How the Founder’s Immigration Vision is Misunderstood

An article meant to disparage Trump‘s first term from a few years ago put forward an idea of the founding father’s vision that was so historically incomplete that it became clear a counterarticle was needed. They write that “Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson viewed the United States as a place for refugees.” This statement is true, yet it leaves out a key reality about the founders beliefs. Every founding father believed that a prerequisite to citizenship was some sort of virtue and ability to assimilate. This was such a great concern that Benjamin Franklin even had deep worries about the abilities of Germans to assimilate and worried that they would germanize the country. In contrast to the founding fathers full view of the requirements of citizenship, leftists, neocons, and libertarians all have a view of immigration that permits anyone who is not a violent criminal being given citizenship as expediently as possible. That debate on immigration requires that the disagreement over the values and benefits of citizenship be resolved.

Jefferson described America as a safe haven for the virtuous and some of the other founders would have said that this statement was far too permissive. Virtue was only one category among many needed to determine whether someone was aligned enough with the nation and citizenry that they could become an effective citizen. Coming from European nations that had shared ancestral history and identity, they had no examples of cosmopolitan nations as we conceive of them today. Their idea of coexistence was limited to what would be seen as laughably minor differences today. For their time they were radically progressive, and allowed more freedom to immigrate than almost any other country. However, there was a limit to how large of cultural differences they thought could fruitfully coexist in one nation. They understood that even while being free to live life as they saw fit, some shared vision of the nation’s future had to exist. The founders did have deep sympathy for the oppressed around the world, but they knew that a lack of character was always one generation away from tyranny. The less palatable beliefs of the founders revolved around the idea of cultural alignment. Franklin’s beliefs on the Germans are just one example of how they sought to limit immigration on far more limited axes than would be done today. We will never know how they would’ve responded to the specific immigration conditions that we have today, but when we can be certain that it wouldn’t be the toothless rejection of any objective morality that is used to justify immigration today.…