User:Arne Eickenberg/Chester Arthur

Arthur P. Hinman: The initial controversy
During Chester Arthur's Vice-Presidential campaign alongside James A. Garfield, Arthur P. Hinman, an attorney who had been hired by members of the Democratic party, explored the "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." When Hinman's initial claim of a birth in Ireland failed to gain traction, he maintained instead that Arthur was born in Canada and lobbied the press for support while searching in vain for Arthur's birth records. Hinman's allegations were widely known due to several national publications. In 1881 the New York Sun maintained after an independent inquest that Hinman's claims were unsubstantiated.

Hinman's new theory: Chester Abell Arthur
After Arthur had become President due to Garfield's assassination, Hinman resumed his research and published a booklet that was aimed at casting doubt on Arthur's presidential eligibility during his re-election campaign. Since President Arthur was disowned by his party and did not run for a second term, Hinman's pamphlet went widely unnoticed.

XYZ: Content of Hinman's book

Historiography
There are no official records of Arthur's birth in Vermont because neither the state nor the town of Fairfield began receiving and archiving birth records before 1857. The Arthurs' family bible provides the only information that Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, and the majority of his biographers has never argued or assumed otherwise.

Vermont Historical Society debate.

Presidential biographer Richard L. Tobin reported on Hinman's accusations and stated that it is "conceivable that Chester Alan Arthur was […] literally ineligible for the office". Thomas C. Reeves dismissed Hinman's theory, but noted that

1829 accepted (Reeves, family bible: 1829, but no Chester Abell Arthur, only doctor, p. 435)

Legal situation: Ius soli and foreign birth
Naturalization Acts 1790 & 1795

British subjecthood
Due to the public focus on Hinman's allegations regarding Chester Arthur's foreign place of birth, it remained unknown during the Garfield campaign that Arthur was nevertheless a natural-born subject of the British crown by ius sanguinis, because his British-Irish father William Arthur had not naturalized as a U.S. citizen until August 1843, fourteen years after Chester Arthur's birth, and was at best a denizen of the State of Vermont at the time of Arthur's birth.

Legal situation: Ius sanguinis and foreign subjects
Neither the law nor any federal court ruling in the United States has ever determined whether a natural-born British subject like Chester Arthur can at the same time also be a natural born citizen of the United States, which is one of the constitutional requirements for the offices of President and Vice-President. It is equally unclear whether Arthur was even a U.S. citizen at birth, because until the Civil Rights Act of 1866 there had been no federal citizenship rule for U.S. territory. He may have been born a subject of Vermont with British citizenship under the common law of the state, but the Fourteenth Amendment, which introduced ius soli into the United States Constitution, was ratified and adopted not until forty years after Arthur's birth. Even if applied retroactively, the 14th Amendment only covers born and naturalized citizens under complete U.S. jurisdiction in accordance with Section 1992 of the XZY, whereas Arthur's status at birth was governed by British common law.

George D. Collins, "Are Persons Born Within the United States Ipso Facto Citizens Thereof", in: The American Law Review Vol. 18, September/October 1884, p. 831 sqq.

(1) Arthur still Prez; according to Collins' own arguments, Prez Arthur would have been ineligible; but he didn't mention him, so he can't have known about his British subjecthood (2) Natural born citizens are not the same as natural born subjects (3) Framers followed the law of nations, which stated in vattel xyz

Vice-Presidential campaign: The Brooklyn Eagle debate
During his Vice-Presidential campaign Arthur continuously gave false information on his family's history, thereby obscuring the circumstances and chronology of his own birth. Arthur knew of Hinman and his allegations and defended himself against the original claim that he was not a native-born citzen by stating that his father "came to this country when he was eighteen years of age, and resided here several years before he was married", whereas in reality his father William emigrated from Ireland to Canada at the age of 22 or 23. Arthur further claimed 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." In a second interview he repeated some of the historical revisions and further stated that his father had been forty years of age at the time of his birth, which was revealed by Hinman to be a lie.

Forged year of birth
Somewhere between 1870 and 1880 Chester Arthur had created 1830 as a false year of his birth, which caused considerable biographical confusion, because it has been quoted in several publications to this day and had also been engraved on his tombstone (see image). Arthur's motivation for the one-year change from 1829 to 1830 is unknown, but he had four possible reasons:
 * 1) The confusion about the correct year of birth kept Arthur's later biographers occupied with the imperfections of his biography and obscured his father's citizenship history.
 * 2) The change from 1829 to 1830 was made out of vanity.
 * 3) Abell connection
 * 4) jurisdiction/denizenship connection

Presidency: Chester Arthur, Justice Horace Gray and Wong Kim Ark
In 1882 Chester Arthur nominated Horace Gray as U.S. Supreme Court Justice. In 1884 the Supreme Court ruled in Elk v. Wilkins that a person born in the United States, who is also a subject to a foreign power, is not a U.S. citizen. One month later Chester Arthur addressed the topic of citizenship in his 1884 State of the Union address.

(1) referred to Section 1992 "born in US subject to foreign power" (2) admonished that the uniform naturalization rule also define status of those persons (3) Since Arthur was a NBS of UK, his speech is proof that he believed he was neither natural-born nor a 14th Amendment citizen and had only naturalized under section 1234 upon his father's naturalization

Gray, whose seminal decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark extended the right of 14th Amendment citizenship to children born on U.S. territory of foreign parents, who have permanent residence and domicile in the United States. If Arthur, by appointing Gray, ever intended to sanitize his problematic status with regard to natural born citizenship, he failed posthumously, because the court only ruled that Wong Kim Ark was a citizen, while Gray in fact indicated that Wong Kim Ark was not natural born.

Gray: legitimize his own appointment retroactively

Aftermath: The lost records
Shortly before his death Arthur caused several Presidential materials, which had been in his private possession, to be destroyed, while other historical documents pertaining to Arthur's life and presidency were lost for unknown reasons.