In the illegal immigration debate is the argument
WASHINGTON: It is one of the most common statements by politicians. It is a media favorite response to the issue of illegal immigration: “We are a nation of immigrants” they say. Moreover, we are all united as one because we are immigrants. Unfortunately, this is not how America has always been. The concept that “we” are a nation of immigrants has noticeable flaws.
Before Lincoln’s ignoble blather in the Gettysburg Address, we were a union. Blather? Check out H. L. Mencken’s noble blistering of the Gettysburg Address:
“But let us not forget that it is oratory, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it! Put it into the cold words of everyday! The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i. e., of the people of the States?
The Confederates went into battle an absolutely free people; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and vote of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that vote was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely any freedom at all. Am I the first American to note the fundamental nonsensicality of the Gettysburg address? If so, I plead my aesthetic joy in it in amelioration of the sacrilege.
