An Example of Ad Hominem: The Birther Argument
We've been on the Ad Hominem for a few posts by now and it will end soon, but first we must consider the use of the Ad Hominem and how can create an effect. The important thing to remember is that a fallacious ad hominem argument doesn't need to be false, the truth value of the attack is irrelevant to the argument. What matters, and this is important, is that relevance.
The Birther Argument is the argument that the former president of the United States, was not a naturalized citizen, and thus unfit to serve the office. This presents a good litmus test for Ad Hominem because, like it or hate it, it is relevant. The Constitution is very specific on this point, that only a naturalized (that is to say, a person born within the legal definition of the United States--this includes embassies and military bases) citizen can serve the office. In the 18th century, this was a law that made a great deal of sense. The framers of the Constitution did not want someone with ties to a foreign monarchy occupying the executive branch. This, they felt, would compromise that person's ability to keep the interest of the United States at the forefront of their decisions. It still matters now, we wouldn't want someone with a loyalty to, say, Venezuela, in charge of the government. This aligns with the many legal restrictions on the office itself: not allowing the president to profit from being president so that he would put the country first, the office second, and himself somewhere way down the list.
Thus making sure that the president is a naturalized citizen is important. So the idea that the president was born in a foreign country, with misplaced loyalty, and to a foreign religion (despite the fact that the Constitution expressly forbids religious tests for government) really matters from a legal standpoint. However the issue is usually one that self-corrects. If a person did not meet this requirement they wouldn't run for office. A twenty year old is going to run because you have to be 35, it just wouldn't make sense. Obama isn't going to run for a third term because it's impossible that he could take the office, just as former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't going to run either as he's clearly from the future.
The problem with the Birther argument is that it's not really a question about the legality of the person in office so much as it's about stoking animosity towards the person based on a xenophobic attitude at the time. So let's take a look at our prime example:
Arthur Hinman's accusation that President Chester A. Arthur was born in Ireland and not the United States. Arthur was born in Vermont in 1829, and his childhood was full of moving from one place to another first when he was three years old, and several times to towns in Vermont and Upstate New York. They finally settled in Schenectady New York. These frequent moves, which are uneventful now, mattered as the record keeping from the era is not as robust as they are now. However, because of this, the accusation that Arthur was born in a different country was more plausible with him lacking whatever records people had at that time.
Hinman disagrees with this story. In his book "How a British Subject Became President of the United States" he claims that anyone who recollects the birth of Chester A. Arthur is probably mistaken because the boy who was born in November of 1830 shortly died. This means that the Chester A. Arthur who became president was not the one born to the Arthur family, rather it is someone else. From there the book loses track of itself and begins to detail the corruption in New York City at the time under William "Boss" Tweed. It's a series of accusations that Chester A. Arthur is alleged to have participated in. I, cannot speak to these accusations as I'm not a historian of this era of New York City. Whether they are true or not, I leave to others. What's interesting about this section though is that the "birther" stuff isn't necessary. We ought to know that Boss Tweed and Tamanay Hall were notoriously corrupt, and that if Arthur had a hand in it, participated in it, or benefitted from it, those are crimes. While they wouldn't make him necessarily unfit to be president, they might be enough to dissuade voters from electing him. The birther stuff just isn't necessary.
Following the brief details of his political career Hinman returns to the Birther argument. He cites a citizen of Stanbridge, Canada: Erastus Chandler who remembers meeting William Arthur in 1819 and described him as a lame Irishman who was prone to drink. Another man, Joseph Baker, remembers William Arthur as also a lame Irishman who drank as well. Baker recalled meeting William and toasting a glass of whiskey on the birth of the Arthur's daughter. Letters buttressing his claim are then presented, but each of them show a lack of information. One such letter states that the ministers of the town of Stanbridge (where Hinman believes Arthur to have lived during the birth of his first daughter) were possibly neglectful in depositing duplicates of all birth registries--thus the search was empty...they couldn't find the long form certificates apparently.
What the book proves, is that William Arthur was Irish, his wife a Scot, and that he lived in Canada for a bit after converting to Christian Baptist. The biggest thing that Arthur proves, again, is that William was an Irishman and liked his whiskey (because he's a person). The possibility that President Arthur was born in Canada does exist, but it's not proven at all thus we must reject it. Hinman, a lawyer hired by the Democrats to investigate Arthur's background is obviously committed to this theory. His first claim was the president was born in Ireland, which is clearly not the case. Hinman's own book, the one that advances this claim, disproves it as numerous letters he cites put William Arthur in North America at the time of his first child's birth. He later shifted the actual birth place to Canada as William had actually been there at the time.
Why any of this though? Because the Arthurs were Irish and at the time, the Irish were the anti-immigration victims and would be until the Italians started coming over. As anti-Irish sentiment was up, attaching the son of an Irish-Canadian immigrant to Irish citizenship thus British citizenship would have the effect of getting some people to vote against the immigrant who came to steal their jobs. It's the only reason that this accusation makes sense, if the Democratic party of the time really thought Arthur was born in either Canada or Ireland they would have filed suit. The fact that they didn't while still paying Hinman for research means that they knew and didn't care. It was slander enough. To be fair to the Democrats, they didn't publicly endorse this position but they also seem to have neglected to repudiate it as well. A good thing something like this never happened again...until my next post.
Bibliography:
Hinman, Arthur: "How A British Subject Became President of the United States" 1884. Link
https://www.scribd.com/doc/18450082/Arthur-Hinman-How-a-British-Subject-Became-President-of-the-United-States
The Birther Argument is the argument that the former president of the United States, was not a naturalized citizen, and thus unfit to serve the office. This presents a good litmus test for Ad Hominem because, like it or hate it, it is relevant. The Constitution is very specific on this point, that only a naturalized (that is to say, a person born within the legal definition of the United States--this includes embassies and military bases) citizen can serve the office. In the 18th century, this was a law that made a great deal of sense. The framers of the Constitution did not want someone with ties to a foreign monarchy occupying the executive branch. This, they felt, would compromise that person's ability to keep the interest of the United States at the forefront of their decisions. It still matters now, we wouldn't want someone with a loyalty to, say, Venezuela, in charge of the government. This aligns with the many legal restrictions on the office itself: not allowing the president to profit from being president so that he would put the country first, the office second, and himself somewhere way down the list.
Thus making sure that the president is a naturalized citizen is important. So the idea that the president was born in a foreign country, with misplaced loyalty, and to a foreign religion (despite the fact that the Constitution expressly forbids religious tests for government) really matters from a legal standpoint. However the issue is usually one that self-corrects. If a person did not meet this requirement they wouldn't run for office. A twenty year old is going to run because you have to be 35, it just wouldn't make sense. Obama isn't going to run for a third term because it's impossible that he could take the office, just as former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't going to run either as he's clearly from the future.
The problem with the Birther argument is that it's not really a question about the legality of the person in office so much as it's about stoking animosity towards the person based on a xenophobic attitude at the time. So let's take a look at our prime example:
Arthur Hinman's accusation that President Chester A. Arthur was born in Ireland and not the United States. Arthur was born in Vermont in 1829, and his childhood was full of moving from one place to another first when he was three years old, and several times to towns in Vermont and Upstate New York. They finally settled in Schenectady New York. These frequent moves, which are uneventful now, mattered as the record keeping from the era is not as robust as they are now. However, because of this, the accusation that Arthur was born in a different country was more plausible with him lacking whatever records people had at that time.
Hinman disagrees with this story. In his book "How a British Subject Became President of the United States" he claims that anyone who recollects the birth of Chester A. Arthur is probably mistaken because the boy who was born in November of 1830 shortly died. This means that the Chester A. Arthur who became president was not the one born to the Arthur family, rather it is someone else. From there the book loses track of itself and begins to detail the corruption in New York City at the time under William "Boss" Tweed. It's a series of accusations that Chester A. Arthur is alleged to have participated in. I, cannot speak to these accusations as I'm not a historian of this era of New York City. Whether they are true or not, I leave to others. What's interesting about this section though is that the "birther" stuff isn't necessary. We ought to know that Boss Tweed and Tamanay Hall were notoriously corrupt, and that if Arthur had a hand in it, participated in it, or benefitted from it, those are crimes. While they wouldn't make him necessarily unfit to be president, they might be enough to dissuade voters from electing him. The birther stuff just isn't necessary.
Following the brief details of his political career Hinman returns to the Birther argument. He cites a citizen of Stanbridge, Canada: Erastus Chandler who remembers meeting William Arthur in 1819 and described him as a lame Irishman who was prone to drink. Another man, Joseph Baker, remembers William Arthur as also a lame Irishman who drank as well. Baker recalled meeting William and toasting a glass of whiskey on the birth of the Arthur's daughter. Letters buttressing his claim are then presented, but each of them show a lack of information. One such letter states that the ministers of the town of Stanbridge (where Hinman believes Arthur to have lived during the birth of his first daughter) were possibly neglectful in depositing duplicates of all birth registries--thus the search was empty...they couldn't find the long form certificates apparently.
What the book proves, is that William Arthur was Irish, his wife a Scot, and that he lived in Canada for a bit after converting to Christian Baptist. The biggest thing that Arthur proves, again, is that William was an Irishman and liked his whiskey (because he's a person). The possibility that President Arthur was born in Canada does exist, but it's not proven at all thus we must reject it. Hinman, a lawyer hired by the Democrats to investigate Arthur's background is obviously committed to this theory. His first claim was the president was born in Ireland, which is clearly not the case. Hinman's own book, the one that advances this claim, disproves it as numerous letters he cites put William Arthur in North America at the time of his first child's birth. He later shifted the actual birth place to Canada as William had actually been there at the time.
Why any of this though? Because the Arthurs were Irish and at the time, the Irish were the anti-immigration victims and would be until the Italians started coming over. As anti-Irish sentiment was up, attaching the son of an Irish-Canadian immigrant to Irish citizenship thus British citizenship would have the effect of getting some people to vote against the immigrant who came to steal their jobs. It's the only reason that this accusation makes sense, if the Democratic party of the time really thought Arthur was born in either Canada or Ireland they would have filed suit. The fact that they didn't while still paying Hinman for research means that they knew and didn't care. It was slander enough. To be fair to the Democrats, they didn't publicly endorse this position but they also seem to have neglected to repudiate it as well. A good thing something like this never happened again...until my next post.
Bibliography:
Hinman, Arthur: "How A British Subject Became President of the United States" 1884. Link
https://www.scribd.com/doc/18450082/Arthur-Hinman-How-a-British-Subject-Became-President-of-the-United-States
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