
His mother had lived in Canada with her husband and had her first child there. This was a blatant lie.
CHESTER ARTHUR’S THIRD LIE
In the the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, an article interviewing Chester Arthur about Hinman’s accusations was published on August 13, 1880. In that article, Chester Arthur defended himself as follows:
“My father, the late Rev. William Arthur, D.D., was of Scotch blood, and was a native of the North of Ireland. He came to this country when he was eighteen years of age, and resided here several years before he was married.”
This was another blatant lie. His father emigrated from Ireland to Canada at the age of 22 or 23. William Arthur didn’t come to the United States until sometime between March 1822 – when his first child was born in Dunham, Canada – and March 1824 – when his second child was born in Burlington, Vermont. The youngest he could have been when he came to Vermont was 26. So, a third blatant lie.
CONCLUSIONS
I think we’ve discovered a bit of esoteric history tonight. I’ve not seen this analysis elsewhere.
It looks like Chester Arthur had something to hide. He burned all of his papers (but the family Bible survived). He moved his age back a year. I think vanity is a poor excuse. Only one year? He lied about his mother’s time in Canada. He lied about his father’s time in Canada.
By obscuring his parents’ past lives and time in Canada, he would have clouded all attempts at researching when his father naturalized. Think about the time period. He ran for Vice-President in 1880. His father, being a law student, and moving his family to the United States, would have probably naturalized as soon as possible. But it might not have been soon enough to make old Chester a natural born citizen.
As discussed above, the time frame between William Arthur’s five year residence requirement being met and the day Chester was born were probably very close.
Then when Chester runs for VP, Hinman comes along basically demanding to see Chester’s birth certificate to prove he was born in the United States. This causes a minor scandal easily thwarted by Chester, because Chester was born in Vermont…but at the same time the fake scandal provides cover for the real scandal.
William Arthur was probably not a naturalized citizen at the time of Chester Arthur’s birth, and therefore Chester Arthur would have been a British subject at birth and not eligible to be Vice President or President.
Regardless, Chester Arthur lied through his teeth about his father’s emigration to Canada and the time his mother spent there married to William. Some sixty years later, Chester lied about all of this and kept his candidacy on track. Back then it would have been impossible to see through this, especially since Arthur’s father had died in 1875 as a United States citizen. Had anybody been suspicious, Arthur having changed his age by a year could have protected his eligibility. And without knowledge of his father’s time in Canada, researchers in 1880 would have been hard pressed to even know where to start.
Because Chester Arthur lied about his father, any precedent he might have set for Obama is nullified completely as it appears Chester Arthur may have been a usurper to the Presidency. Eventually we will probably unearth William Arthur’s naturalization records.
While he did move around alot, he was a resident of Fairfield, Franklin County Vermont, between 1829 when Chester was born, and 1832 when Malvina Almeda was born. This is the most likely time period for his naturalization. The official word from Franklin County was a fast, “We don’t have naturalization records for William Arthur.”
I have a strong feeling we’ve uncovered the truth about Chester Arthur. Looks like he was the only ineligible President we’ve ever had. And he got away with it through his lies. But the light has a way of finding the darkness.
It’s no precedent to follow.
Leo C. Donofrio
This is an excerpt but if you go follow the link above to Leo’s site and this post you will find information about other US presidents who’s parents were not US citizens at birth and their eigibilty status and the methods of determining that. You will see it’s a well written article and he has certainly done his research.
Aside from that is anyone else bothered by the similarity in the story of President Arthur’s “cover-up” of the pertinent facts and the big Zero’s lame attempts to foil the truth?
When you are finished reading that interesting piece you should give the following one a read. It deals with the ramifications and consequences of a President Obama should he be determined to be ineligible for office. it gets worse the longer it goes on and would have a staggering effect on our country in many ways.
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=20210273
Here’s an excerpt for you but you will want to read the entire article to get the whole picture.
Edwin Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who has practiced for 30 years and holds four degrees from Harvard, said if it were to be discovered Mr. Obama were not eligible for the presidency, it would cause many problems. They would be compounded if his ineligibility were discovered after he had been in office for a period of time.
“Let’s assume he wasn’t born in the U.S.,” Mr. Vieira told The Bulletin. “What’s the consequence? He will not be eligible. That means he cannot be elected validly. The people and the Electoral College cannot overcome this and the House of Representatives can’t make him president. So what’s the next step? He takes the oath of office, and assuming he’s aware he’s not a citizen, then it’s a perjured oath.”
Any appointments made by an ineligible president would have to be recalled, and their decisions would be invalidated.
“He may have nominated people to different positions; he may have nominated people to the judicial branch, who may have been confirmed, they may have gone out on (e)xecutive duty and done various things,” said Mr. Vieira. “The people that he’s put into the judicial branch may have decided cases, and all of that needs to be unzipped.”
Mr. Vieira said Obama supporters should be the ones concerned about the case, because Mr. Obama’s platform would be discredited it he were forced to step down from the presidency later due to his ineligibility, were it to be discovered.
“Let’s say we go a year into this process, and it all turns out to be a flim-flam,” said Mr. Vieira. “What’s the nation’s reaction to that? What’s going to be the reaction in the next U.S. election? God knows. It has almost revolutionary consequences, if you think about it.”
Mr. Vieira said Mr. Obama’s continued silence and avoidance in the release of his birth certificate is an ethical issue because of the dire consequences that could be caused by a possible constitutional crisis.
“If he were my client and this question came up in civil litigation, if there was some reason that his birth status was relevant and the other side wanted him to produce the thing and he said ‘no,’ I would tell him, ‘you have about 15 minutes to produce it or sign the papers necessary to produce the document, or I’m resigning as your attorney,” said Mr. Vieira. “I don’t think any ethical attorney would go ahead on the basis that his client could produce an objective document in civil litigation [and refused to do so].”
And rightly so in my opinion. it is an ethical issue as well as simple matter of respect for our country and it’s laws not to mention our Constitution. Mr. Obama has shown a distinct lack of respect as far as many are concerned, even for his own supporters who deserve to know there are no doubts and he is legitimate if that is the case.
Furthermore, what is it that he is hiding? What possible harm could come of letting the documentation be examined and verified by officials? If he meets the requirement then why not shout it from the mountain tops and remove all doubts?
Continuing to spend huge sums of money in an effort to avoid showing proof only makes it appear that the suspicions could be true. It would be in the best interest of the country and Mr. Obama to clear this matter up and the sooner the better. Unless, of course, he can’t.
Man up Mr. Obama. if you are qualified and eligible then prove it because this controversy will never go away until you do.
CQ
Read Full Post »
