In the midst of war in 1747, Benjamin Franklin appealed to the German Pennsylvania settlers, asking them to create a militia to defend the colony. Franklin said people are united by “love” that commands sacrifice and transcends mere economic interest. When the Germans resisted, he opposed their further immigration.
“Why,” he asked, “should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?” A free country should increase its population by encouraging its citizens to procreate. Franklin said immigrants brought “great disorders” and they “are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation” and did not easily assimilate into the native population. Thus, Franklin articulated the first principle that informed the American founders on immigration: unity.
The second principle was a republican virtue, secured by an education in manners and character.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” Franklin said, “as nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
For this reason, Thomas Jefferson also opposed “the importation of foreigners.” He said it was “the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible,” adding that immigrants “bring with them the principles of the governments they leave,” whether tyranny, patronage, or licentiousness. American self-government required habits of independence and self-reliance, but foreigners would gain political influence “in proportion to their numbers.” They would “infuse into [the law] their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass,” Jefferson said.
The final principle was political freedom. In the Federalist Papers, John Jay wrote of “one united people … descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who … fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
The Americans proclaimed a new republican relation between free and equal citizens. Their view of voluntary reciprocal rights and duties was a thread that unified every association from marriage to the federal form. Conversely, the British Empire managed its diverse subjects, who were not citizens with inherent rights, by assigning them privileges based on hierarchical and overlapping group identities according to tradition, statute, and common law.
Congress implemented these founding principles. The 1790 Naturalization Act admitted only free white persons of good character for citizenship. Nor were the children of aliens citizens. Only the “children of citizens of the United States … shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” Concerned about the “facility by which, under existing alien law, aliens may acquire citizenship,” in 1795, Congress amended naturalization law to discourage European aristocrats and peasant radicals seeking asylum. Even the founders who believed in racial equality thought that racial diversity would subvert civic harmony and republican freedom. Free blacks, concluded Justice James Kent, were resident immigrants or “natural-born subjects, but not citizens.” Leading statesmen such as James Madison (whose Federalist 10 promoted diversity of talents and property, but not race), James Monroe, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln openly advocated colonization or resettlement.
To destroy slavery, America became a white and black country. The 14th Amendment and the Naturalization Act of 1870 admitted as citizens those born in the U.S. and not subject to a foreign jurisdiction. Since then, we have accepted Indians and Asians as citizens and into our families. After each migration, Congress slowed immigration to achieve assimilation. Following the 1924 Immigration Act, the percentage of foreign-born declined from 14% to 5% in 1960. However, no assimilation period followed the 1965 Immigration Act, which brought the largest migration in U.S. history. Immigration has become a political weapon. Against the public’s wishes, a political elite has used the law to procure cheap labor and future votes, most recently through the asylum and Flores detainment loopholes.
Today, the founders’ warning about diversity is more relevant than ever. Our disunity accompanies our record number of foreign-born. Assimilation and “whiteness,” we hear, are forms of oppression, and we accord victimhood status to the vast majority of minorities who never experienced discrimination under Jim Crow. Tribal identity and resentment are mobilized to encourage riots.
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Our immigration policy makes our so-called democracy a sham. A ruling party or class does not need to compromise when it can import new people. The 10 million illegal immigrants who crossed over since 2021 will count for 13 congressional seats and Electoral College votes in the next census. And diversity is defined by lawlessness. Administrators regulate race and gender not by universal and necessary laws, but by tiers of justice created in myriad interpretive memos, informal pronouncements, and court rulings. Presidents increasingly rule by executive orders in combat with the judiciary — all of it partisan — as Congress engages in performance art in hearings.
We rejected the founders’ plans for a homogenous citizenry, and in many ways, we are richer for it. But will we also cede our republican virtues and freedoms?
Kevin Slack is a professor of politics at Hillsdale College.