Nativism, Nativists Quotes
Most of us are surprised that such an enlightened leader as Franklin could have such a strong anti-immigrant bias. Franklin was a strong supporter of immigration as the economic characteristic of America at the time was a plethora of land and a dearth of labor. But Franklin was a cultural chauvinist of the first order.
Most people are very surprised that the great Benjamin Franklin was so narrow-minded at one point in his life. The German immigration almost halted during the Seven Years War, and the influx of Germans to Pennsylvania did not resume at the same rate.
Most historians agree that by “superstition,” Grant was referring to the Catholic Church, which had been steadily growing will more and more immigrants arriving in America. There was great hostility between Protestants and Catholics at the time.
This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.
At the beginning of the United States, the Founding Fathers had seen fit not to restrict a woman’s right to birth control and abortion, both of which were prevalent in Colonial America albeit not very reliable or safe. The first efforts to control abortion were in the 1820s and 1830s. Storer was the first anti-abortion activist. His major issue was that abortion diminished America’s fertility rate and with the high fertility of the immigrants, the native Americans would be overwhelmed.
Dwight and many other leading clergy and intellectuals of the day were horrified by the French Revolution, enlightenment liberalism and were paranoid about the "Illumnati" a secret society who were–according to the conspiracy theory–responsible for most wars and depressions in the world who would debauch American daughters. The Illuminati were secretly trying to take over the world's economic and political power structure. To this day, there are some who believe that the Illumnati today control the UN and major multinational corporations and are the New World Order. He believed that Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans were already instruments of the Illumnati. He repeated this theme in his election sermon 2 years later in 1798. See {18125}.
This racist officer was the impetus for one of the terrible wrongs in American history but most of the national establishment and FDR himself signed off on it to his everlasting disgrace. See {587961} and {635792}.
For another of his immigration quotes and that of another labor leader, see {639891} and {639896}.
