I was slumming over on Donofrio’s Native Born Citizen site trying to separate a little truth from fiction about our dearly departed President Chester A. Arthur and found that some of Donofrio’s information comes third hand from Mr. Arthur P. Hinman, who the New York times described back in the day as a “Democratic operative.” The times reported that Hinman came sniffing around Franklin County, Vermont (Arthur’s birthplace) looking for records.
ST. ALBANS, Vt., Dec. 21.–”A stranger arrived here a few days ago, and registered at the American House as A. P. Hinman, of New-York. Since then he has been very busy in the adjoining town of Fairfield, ostensibly collecting materials for a biography of Vice-President-elect Arthur. He has privately stated to leading Democratic citizens, however, that he is employed by the Democratic National Committee to obtain evidence to show that Gen. Arthur is an unnaturalized foreigner. He claims to have discovered that Gen. Arthur was born in Canada, instead of Fairfield; that his name is Chester Allen instead of Chester Abell [sic]; that he was 50 years old in July instead of October, as has been stated, and generally that he is an alien and ineligible to the office of Vice-President.
The New York Times, 1880
So we have a professional smearbot from the 19th century feeding into a 21st century controversy. Hinman published a little 90-paged book entitled How A British Subject Became President of the United States. One must greet Mr. Hinman with a good bit of skepticism because the thesis of his book was that President Arthur was born in Canada, which isn’t true according to Arthur biographers (including Thomas C. Reeves’ definitive biography Gentleman Boss).
How a British Subject became President of the United States (1884) is now available exclusively here at ObamaConspiracy.org (3.5 Mb). A higher resolution version is available upon request.
Chester Arthur birthplace in Fairfield, VT. Photo by Gerald L. Hann. Wikipedia.
Arthur’s name is Chester Alan Arthur. Arthur was a brigadier general in the New York Militia.
I had forgotten about Hinman’s hit piece of a book on then Vice President Arthur. That was a nice find on your part.
I assume you read it? Does Hinman discuss anywhere in his book that the citizenship status of Arthur’s parents might matter or is it all about his place of birth?
One argument that I had constantly with Birthers is that before 2008 and Donofrio no one assumed that the citizenship status of parents had anything to do with presidential eligibility. (except in the case of the children of foreign ambassadors or invading armies). There might have been one or two mentions of the theory but There are hundreds and hundreds of sources that say citizenship from birth on US soil is adequate.
Birthers were so deluded on this point that some claimed in comments that they learned in Civics classes that your parents had to be US citizens to be eligible to run for president. Yet when challenged on this point not one of them was ever able to produce a copy of a textbook that said that.