There is little doubt that the Ninth Circuit court will rule SB 1070 unconstitutional if the Arizona Supreme Court does not. No doubt, they will echo the sentiments of Lozano v. Hazelton fought in Pennsylvania concerning the “Supremacy Clause” of the Constitution.
A discussion of the illegal immigration situation necessitates, I would think, a look at the subject through the eyes of history. There are some web sites that portend that the founding fathers were mute on the subject. That they were more concerned with “making citizens” that deporting illegals. A cursory examination of the web dispels this.
Let’s “facebook” the “father of separation of Church and State,” Thomas Jefferson, for example.
The present desire of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners as possible. But is this founded in good policy? The advantage proposed is the multiplication of numbers. Now let us suppose (for example only) that, in this State, [Virginia] we could double our numbers in one year by the importation of foreigners ; and this is a greater accession than the most sanguine advocate for immigration has a right to expect. Then I say, beginning with a double stock, we shall attain any given degree of population only twenty-seven years and three months sooner than if we proceed on our single stock. If we propose four millions and a half as a competent population for this State, we should be fifty-four and a half years attaining it, could we at once double our numbers ; and eighty-one and three-quarter years, if we rely on natural propagation, as may be seen by the following table:
…………………….Proceeding on our………Proceeding on
…………………….Present Stock……………double stock
1781……………………567,614………………..1,135,228
1808-1/4…………..1,135,228………………..2,270,456
1835-1/2…………..2,270,456………………..4,540,812
1862………………….4,540,912………………..———
In the first column are stated periods of twenty-seven and a quarter years ; in the second are our numbers at each period, as they will be if we proceed on our actual stock; and in the third are what they would be, at the same periods, were we to set out from the double of our present stock. I have taken the term of four million and a half of inhabitants for example’s sake only. Yet I am persuaded it is a greater number than the country spoken of, considering how much inarable land it contains, can clothe and feed without a material change in the quality of their diet. But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected ? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose twenty millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship ; but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations. Spare no expense in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the meantime, they will teach us something we do not know. It is not so in agriculture. The indifferent state of that among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labor being abundant; here it is to make the most of our labor, land being abundant.—Notes On Virginia, viii, 330. Ford Ed., iii. 188. (1782.)
He did note that once here, “It has been the wise policy of these States to extend the protection of their laws to all those who should settle among them of whatsoever nation or religion, they might be, and to admit them to a participation of the benefits of civil and religious freedom; and the benevolence of this practice, as well as its salutary effects renders it worthy of being continued in future times.—Proclamation Concerning Foreigners. Ford Ed ii 445 (R-, 1781.)”
We will now facebook Ben Franklin
With regard to encouragements for strangers from government, they are really only what are derived from good laws and liberty. Strangers are welcome, because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old inhabitants are not jealous of them; the laws protect them sufficiently, so that they have no need of the patronage of great men; and every one will enjoy securely the profits of his industry. But, if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live. One or two years’ residence gives him all the rights of a citizen; but the government does not at present, whatever it may have done in former times, hire people to become settlers, by paying their passages, giving land, Negroes, utensils, stock, or any other kind of emolument whatsoever. In short, America is the land of labor, and by no means what the English call Lubberland, and the French Pays de Cocagne, where the streets are said to be paved with half-peck loaves, the houses tiled with pancakes, and where the fowls fly about ready roasted, crying, Come eat me!
Now to Rufus King, a Massachusetts delegate to the Constitutional Convention, who noted in 1798 that emigrants from Scotland had typically brought with them certificates from “the religious societies to which they belonged” that testified to their good character. King proposed that something similar be required of all those wishing to settle here.
Of course, he is also credited with the quote, “The law established by the Creator, which has existed from the beginning, extends over the whole globe, is everywhere and at all times binding upon mankind.” So Thomas Jefferson, I suppose, would not want us listening to him.
Perhaps, Alexander Hamilton could give us a more encouraging response.
“Prudence requires us to trace the history further and ask what has become of the nations of savages who exercised this policy, and who now occupies the territory which they then inhabited? Perhaps a lesson is here taught which ought not to be despised.”
“The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a herterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the nations spirit; to complicate and counfound public opinon; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”
Hamilton was critical of a Democratic proposal for immediate naturalization of foreigners (sound familiar?).
The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on the love of country, which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family. The opinion advanced in [Jefferson’s] Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism?…
In the recommendation to admit indiscriminately foreign emigrants of every description to the privileges of American citizens, on their first entrance into our country, there is an attempt to break down every pale which has been erected for the preservation of a national spirit and a national character; and to let in the most powerful means of perverting and corrupting both the one and the other.
Sort of like the Mexican immigration policy.
We can all agree that we, today, reap the benefits of our legal immigrant population. Whether as forced labor or those who came on their own, skilled and unskilled, the immigrant population came, bore their children and helped to build America. No one can doubt that we made mistakes along the way due to prejudice. We have apologized to everyone from the Native Americans to the Japanese (for bombing their country after they bombed ours) with the notable exception of the New York Public Library for George Washington’s overdue books.
It seems that the prevailing attitude of the founding fathers was that immigration was okay, but that it should be limited. If you were allowed to come through Ellis Island, you needed to be industrious enough to make it on your own. We can, certainly, see what Hamilton thought of “amnesty.” It was not unreasonable to presume—by the founding fathers—that when immigrants came to America, they came to be an American. If you’ll pardon my “bumper sticker mentality,” there is a reason, after all, that they left their homeland to come here.
The glaring difference between today and then? Those on welfare today: 2,039,917
Those on welfare then: 0
For those of you with hands on keys set to type “stereotype” and “racist,” I assure you that I am against any health care plan. As for the “stereotype” comment, I am fully aware that many statics show that there are a significant number of Caucasians on welfare. Possibly more than any other group.
We have a welfare system mandated on all states by the federal government. With a new “health care” plan and welfare and an amnesty plan locked and loaded in the House of Representatives, what do you expect from Americans who now have to grovel at a food bank to feed their kids. Americans who are forced into a “public option” because the government run Medicare program has driven health care costs up. Americans who are forced out of their homes to give AIG a raise. Americans who have Congressmen who can say, Gee, I didn’t know. It was the Feds fault. We’ll tell ‘em to do better, okay?
Sources:
Human Events
Michelle Malkin
Vindicating the Founders
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Tags: Congress, Constitution, founding fathers, illegal alien, Illegal Immigration, OpEd, Opinion, Politics, SB 1070
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