The funny thing, though, is that the people who supported slavery also generally supported immigration. And I don’t mean by importing slaves (that too, of course). They wanted immigrants because they wanted America to grow. Sure, they didn’t want black immigrants, but that’s a whole other thing. When Chinese immigrants started pouring into California during the Gold Rush era, the response wasn’t, “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country!” it was “Hey! Dirt cheap labor! And stay out of the buildings with the posted ‘no Chinese’ signs or else.”
So even those people, awful as they were, wouldn’t agree.
When Chinese immigrants started pouring into California during the Gold Rush era, the response wasn’t, “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country!”
Oh, no, there was definitely strong fears at the time that foreigners would ‘ruin’ America, and blood-related arguments were far more in vogue then than now. Even foreigners as white as the Irish and Germans.
It was a ‘catholics are evil and all follow the commands of the pope so we can’t let them in, they’ll sell us all out to the European powers’ thing.
Also Irish are all drunks and Italians are all criminals, unlike the wonderful people who populated this country who were the European upper crust of course, and not religious nut jobs and people fleeing debt or other crimes.
Roosevelt warned that even Jewish refugees could become a threat, aiding Nazi Germany in exchange for the lives of loved ones held hostage in Europe. The FBI warned Americans to be on guard. Neither the president nor the FBI were able to provide any specific examples of Jewish refugees committing acts of espionage or sabotage.
Not just fleeing debt or crimes. People tend to be pretty well familiar with the British Empire using Australia as a penal colony, but that didn’t really get going until after the American Revolution. Before that they just used the 13 Colonies. Not quite as far to travel, bit cheaper.
We’ve largely blotted out that particular perception, though, replacing it with pilgrims in funny hats fleeing religious persecution. Which, there were those too, of course, but there was also quite a lot of every other sort of person.
Yea one of the big ironies of history was that Abraham Lincoln was that he wanted to ship all of the newly freed slaves out of the US and back to Africa or South America:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linconia
I mean, how many people supported slavery and later, Jim Crow.
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The funny thing, though, is that the people who supported slavery also generally supported immigration. And I don’t mean by importing slaves (that too, of course). They wanted immigrants because they wanted America to grow. Sure, they didn’t want black immigrants, but that’s a whole other thing. When Chinese immigrants started pouring into California during the Gold Rush era, the response wasn’t, “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country!” it was “Hey! Dirt cheap labor! And stay out of the buildings with the posted ‘no Chinese’ signs or else.”
So even those people, awful as they were, wouldn’t agree.
Chinese Exclusion Act says hi.
Okay, fair point. But that wasn’t really a “poisoning the blood of our country” thing either. It was a “they tuk’r jerbs” situation.
Oh, no, there was definitely strong fears at the time that foreigners would ‘ruin’ America, and blood-related arguments were far more in vogue then than now. Even foreigners as white as the Irish and Germans.
It was a ‘catholics are evil and all follow the commands of the pope so we can’t let them in, they’ll sell us all out to the European powers’ thing.
Also Irish are all drunks and Italians are all criminals, unlike the wonderful people who populated this country who were the European upper crust of course, and not religious nut jobs and people fleeing debt or other crimes.
Don’t get me started on antisemitism: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-and-the-refugee-crisis-1938-41
Not just fleeing debt or crimes. People tend to be pretty well familiar with the British Empire using Australia as a penal colony, but that didn’t really get going until after the American Revolution. Before that they just used the 13 Colonies. Not quite as far to travel, bit cheaper.
We’ve largely blotted out that particular perception, though, replacing it with pilgrims in funny hats fleeing religious persecution. Which, there were those too, of course, but there was also quite a lot of every other sort of person.
Yea one of the big ironies of history was that Abraham Lincoln was that he wanted to ship all of the newly freed slaves out of the US and back to Africa or South America: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linconia
For peace, he knew how monstrously cruel and evil the south was and that they would never tolerate black people as anything but chattel.
Removing them made sense.
I wish he wasn’t so kind and gentle, giving every slave owner to their slaves and walking away would have solved most of Americas problems to this day