Illegal Immigrants and the American Political Compact

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. What better time to talk about immigration. Most Americans came to America because England or the Low Countries or Switzerland didn't want them. It wasn't that they were vagrants or criminals -- that came later in the American Georgia colony and even later in Australia. The truth was that they were inconvenient -- because of their views about religious freedom or political liberties. And a New World separated by a month-long ocean journey seemed the perfect solution. So Walter Raleigh and Lord Baltimore and William Penn, and the world-famous Massachusetts Pilgrims, Puritans to be precise, were packed off to America to face whatever hardships a savage land would present. ~~~~~ It was an "out of sight, out of mind" solution that peopled America with a mixed bag of Catholics, Quakers, Anabaptists, Puritans, and others who had learned that their chance for survival, although slim, was better if they tied their futures to a libertarian-conservative political philosophy sweeping Europe with the idea that people were tied to their kings and legislatures by a Compact under which they could be governed only for as long as they agreed to the terms of the Compact. ~~~~~ This "Compact" political philosophy was what 18th century politics was all about. John Locke had put the idea down in writing in essays that spread all over Europe. The essays came to America with the Puritans and William Penn and many others. They fed Edmund Burke, who defended the American colonies' demands for a voice in how they were governed. From William Bradford to Samuel Adams to Washington and Jefferson and Madison - the core idea in American political discussions and writings was that people had the God-given right to govern themselves through properly elected and constrained officials. The Declaration of Independence begins with Locke's words : "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." This is the clearest and most-often quoted and borrowed statement of self-government by means of a Compact binding the governed and the government that has ever been written. ~~~~~ To return to immigration, this Compact is what brings immigrants, illegal and legal, to America. They know what it means to be American, whether they have read the Declaration of Independence or understand its content by observing America and Americans. Illegal immigrants are now the subject of a fundamental debate in America. No one doubts that they come to America searching for opportunities that can be provided only by personal freedom and liberties guaranteed by a Compact of the governed and the government. Seventy-five percent of Americans sympathize with them. But, the crunch comes with how illegals enter and live in America - by breaking the laws that the Compact enshrines. Americans want her modern immigrants to enter legally, as her older generations did - sent with the charter of a king, invited to pass through Ellis Island to work in steel mills and manufacturing plants, waiting in line to get a green card from an American Embassy in their home country. In the political souls of Americans, to sneak in illegally is to break the law, that is, to break the Compact. It is an act that weakens the fabric of the nation. It is a denial of America's unique form of democratic self-government. ~~~~~ And yet, dear readers, Americans are uncomfortable with tossing illegals out summarily. There has to be a middle ground in which illegals make positive moves that prove that they admit their error, pay for it, and show an understanding that being American is not just a job or an education for their children. It is more than safety from tryanny or the fear of living in criminal societies. Being American is bearing witness to the Compact of the governed and the government. Every American bears that responsibility above all others. From it alone comes the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happy Thanksgiving.