A Jeffersonian defense of American nativism
Opening the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of that “decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind [which] requires that [one] should declare the causes which impel [him].” Though not fully a Jeffersonian, I find myself today in a position I think Mr. Jefferson would understand.
Other than the lurking shadow of nuclear war, I doubt that any issue brings our nation implications so profound as race and religion do today. Having fought a bloody War between the States in part over race, having ransacked our good 1950s society by the 1960s Civil Rights movement, having suffered 9/11, one would think that Americans would grasp this instinctively.
Actually, I think that most Americans do grasp it, but matters are complicated. No one wants to be branded a “racist”—even, especially, when the epithet lacks coherent practical definition, for then what defense against the epithet? Americans sense the menace inherent in Islam, but more than a few also find distasteful the personas—misapprehended by not wholly imagined—of the stern Christian vicar and of the prude and the busybody in his pews. Such Americans fear the suppression of any non-Christian religion as a step toward Christian theocracy—as indeed logically it is, much as a step into the kitchen is a step toward the stove, whether or not one means to cook. Almost no American wants all of mestizo Central America to migrate here, but neither do we wish cruelty on the mestizos already legally among us. And so we drift toward national calamity.
Yet there is good news. With the June 2007 defeat of the disastrous immigration bill, we no longer entirely drift. We have now got one oar in the water. But, preparing to put the other oars in, we must now consider the point toward which to row. To consider rightly, we must discuss. To discuss, we must stop calling one another evil names whenever one of us tries imperfectly to say something sensible on the crucial topics of race and religion in America.
Of the two, religion is the easier problem for us. The U.S. has no essential religious problem today which would not be solved by the end of further non-Judeo-Christian immigration and by the humane suppression within our borders of Islam, a religious ideology and global political program manifestly alien to our culture in every conceivable way. It is nigh impossible to imagine a happy national future involving a Muslim minority. The place for Islam is in Islamic countries, of which the world has no shortage. Details could be worked out. U.S. Muslims could be paid a fair bounty to depart within a reasonable period in good order. An appropriate Constitutional amendment would be indicated. All the nation really lacks is the consensus to proceed.
The race problem is much harder. Constitutional amendments cannot fix it; it is not that easy. One doubts that there exists any wholly satisfactory solution to it, because the U.S. historically, though broadly united by religion, has always been a nation divided by race: white, black and red. A racially united U.S. would not in fact be the U.S.; it would be some other country we never knew. Americans however should realize that, seen in retrospect and in comparison with the many histories of other nations, the general racial settlement the U.S. had in fact achieved by 1950 worked surprisingly well. Of course there was unfair discrimination, but our inner cities were not then lawless, bombed-out war zones, nor did hundreds of thousands of young black men rot in prison, nor did the majority of negro children grow up without fathers, nor did white women walk the streets after sundown in fear. U.S. blacks felt themselves to be, and were, far more a loyal part of our nation then than now. There is no going back today to the old days of Segregation, but Segregation was a real racial settlement—peculiar, organic to the United States—which for the most part actually worked. In losing the settlement, the nation has lost something of significant, enduring value. The 1964 Civil Rights innovation has greatly helped talented blacks of good character, but it has also uprooted Segregation and on the whole it has failed. It has failed, not by this writer’s standards, but by the very standards of those who first created it. It has failed miserably. I think that you and I and all Americans need to be honest about this.
The other old American race, the red Indians, have not troubled the nation for a long time. Their history is tragic, and now Americans should not revisit the racial settlement we have with them. We should leave them secure on their reservations with full access to American society. That settlement works and should not be touched.
What we are doing to America today however is creating a whole new race problem, neither black nor red, that never existed before. It is called the “Hispanic” race problem (”Hispanic,” like “homophobic,” being an etymologically illiterate adjective one uses under protest, in that “Hispanic” properly describes the Spanish and the Portuguese rather than the Aztecs and other Central and South American Indians and mestizos now flooding our southern border; however, no other suitable adjective is current). Unlike the old race problems, this new race problem is alien to us and (whatever the reconquistadores might claim) has little or no basis in our nation’s history. Demographically, it threatens to overwhelm the nation.
A lot of cant has been written about how today’s Mexican immigrant is supposed to be the new Italian. Few sensible people who know Mexicans and Italians really believe this. The fact is that race matters—which is why, for instance, Norway broadly resembles Alabama whereas Guatemala does not. Ashkenazi Jews dominate the Nobel prizes; west Africans rule the Olympic sprints; Japanese make better engineers than Eskimos do. Race matters immensely.
So, what are we to do about it? Should America attempt to restore the old racial balance? Well, let us not dissemble: the old racial balance was great. That old balance made America the finest nation in history, and of any immigrant who thinks otherwise one wants to ask, why then did he come? However, we have in fact a modified racial balance now, and if sinister attacks on the character of America as a predominantly white nation will cease, if the Muslim interloper is expelled, if further immigration except from a few highly compatible countries like Canada and Britain is suspended, if the English language is energetically promoted, then why should Americans not boldly hope to chart a national path forward with the new demography? The nation is badly strained, but she is not broken yet.
Our nation’s inestimable powers of assimilation exceed those of any nation known to history. Even in America, however, assimilation must not be misunderstood. Our nation can indeed assimilate a moderate number of ethnically compatible immigrants who wish to assimilate. Our nation cannot assimilate a large number of ethnically incompatible immigrants who do not wish to assimilate. Proper assimilation never asks the host nation to surrender her national identity to assume the immigrant’s (the word for that is “colonization” or “conquest”). Proper assimilation asks the immigrant to surrender his national identity to assume the host nation’s. A critical element of America’s national identity, as from tumultuous ages it had firmly emerged by 1950, is that we were mostly white Judeo-Christians of European descent. That is who we were: a people, a nation, bound together by sacrifice, history, language, war, culture, kinship, soil and blood. Any attack on that identity was and remains an assault upon the nation herself. The attacker is thus an enemy, who richly deserves to be dealt with accordingly.
What the multiculturalists need to understand is that we used to have a nation here on this North American continent. We toiled and fought, bled and died for her. We will not give her up, and we will not gradually be displaced on her soil. Were it possible, we might expel a few traitors like Ted Kennedy who have so cynically made the post-1965 immigration wave possible, but we also understand that the post-1965 immigrants themselves are real people with real lives who are not necessarily individually to blame. It depends on the attitude of the immigrant. The nation has no room for the arrogant immigrant who promotes his own ethny here at the expense of ours (the immigrant’s old country was the right place for that). The nation has room enough for the loyal immigrant who adopts our ethny as his own. There is naturally a certain logical contradiction in such sentiments, but life is full of logical contradictions. What finer thing could be said of any immigrant, than that he was more American than the Americans? Together, we can make it work. With prudence and moderation, we always have done, before.
HJH
July 10th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Jefferson’s nativism was strictly Anglo-Saxon: he wasn’t too keen on other caucasiods from Europe coming here and nativism followed this line throughout the 19th into the 20th Century and didn’t reference terms of a macro ‘white nation’ to include all causcasians until recently.
I do think that if the European nations bordered the United States instead of having a vast ocean of geographical seperation, we would have had similar problems that we are experiencing now with the Meztizo alien population where it is relatively easy to navigate back and forth between the Old Country and New. To the 19th Century immigrant, their respective auld sod was a long dangerous ocean passage and expensive.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
The problem is not the race or religion of the immigrants, but their job skill level and loyalty to the USA. I think the point you’re trying to make is that an immigrant from England fits in better than an immigrant from Mexico. That may be true, but England has no more immigrants to send, so the point is moot.
We need to address what to do with the illegals already here.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Mark:
I have appreciated your several comments, on this and on earlier articles. Your comments have pretty well stood on their own, which is why I have never attempted to add much to them. I have read them all with interest.
Regarding the matter of illegals, you are right; we do need to address it. For my own part, I do not yet have a clear view of the best way to address it. I think that prominent Republicans like Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, even Mitt Romney, have some interesting ideas. I have my leanings, but want to listen more before jumping to conclusions. In any event, this year’s task is to secure the border. One problem at a time.
Regarding loyalty to the USA, of course you are right. There are however many factors involved, and there is a correlation between ethnicity and loyalty. The life of a nation is complicated. Dramatically altering her ethnic mix cannot but have consequences in my view. I think that we are witnessing these consequences now.
For decades, I let the corrupt rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement hoodwink me. I think that a lot of Americans did the same, but for my part I am not proud of this. Somehow, our whole nation needs to back up mentally to 1950 or so and think this all through again, in light of what we have actually learned and lived through since then.
Howard
July 10th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Mitch:
Well, my comments on your replies are getting boring, aren’t they? I agree, agree and agree. Therefore I am beginning to get confused. If you are a man of the Left and I am a man of the Right, then how can it be that we agree so regularly on so much? Is there some illusion of amity here which we have yet to pierce?
Regarding Jefferson’s “other caucasoids,” I admit that I had never given much thought to Jefferson’s sentiments in the matter, but I do not doubt that you are right. Jefferson is a great American hero and a revered Founder, but he never was a prophet. The millions of Italians who had come to America through 1924 were in fact an integral part of the good America of the 1950s to which I think in many ways we should strive to return. If it’s a contest between Jefferson and the 1950s, why, I like them both, but when it comes to it, I’ll take the 1950s. Jefferson’s sentiments must give way to the more substantial lessons of subsequent history.
Obviously, I think it a serious fallacy to suppose that because the Italians assimilated over time, the Mexicans will, too. The Italians did assimilate, not only here but in many of the countries of South America—basically, everywhere they went. The same can be said of the Japanese, though there the numbers were smaller and other details differ. However, the same absolutely cannot be said of certain other migrant ethnies, whether their migration were to the U.S. or elsewhere.
Your point about Mexico’s geographic station right next to the U.S. is impossible to refute. I endorse it. In fact, I think it a central point.
Howard
July 11th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Howard,
No, our mutual comments on respective comments are hardly boring.
Perhaps the reason that we agree so amply, though being from suppossed opposite sides of the aisle, is because we both endorse the old ‘American System’ of economic structure? The American System is economic nationalism where both conservatives and liberals foremost concur that the Republic - both socially and economically - needs to be *protected*. Globalist liberals and conservatives work together un-protecting the Republic, so can we to re-protect it. The difference between us is probably that I’d prefer more internal federal public policy and finance of our said economic structure; and as you know, I am a staunch apologist and supporter for the spirit of FDR’s New Deal. Many conservatives, whilst national or global, think that the New Deal is the root of all evil.
The 1950s were a great time economically for the USA - mainly from circumstance since Europe was rebuilding from the war’s devastation and we had undisputed hegemony in said economic sphere. The Eisenhower Era was probably the last decade of the American System;though Ike erroneously persued trade liberalization, he also adhered to ‘internal improvements’ such as his Interstate Plan; though a friend of Business, Eisenhower accepted the New Deal and he taxed the wealthy at Scandinavian levels(and need we be reminded that Ike was the last Republican president to balance the federal budget). Labor Unions were strong and there were more Americans who entered the Middle Class out of any decade that I know of. Eisenhower believed in the American School’s maxim, a striving , a dedication to a ‘Harmony of Interests’,and he practiced it.
One can see Alexander Hamilton’s spectre behind the Fifties - not Jefferson’s. In my opinion, if Americans have an either/or choice, it is Hamilton or Jefferson. The fight of the 1790s continues to this day.
July 11th, 2007 at 9:02 am
[Any reader who has followed the conversation to this point really ought to click over to Mitch’s excellent blog and take a look, if the reader has not done so already.]
Either Hamilton or Jefferson. Yes, I think that that is right.
Well, the title at the head of the column may not have been the best possible chosen. The “defense” is Hamiltonian in spirit as you say, Jeffersonian only in that it begins from some of Thomas Jefferson’s more famous words.
I, too, accept the New Deal as an integral, traditional fact of American life. The 1930s New Deal worked where the 1960s Great Society failed. This is not a matter of ideology, nor is it a matter of one’s estimation of the historical greatness of FDR; it is just a fact. I do not know whether (without the benefit of hindsight) I would have supported the New Deal were I a voter in the 1930s, but naturally I support it now.
One respects the views of libertarians in the matter, but with libertarian views I do not really agree any more than you do. What fundamentally went wrong with the 1960s Great Society is that it artificially divided the people, assigning special benefits to favored minorities, withholding benefits particularly from the industrious. The Great Society was wrongly named, because in fact it was antisocial. The New Deal by constrast stood equally available to all Americans. Even the rich get Social Security, after all. The sons of the rich may not have chosen to do WPA and CCC work during the Depression, but if any law forbade them to, I have never heard of the law. That, combined with the fact that the New Deal brought a relatively small federal bureaucracy to manage it, is what made the New Deal work where the Great Society later failed. At least this tends to be my view in the matter.
I also concur with you regarding the wisdom of progressive taxation, incidentally, though I admit that in the Eisenhower era it probably went too far.
Howard
July 12th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Howard,
The major problem with the Great Society, in my estimation, was the funding, or lack thereof. Kennedy cut taxes on the upper crust, persued further trade liberalization and also made Keynesian deficit spending public policy at the same time. LBJ merely followed suit and also got us full tilt into Vietnam. This, compiled with trading nations holding surplus US Dollars that was more than we had gold reserves to redeem if they decided to cash in - caught up with the Nixon Administration. Who knows how the Guns &Butter approach would had manifested if the tax brackets of the 1950s were held at their level(people still got rich and richer in the Fifties) and if we had a system of revenue tariffs to meet the new and sudden influx of imports in the late 1960s, compiled with fiscal responsibility at the top.