THE BIRTHER CONTROVERSY CONTINUES UNRESOLVED

Despite all of the rhetoric to the contrary, there still remains a reasonable possibility that a person served as President of the United States illegally because he was not a natural-born citizen as required by the U.S. Constitution. The individual in question is, of course, Chester Alan Arthur, who, as Vice-President, was sworn into the Presidency in 1881 as a result of the assassination of  President James Garfield. Rumors abounded in the 1880 election that Arthur was actually born in Canada, instead of the sleepy village of Fairfield, Vermont some fifteen miles south of the Canadian-U.S. border. 

Arthur's father was originally from Ireland before he came to the New World to serve as a teacher and clergyman in southern Canada and northern Vermont. Purportedly, his son born in Fairfield was Chester Abell Arthur and died shortly thereafter. The birthers believe that the next son, Chester Alan Arthur (who eventually become President), was born in Canada during an 18-month period when his mother resided in that country with her parents while Arthur's father was on the road.

The opposing political party (i.e. the Democrats) tried to make as much political hay as possible with these allegations when Arthur was on the ticket as the Vice-President in 1880; however, most persons presumed that Garfield would be serving his full term and really did not care that much about the Vice-Presidential candidates. During a speech to his supporters shortly after the 1880 election, Arthur coyly stated, "I don’t think we had better go into the minute secrets of the campaign, so far as I know them… while I don’t mean to say anything about my birthplace, whether it was in Canada or elsewhere, still, if I should get to going about the secrets of the campaign, there is no saying what I might say to make trouble between now and the 4th of March [Inauguration Day]." Arthur never did 'fess up about his birthplace and burned all of his personal papers prior to his death.

It is quite possible that Arthur himself did not know where he was born. He had no birth certificate, and his family freely traveled to different locations in Canada and Vermont around the time of his birth (whenever that was--even historians do not all agree as to whether it was 1829 or 1830). Records from that era are very sparse and not all that helpful.

Well, was Arthur born in Canada? The evidence is not conclusive either way. However, I do feel obligated to point out that the "Chester A. Arthur Birthplace" in Fairfield was renamed by the State of Vermont to the "Chester A. Arthur State Historic Site."