When Alexander Hamilton Called Unrestricted Immigration a "Trojan Horse" Threatening Our Liberty and Sovereignty

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Yesterday, I wrote of Thomas Jefferson's anti-immigration arguments in his Notes on the State of Virginia. My intention was not to argue that Jefferson was consistently anti-immigrant (he obviously wasn't), but that anti-immigration arguments of the sort that some today would no doubt label "un-American" or even "fascist" were perfectly normal and acceptable parts of political debate in the Founding Era and were often made by many of the Founders themselves, including Thomas Jefferson.

Sixteen years later Jefferson would appear to change his tune, arguing in his first Message to Congress that restrictions on naturalization - there was a fourteen year waiting period - should be eased:

[S]hall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?

He then went on to seemingly contradict his skepticism in Notes about admitting people with different civic habits and values, in favor of a more optimistic assessment:

[M]ight not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us?

I say "appear" and "seemingly" because debates about immigration in these times often grew out of larger differences between Federalists and Republicans. These differences threatened to cause secession or even civil war with (it was feared) the involvement of foreign powers. It's not that one party was necessarily more pro-or anti-immigrant than the other. Rather, it often depended on whether the potential immigrants were seen to be allies or enemies of one or the other side.

So it actually wasn't completely inconsistent for Jefferson to be, say, against French emigres when he believed them to be monarchists but in favor when he believed them to be radical republicans (although obviously Jefferson didn't exactly put it that way or admit it). For Jefferson, the French had gone from being bad guys to good guys - a little revolution had occurred in the interim.

The anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by Alexander Hamilton, writing as "Lucius Crassus" in the New-York Evening Post of January 12, 1802, as a reply to Jefferson's first Message, should be understood against this background.

Hamilton first reminds Jefferson (of course!) of his earlier views:

The opinion advanced in the 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?

"Lucius Crassus" then goes on to employ language that would seem to fit only the most paranoid nativist:

The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils, by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others. It has been often likely to compromit the interests of our own country in favor of another. In times of great public danger there is always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone weakens the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.

And here's the sort of "common-sense" view on immigration that one might easily imagine a "build the wall" advocate employing today:

By what has been said, it is not meant to contend for a total prohibition of the right of citizenship to strangers . . . But there is a wide difference between closing the door altogether and throwing it entirely open.

Hamilton would end by claiming that unrestricted immigration was a Trojan Horse (or in those days they said "Grecian Horse") for the United States:

To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens, the moment they put foot in our country, as recommended in the Message, would be nothing less, than to admit the Grecian Horse into the Citadel of our Liberty and Sovereignty.

It's not clear that Jefferson had quite said or meant precisely that, but this was a public political debate among strong antagonists, not a philosophical disputation in a salon.

Tomorrow: At the same time Jefferson was becoming more "pro-", George Washington was becoming more "-anti"...

When Thomas Jefferson Was Anti-immigrant

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Last summer I wrote as post titled, "This Blog is Pro-Immigration*". The * denoted four caveats or further considerations including law and order, the complications introduced by state provided "welfare", problems created by hostile governments or parties and the threat of dangerous or hostile ideologies such as Islam.

So, for example, based on some of those considerations, I support Trump's policy on "the wall." I also support the recent freeze on refugees and travel from some Muslim countries.

I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree, either with my "liberal" general position, or my more "conservative" particular position on Trump's actions.

But I do think it's unreasonable to assert that Trump's actions are "un-American." This is usually simply asserted as a conversation stopper, though it's sometimes coupled with another conversation stopper - "we are a nation of Immigrants."

Now there's plenty of historical precedent for Trump's actions. For that matter, there's also historical precedent for pretty much any action anyone could conceivably take regarding immigration, pro or con. Immigration policy has constantly been a subject of debate throughout American history and virtually every philosophical or political permutation has been advocated or tried.

Perhaps realizing this, some pro-immigrant advocates go back to the Founding Fathers. They were resoundingly pro-immigrant (it is claimed). Among other things, they were all immigrants or quasi-immigrants themselves. If there have been anti-immigration arguments, movements or policies in American history, they have been deviations from the clear beliefs and intentions of the Founding Fathers.

This is manifestly false.

Curiously, one of the most famous (or it should be the most famous) "anti-immigration" arguments was given by Thomas Jefferson in Chapter VIII of his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). Here Jefferson makes two sorts of claims. One is the quasi-mathematical claim (complete with tables) that the unrestricted growth of the country's population (abetted by immigration) would not be economically supportable. The second is the claim that importing people with differing ideological beliefs or habits - e.g. "Monarchists" - would not be conducive to civic order or liberty. Here he contrasts "internal" growth of population (which would take, according to his calculations, "27 years and three months" longer to achieve a stipulated population benchmark) with internal growth plus immigration. 

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 direction, 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 27 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?

Now, do not misunderstand. I actually don't completely agree with Jefferson's first claim. Nor am I a big fan, in general, of Jefferson the man (though, like virtually all Americans I am a fan of at least a few of his ideas). But here's one of the most prominent Founding Fathers making an essentially anti-immigration argument in one of the primary philosophical-political works of the Founding Era. If it doesn't count as an important "American" influence or idea, nothing does. 

And, as it happens, I do think his second argument is sound, although it obviously requires careful interpretation in particular cases. These days we don't fear Monarchists. But we do fear Muslims. And I, like many if not most Americans, think that fear is well-grounded - for even stronger reasons than Jefferson gives concerning the (then Monarchist) French. So, for example, I'd much rather live under a French King than a Muslim Caliph. For what it's worth, I'm confident that Jefferson would have agreed, especially against the background of Jefferson's own later dealings with Islam in the Barbary Wars.

Next: Alexander Hamilton on Immigration as a Trojan Horse.

(He's the hip Hispanic guy in that musical.)