Thomas Jefferson on Immigration

Following are quoted from Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on allowing to great a number of immigrants into the Franchise of citizenship.

“Many will come to the United’s States as refugees (escaping) from tyranny, but tyranny will have shaped their ideas about politics. They are unlikely to have learned either how to live peaceably, respecting the rights of others. Or how to be vigilant in the assertion and defense of their own Rights. They are unlikely even to have a clear idea about the meaning and content of Rights themselves.”

Jefferson continues;

“Admitting persons who are not prepared posses a fundamental problem for the American Experiment. They will bring with them the principals 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. … Having no experience with or understanding of, liberty, it will be difficult for immigrants to conduct themselves in a manner befitting a free citizen of a republic. They will either continue to be servile, lacking in self assertion or, freed from the shackles of tyranny for the first time, will exceed the proper bounds of Republican Liberty and act licentiously, lacking self-control. If they are admitted as citizens, they will share with us the Legislation. In sufficient quantities, they could undermine the free character of the Republic, thereby endangering the rights of all. In such a situation, the government would. be derelict in its primary responsibility, “to secure these Rights.”

[Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia]

More at:

Thomas Jefferson: 31. Immigration Policy, Family Guardian Fellowship (OFFSITE LINK)