Most debates concerning immigration typically involve issues of employment, toleration, or criminality, but what about preserving American culture?  In an age of multiculturalism and relativism, this important issue often finds itself on the back burner.  While America may be a “land of immigrants,” the United States has always had immigration restrictions, as the Founding Fathers intended, to preserve the American identity.

Did the rich white slave owners of old want to ensure that only the WASPs prospered in America?  No.  They were more concerned about developing a citizenry in America that would support the republican government they fought to establish.  A republic, ruled by free men for the benefit of its citizens, requires a cohesive society to peaceably operate.  America today has greater resemblance to an empire with large groups of segregated people, lacking a common culture, ruled by a powerful government.

George Washington wrote in 1794, “the policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.”

With the complete breakdown of American culture in recent decades, one might think that immigrants have had no problems assimilating because there’s no strong sense of identity even among the natives.  Supporters of illegal immigration hope to further erode the American identity, and transplant all of Mexico into our south and southwest states.  The Aztlan movement further hopes to defeat “White America,” eliminate the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and “reclaim” all the southwest states for the Latino people.

Thomas Jefferson warned about such a problem in 1787: “Suppose 20 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.” 

Such foreign factions, like the millions of illegals in America today, hinder the operation of government and the stability of society because they are not familiar with its culture and history.  I seriously doubt that the large population of illegal Hispanics, many of whom don’t speak English, have studied John Locke, Aristotle, Cicero, American history, and the Declaration of Independence.  But then again, most American’s haven’t either.   

The Founders knew the dangers of factions.  Alexander Hamilton wrote about factions in Federalist 10, and George Washington spoke about them as President.  Throughout his presidency, Washington extolled unity among the American people as a pillar of citizenship.  One can only read that sentence today and chuckle, or cry, with such sharp divisions among the American people.

Now there’s no problem with having different opinions on how to tackle problems, or in differing from others in personal habits or preferences, but divisions about the purpose and role of the government, and what constitutes the ethos of its people, can be very dangerous.

Samuel Huntington writes that the American creed made of the principles of liberty, equality, individualism, representative government, and private property developed in early America out of common cultural elements including the Christian religion, Protestant values and moralism, a work ethic, the English language, British traditions of law, justice and the limits of government power, and a legacy of European art, literature, philosophy, and music.

The new American creed seems to be made up of socialism, forced equality, and oligarchy based on the “culture” of tolerance, relativism, multiculturalism, and disseverance from religion.

Though it is very difficult to protect our long borders, and would be extremely difficult to expel the millions of illegal immigrants from our country, the main purpose of our government is to protect its people.  First and foremost, our sovereign borders must be protected, and the integrity of our society must be protected to secure the prosperity of the American people and their government.

So far the government has failed to offer protection on either of these fronts, and all the Presidential candidates seem happy to continue in these failures.  While our politicians focus on the wars abroad, what about the wars at home?  We must not forget that the greatest powers in history fell to ruins not from external threats, but from internal strife and divisions.