America’s two unconstitutional Presidents
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(Updated in parenthesis. - Dianna Cotter 12-15-2009)
Students of history know that history repeats itself, and today we are reliving the past of 1880’s. Some of the similarities between the 21st President and the 44th are startling, and the ramifications are huge.
President Chester A. Arthur was the son of an Irish immigrant, William Arthur, and Vermonter, Malvina Stone. Arthur would tragically assume the Presidency upon the assassination of President Garfield in 1881 and become the 21st President. President Arthur was successful in keeping the secret of his heritage, and he died shortly after leaving the White House November 18, 1886. He served honorably and well as President of the United States, but was not Constitutionally Qualified for the Office of either Vice President or President, and set a precedent by which it would happen again.
During the campaign of 1880, questions were asked about Chester’s birth place, but just as today, those doing the research were looking in the wrong direction. Arthur’s father, William Arthur was a British citizen at the time of the future President’s birth. Born in Ballymena, Ireland in 1796 he would not become a Naturalized citizen until August 31st, 1843. No one ever checked into his immigration status at the time of his son’s birth. Chester Arthur, 14 at the time his father was naturalized, and would surely have known this. Sound somewhat familiar?
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, "Chester Alan Arthur Papers”. Microfiche Copy courtesy of Leo Donofrio Esq.
This document and its relevance have only recently been discovered. The President himself would not help matters any, he burned nearly all of his records and papers before he died in Nov. 1886, a year and a half after leaving office.
A lawyer and scholar by the name of George D. Collins Esq. wrote an article regarding citizenship during Arthur’s term, that had the President seen it, would have concerned him. “Are Persons born Within the United States Ipso Facto Citizens thereof?” was published in the American Law Review in Sept. /Oct. 1884. Collins thesis reverberates through history: “… are persons born within the United States, whose fathers at the time of such birth were aliens, citizens there of?” Collins relies on two sources in particular for his answer.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” -14th Amendment
He also draws upon “The Law of Nations” by Emerich Vattel written in 1758, on which the U.S. Constitution was largely based. Collins states in his article, the term “jurisdiction thereof” means “not subject to any foreign power”, citing Section 1992 in Section 1 of the new 14th Amendment. He quotes Vattel:
The native or natural citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. As the society can not exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation, and it is presumed as a matter of course that each citizen on entering into society reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. -Vattel
Collins concludes:
Birth, therefore, does not ipso facto confer citizenship, and it is essential in order that a person be a native or natural born citizen of the United States, that his father be at the time of the birth of such person a citizen thereof, or in the case he be illegitimate, that his mother be a citizen thereof at the time of such birth. – Collins
Had Collins known that President Arthur’s father was not a naturalized citizen at the time of Arthur’s birth, he would have correctly concluded that the President was not a natural born citizen and not eligible for the office. It was considered a matter of National security; the Commander in Chief should not be subject to any foreign power, and for that reason the “natural born” distinction is made.
Today, a direct and startlingly similar situation exists between President Arthur and President Obama. The 44th President was also born to a British citizen, not a naturalized citizen of the United States. For the same reasons both Presidents were not eligible for the office, the only difference lay in Barack Obama’s public admission of his father’s status:
When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.
Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982. -Fight the Smears
(Correction: The President's website has not been updated to include the information that his Kenyan Citizenship did not actually expire until 1984. The site misconstrued the Kenyan law, and FactCheck.org was forced to give credit for the correction to Leo Donofrio Esq. This has direct implications with regard to the British Nationality Act of 1981 which went into effect in 1983. Because his Kenyan Citizenship was still in effect in 1983, Obama may still be a Kenyan Citizen. Neither the President nor any of his surrogates have addressed this issue.)
This quote illustrates four things very clearly. First, the President is the son of a British Kenyan. Second, his citizenship in Kenya expired in 1982, meaning that another country had a claim on the President from birth to 23 and he could choose to keep it as an adult. The third is unstated; the President’s British citizenship can still be formalized. The fourth issue it states very clearly. At birth, Barack Obama was subject to the power of a foreign nation, “The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr. ‘s children.” and therefore was not at any time a natural born citizen due to his triple nationality status, and he knows it.
The President has spent a million dollars fighting various court cases across the country, not so much to keep his past hidden, but to keep people focused on what they think he is hiding. What is relevant is what he has admitted out in the open. The President at birth was an American citizen, a British citizen and a Kenyan citizen. At no time in his life has he ever been a natural born citizen of the United States. Barack Obama was a subject of two separate foreign powers in the instant of his birth.
Barack Obama has hidden the truth right in the open, it has never been an issue of where he was born, it was who he is the son of. A British, Kenyan National. In the instant when Citizenship is decided, birth, he was British, Kenyan, and American. By definition, a person cannot be a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America while at the instant of their birth also being the citizen of any other Nation. A citizen? Yes, but not one that is solely native, solely natural, to the United States, and the United States alone.
The "President" has fought attempts to reveal his birth and other records. He has done so for the singular reason to keep people focused on what he is hiding, rather than the relevance of what he has admitted in the open. This is the relevance of Barack Obama's Heritage.
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