Why won't Mr. Arthur reveal his birth certificate...?
Close. The
question asked was "Why in —— don't the General come out and say where he was born, and put an end to all this mystery?" Birth certificates weren't as common back then, when people were still born at home. Births and significant events were often recorded in the family bible.
If you're into history, the parallels between the Obama and Arthur not "naturally born" claims are eerily similar. They were raised by a lawyer who claimed to be from then-Vice Presidential nominee Arthur's party (Republican). That lawyer later published a book,
How A British Subject Became President of the United States, about the claim after Arthur became President due to Garfield's assassination. Inconsistent claims were made that President Arthur was born in Ireland or Canada. Plus, Arthur's mother was born in New Hampshire, anyway, probably making the whole point moot. (His father was an itinerant preacher who moved from congregation to congregation - but unlike Obama's dad, didn't leave him. That, plus an apparent lie about Arthur's year of birth, made the claim plausible). And there were even claims that Chester wasn't President Arthur's real first name.
Edited to add: More
here (continued
here) from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, republishing its earlier 1880 coverage of the issue after President Garfield's assassination and death.
That the doctor who was present at Chester Arthur's birth attested he was born in Vermont still wasn't enough for the lawyer, who published the
book in 1884 (which was even circulated to delegates at the Republican National Convention that year).
Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems.
