The Nation of Immigrants Myth.

So, there seems to be a misconception among foreigners and even Americans themselves about the founding values, ethnic groups, and culture of the United States. I've often heard from foreigners that they think that the United States was founded by a bunch of different diverse ethnic groups as a nation of immigrants from the beggining and thus everyone has an absolute right to immigrate to America and Americans have no right to be choosy regarding who they let in. This is totally incorrect and i'd like to bust a couple of myths. First, the United States was not founded by a bunch of diverse ethnic groups. Actually the founders of the United States were very, very homogeneous. There were three races present in the beginning of the United States, white Europeans, black Africans, and Native Americans. The black Africans were NOT considered a part of American society; they were not American citizens, and they contributed absolutely nothing to the constitutional and institutional laws of the United States. The were slaves treated as cattle to be bought and sold; they had no rights, no citizenship, and could be murdered by their masters at will. This is an ugly fact of American history, it was horrible, immoral, inhumane, monstrous, and barbarous, and I do not endorse it in the slightest, but it was a fact nonetheless. Black people were not considered fully human and their role in society at that time (the founding of America) was to slave in the rice and tobacco fields at the whip hand of their overseers. Native Americans were similarly not considered American and were treated as foreigners to conquer and expel from their Native lands. Again, I don't endorse this view of the Natives but that was the fact. It was the white Europeans who created the laws, constitutions, architecture, dominant culture, mores, values etc. and laid the cultural DNA of the United States. The European Americans at the time of the revolution who founded the United States were a VERY homogeneous group who came from very specific areas in North Western Europe. According to the 1790's census right after the revolution, the ancestral composition of the white population of the United States was as follows 60% English 20% Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 20% Dutch and German. Eighty percent of the people who founded the United States were from the British Isles, the other 20% were from Germanic areas of Europe. The founding stock of the United States was mostly British and almost exclusively of Celtic and Germanic derivation. The culture that these people laid down which became the culture of the United States was exceedingly British and mostly English though with some Ulster Scots, Dutch, and German elements as well.

The United States at the founding generation did not think of itself as a nation of immigrants (that idea only came into fashion in the early 20th century). The first naturalization law put in place by the founding generation only allowed immigration and citizenship right to, "white persons of good character." The founding fathers of the United States though enlightened in many respects were white supremacists, many of them such as George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson etc were slave owners and southern plantation aristocrats. If you would've told George Washington that the country he founded was a nation of immigrants where anybody from anywhere across the planet had a right to immigrate, he'd slap you, or more likely laugh you out of the room. The people of the United States at this time and long in the future held on to a specific ethnic identity that was white, Anglo Saxon, and protestant. Benjamin Franklin was hugely outspoken against the "swarthy Germans" in Pennsylvania that he was afraid would Germanize Americans rather than Americans anglicizing them. The freaking Irish were hugely discriminated against in the United States because they were Celtic Catholics. Once again I do not support these ugly truths in history but they are truths nonetheless. We were absolutely NOT founded as a nation of immigrants. "But wait!" you say, "weren't the British protestants that came to America to found the colonies immigrants?" No. An immigrant is someone who moves from one society to another established society. A settler is someone who moves from a society to another place and CREATES an new society. Americans created a society out of the wilderness. Their society does not reflect the indigenous people who lived in the United States before them but their own British protestant culture they brought from the old country.

Now the people who came later in the 19th  and early 20th centuries actually WERE immigrants moving from one society to another. However these people; Italians, Irish, Poles, Russians, Germans, you name it were expected and did assimilate into the dominant WASP culture of the United States. They were expected to speak the English language and adhere to American constitutional values. I have in my ancestry the same, "swarthy" Germans that Benjamin Franklin so roundly denounced, however if you visit their descendants today they are American, speaking the English language, believing in American constitutional values, and taking part in American culture (they are southern rednecks.) So what is the point of all this crap? It is to say that America is NOT a nation of immigrants, it has a core language, culture, and identity that you are expected to adhere to, and most importantly that the United States is NOT obligated in any way to allow you or anyone else who thinks that they are entitled to come here to immigrate. The United States has a right to control its borders, keep its sovereignty, and allow or disallow whoever it dang well pleases into its borders on whatever basis and for any reason it so desires. No one has a right to immigrate here; American citizenship for those not born here is a valuable privilege for us to bestow as we please.