America was anextension of England and as such, home to the European type generally,under English language, institutions and law. Therefore, when they setabout the formation of our federal government in 1787 they claimed itto be “for the preservation of us and our posterity forever”.
I am an American. My ancestors hail from various ports of the oldworld: On my mother’s side all sprang from the black forest of Germany.On my father’s side the pedigree is forged between the fens of Denmarkand the cobbles of Ulster and it is by way of Ulster whence my familyacquires its name.
Naturally, I feel a certain affinity, or some would say sentimentality, toward all things Germanic and Celtic. But it does not make me a German-Dane or a Scotsman.I mean really, just imagine if I went to one of those little postcardhamlets in Denmark and simply declared myself a Dane. As sweet-naturedas the Danes are, the women would likely snicker at my cowboy accentand the men would glare with furrowed brows and chide me with all thestoicism which northmen command. The Danes would appreciate thecontinuum of my commonality with them to be sure but they would neverconfess me one of them, a Dane proper.The question then is, ought I to take offense at such exclusion?Certainly not. It is their right and their duty to preserve themselveswith all the unique characteristics which make them who they are. Andreally, I wouldn’t have it any other way because if they lostdefinition of who they are, I, as an offshoot of that people, wouldlose reference to my own ancestors. If Africans, Arabs and Mongolsmight be declared ‘Danes’, being Danish loses all definition. If itmeans everything in general, it means nothing in particular.
No, I want Denmark for the Danes, Scotland for Scots and Germany for Germans. Could anyone imagine delftwareporcelain bedecked with pictures of Nubians rather than the toe-headedDutch? Holland wouldn’t be Holland without the Dutch. We Yanks mightoften consider the distinctions between all those kindred nations ofEurope to be minor but if you want to know the differences betweenSwedes and Danes just ask one. They will happily delineate what are tothem, profound differences.
Yet here in America the British cameand founded a nation for ‘the White Man and his posterity forever’,meaning, men of European descent generically. Modern Deconstructioniststypically conjure from this that our founders were proto-Marxiststaking the first evolutionary step toward total egalitarianism. Theytake the American fusion of the tribes of Europe as proof thatethnicity be naught but ‘a social construct’, i.e., a figment of theimagination. Thus they extrapolate that as went ethnicity, so goesrace—if Germans and Italians might be brought together under the bannerof a single nationality, what’s to preclude the Mongol and Negro racesfrom the same corporation?
First, it’s clear that whatever theassumptions of the Founders were, they certainly never intended for itto lead to racial amalgam. By their own testimony they reviled the verynotion. They, like the Pilgrims, universally understood racial amalgamas one of the greatest curses which could befall their posterity.
Second,it must be acknowledge that the American doctrine of generic “White”identity over against any particular European ethnicity was uniquelycrafted by those who by providence were Englishmen. As such, they hadin their mother country the unique distinction of being the signalcomposite nation of Europe: England was originally peopled by theBretons, a Celtic folk, but it sustained successive invasions by Anglesfrom Denmark, Saxons from Germany and Romans from Italy. Thus comes theterm Anglo-Saxon. Though they acknowledged themselves as contiguouswith Roman civilization to some degree, and they honored their Celticheritage, they expressed their identity by its foremostcomponents—Angles and Saxons. But G. K. Chesterton and Abraham Kuyperhave both said that Europe really has only three tribes: The Germanic,the Celtic and the Romanic (Italic) in their various communities. (C.S. Lewis agreed with this as well.)
Expectedly then, when theEnglish Puritans struck ground in America, extending the Englishnation, they intended it to be a continuation of English civilization,which was itself a composite of all three of the tribes of Europe. Theyinsisted of course upon maintaining a balanced immigration policy, withclear favoritism shown to the European nations with whom they sharedclosest relation. The American policy of “favored nation status” wasmost partial to the north and west of Europe but they admitted atrickle from the east and the south of the continent as well. This wasthe conservative approach, maintaining equilibrium of demographics withits attendant affections, sensitivities and culture which had long agoforged the country of their nativity.
But they admitted noimmigration from alien races aside from the purposes of labor. They,being devout Biblicists, understood such precedent to exist as apractice of old Israel who had used foreign labor while keeping suchpeople distinct from their own.
Irish Catholics were brought tothese shores as slaves of the Englishmen; after serving the seven yearterm of their bonditure they were remitted to the status of free menwho, if converted to Protestantism, could own property, and ifmaintaining their membership in good standing of a Christian churchcould even vote at the age of twenty-one. They were citizens,Americans, brothers. The prevailing theory of suffrage was of the“free-hold” sort via Englishcommon law (this was seen as consistent with and ultimately emanatingfrom biblical Law) and it accepted all the tribes of the European raceas assimilable because Britain had long been the generic representativeof all the Japhetic peoples living cohesively subject to the ChristianLord.
This was not unlike the commonwealth of old Israel whichwould allow limited assimilation of outlying Hebrew-Semite tribes butwas forbad from admitting those of dissimilar race.
And so itwas that the Puritan slave trade of Africans and Indians was quitedistinguished from their trade of Irish Catholics; though the Indianswere allowed, not entirely unlike the Irish, to be freed and even buyland (in designated areas) after the passage of a seven year servitude,they could never vote or be considered American citizens.
ButAfricans were from 1632 forward accepted by law as “perpetual servants”without any right of release; which is not to say that they couldn’t bereleased, just that they had no right to it. Leviticus 25:39-55 was the justification for this practice, allowing for foreign (i.e.,racially alien) slaves bought with money to be kept in perpetuity alongwith any children which they might bear. This seemed by the estimationof the Puritans and the British Crown to be the most equitabletreatment of social stratification for the African as long as he was toreside among white men. Any lesser degree of Paternalism would leavethe African destitute, unable to provide for himself and it wouldsimultaneously be to admit great danger to all of American society.Moreover, the matter of possibly granting the African suffrage andcitizenship were out of the question. One might as well declare oneselfa poached egg as declare Africans to be Americans.
In theirvarious appeals to the Crown the Colonists invoked no politicalcorporation, no matters of economic expediency, nor any politicalidealism; they demanded their rights by way of primogeniture, on thebasis of descent from Englishmen and their consanguity with Englishmen.The last such invocation was the Declaration of Rights of 1765 in whichthey claimed all the rights of “natural born Englishmen”. None but white men had any stake in such a claim.
Itwas with just such a sense of the matter that the Founding Fatherswould reflect on the question as well. For them, America was anextension of England and as such, home to the European type generally,under English language, institutions and law. Therefore, when they setabout the formation of our federal government in 1787 they claimed itto be “for the preservation of us and our posterity forever”. And theyquoted from the earlier Declaration of rights (1765) in limiting theoffice of president to “a natural born citizen”. And contiguous withearlier Puritan law, the very first convention of the Congress of theUnited States of America declared that citizenship was open only
Despite the assertions of modern Liberals, America always knew what, or more precisely, whoit intended to be. Our forefathers purposefully controlled immigrationin favor of Europeans, especially of the north and the west of thecontinent and they always regarded it as impossibility for non-whitesto be American citizens. They found this position in keeping with theirown ethnic and historic identity in England and they found thescripture in support of such nationalism, as had the Church from thefirst century forward. This was so taken for granted that thealternative to it would have struck them as unabashed godlessness.
The‘Americanism’ of our founding was based not upon a government structureor economic theory but upon the nation which formed it. That nationexisted prior to the United States and as such, their chief concern laynot in the principles of a government but in the preservation of‘[them]selves and [their] posterity forever.’ It was a matter ofself-determination and self-defense of a people—the English-speakingWhite Race. Their Christian faith taught them that this was theirprimary civic responsibility and their government was subsequentlyformed to that end.
In summation, I, an American ofGermano-Celtic extraction, speaking this German dialect known as‘English’, feel a great sense of kinship with the various northwesternnations of Europe but I am yet distinct from them. And in the new worldwe members of the White race be one expanded Anglophile nation in ourlesser tribes throughout. We are who we are; let us cherish thatidentity and safeguard it as our fathers who went before us. And let usthink ill of no other people for doing likewise.