As with most departures from prescribed constitutional procedure the immigration process has over the years resulted in disaster after disaster. The current flare-up in this area is no exception. Several states which have long claimed to be “sanctuaries” for undocumented persons residing within the boundaries of the United States have indicated that they will not cooperate with the Trump administrations’s efforts to remove these individuals and return them to their country of origin. This has recently come to a head in California so I will focus on that state. There would be little noteworthy here beyond the efforts of the administration to clean up the mess bequeathed them in this area as in many others except for a certain discordant note to those of us that have any real understanding of American history. This is the rhetorical effort being made by certain commentators to equate the position of the sanctuary states with that of the South prior to the War Between the States. One particularly clear and egregious example is the following from the pages of The American Spectator:[1]
Most Americans think of the Civil War as an unambiguous conflict between the North and the South over slavery, and that is generally accurate. It was an insurrection against the federal government committed by 11 states whose Democrat governors and legislators feared that the recently elected Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, would deprive them of their non-citizen labor force. These state officials vowed to resist any attempt by the federal government to put down their rebellion and routinely denounced the new president as an aspiring dictator. Why does this sound familiar?
Perhaps because 11 states have lately declared themselves “sanctuary jurisdictions” while openly defying federal law, ostensibly to “protect” their non-citizen labor force.
Then the author ends the piece with:
But the sanctuary state confederates insist on repeating the rhetoric and pursuing the policies that cost them the 2024 election. They shout, “Trump is a dictator,” believe that “non-citizen” is a synonym for “Democrat voter” and openly embrace political violence. They are no less dangerous than their Nineteenth Century forebears. (emphasis added)
Let us take this apart.
The first thing to note is the ease with which the author invokes the “obvious” and “almost universally accepted” cause and means that led the country into “Civil War” claiming that the root cause was the violent disagreement between North and South over slavery and the means used by the South to address this conflict was “insurrection.” This presentist account of a very complex and decades long antebellum political argument has unfortunately become the conventional wisdom and a sad commentary on the ignorance of the populace that accepts it. Any polemicist can reach into his bag of tricks and draw it out willy-nilly. Let me address the assertion in the words of someone who was present at the time and witnessed it or participated in it for much of the time in question, Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the actual confederacy and not the alleged ersatz confederacy of sanctuary states. We might prize his perspective over those who have never bothered to enter the hearts of minds of historical figures but only render sterile and sanctimonious judgements from their positions of assumed superiority:
That the War had its origin in opposing principles, which, in their action upon the conduct of men, produced the ultimate collision of arms, may be assumed as an unquestionable fact. But the opposing principles which produced these results in physical action were of a very different character from those assumed in the postulate [that slavery was the cause]. They lay in the Organic Structure of the Government of the States. The conflict in principle arose from different and opposing ideas as to the nature of what is known as the General Government. The contest was between those who held it to be strictly Federal in its character, and those who maintained that it was thoroughly National. It was a strife between the principles of Federation, on the one side, and Centralism, or Consolidation, on the other.
Slavery, so called, was but the question on which these antagonistic principles, which had been in conflict, from the beginning, on various other questions, were finally brought into actual and active collision with each other on the field of battle.[2]
Of course, the savants of our educated classes claim that Stephens was just rationalizing after the fact. But these are the same people that also assert that any woman who makes a claim that she was sexually assaulted must be believed simply on the basis of her claim. Witness Christine Blasey Ford and her accusations against Brett Kavanaugh in his Supreme Court nomination hearings. I will take Alexander Stephens’ testimony any day. But I digress.
Let me just say that I am in agreement with the sanctuary states regarding immigration. Immigration is, in fact, a matter for the states and not the national government, or at least that’s what the Constitution says. As Joe Wolverton points out in his book, What Degree of Madness?:3
The closest the Constitution comes to placing anything even incidentally related to immigration within the realm of Congressional authority is found in the clause of Article I, Section 8 that empowers Congress to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.” That’s it. There is no other mention of immigration in the text of the Constitution. Somehow, though, the enemies of the right of states to govern themselves have extrapolated from that scant reference to “naturalization” the exclusive right of Congress to legislate in the arena of immigration.
As with so many other things, the national government has usurped powers to itself in this area that it is in no way empowered to do by the Constitution. We have grown so accustomed to this usurpation of powers that we can’t see immigration being controlled in any other way.
But consider this. Suppose every state was responsible for who is allowed to reside within its borders. State and local law enforcement could check documentation on any individual within the boundaries of the state suspected of being there illegally and remand them for return to their country of origin if they are in the state illegally. States could implement e-verify systems to deny employment to individuals illegally in that state. I am sure there are other measures to ensure that only citizens and legal residents would reside in the state. And each state would be free to implement the measures that it saw fit.
But wouldn’t those states that now have sanctuary policies then be free to further implement those policies? Yes, they would but there is something else to consider. The cost to the states and communities of illegal immigrants in terms of schools, hospitals, crime, and other social services is substantial. Based on the most recent data (2022) on state and local government finance from the US Census Bureau,[3] my calculations show that California received about 22% of its total state and local government revenue from the national government. Alaska received almost 40% of its revenue from the national government and the total revenue from the national government to state and local governments was almost 27% of total state and local government revenue. Of course, revenue from the national government is the carrot that it used to lure the states into complying with laws set at the national level and the threat of cutting off those funds is the stick used to the same end. Without those funds the states would not be so eager to bear the costs associated with the illegal immigrants. If its own citizens had to bear those costs they would be much more likely to insist that those imposing the costs on them be removed. This does not even take into account the direct support that may be provided directly to the illegal immigrants by the national government. Cutting off these sources of support would make even more evident the cost of supporting illegal immigration. And if the sanctuary states did want to continue their immigration policies? More power to them! The illegal immigrants would be forced to stay within that state or another with similar policies. If they tried to move to one with more stringent enforcement they would be deported if apprehended. So those illegals would have no incentive but to stay where they were. It should work much better than the system now in place where the people are completely dependent on the actions of remote bodies for maintaining their local quality of life.
This short piece is not meant to be a treatise on immigration policy. A complete immigration policy based on state sovereignty requires an in-depth study. But there is one more issue to consider here. How will voting rights be secured? Will it be possible to have noncitizens voting? As with all things, we have to defer to the Constitution. Wolverton again points out:
The closest the Constitution comes to placing anything even incidentally related to immigration within the realm of Congressional authority is found in the clause of Article I, Section 8 that empowers Congress to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.” That’s it.[4]
And then again:
The difference between immigration and naturalization is clearly defined in the law — both before and after the passage of the 14th Amendment. Immigration is the act of coming to a country of which one is not a native. Naturalization, however, is defined as the conference upon an alien of the rights and privileges of a citizen.[5]
Only U.S. citizens should vote in national elections and who can be a citizen would be a policy defined by Congress and not individual states. Similarly the Decennial Census that is used to determine apportionment would have to demarcate between citizens and noncitizens. States and localities can specify who votes in state and local elections for their own states. But measures would have to be taken to insure that only citizens vote in national elections. I would also suggest that if citizenship ever becomes a valued status again, a qualification to be a participant in self-government and not simply a ticket of admission to the gravy train, those possessing that status would not be so eager to trivialize and demean it by bestowing it on people who haven’t a clue as to the meaning of American citizenship.
Certainly the current system makes the actions of sanctuary states an impediment to the implementation of a feasible and functional immigration policy. But in this, as in many other areas, rather than using a distorted historical account to try to win debating points, why not look at the actual historical facts and the actual text of the Constitution to devise an effective way to deal with the real world and avoid the chaos that an ignorance of history and the constitutional chicanery that follows always bring in their wake.
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[1] https://spectator.org/the-sanctuary-state-confederacy/
[2] Stephens, Alexander H.. A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States: Volume 1 (p. 11). Kindle Edition. 3 Wolverton, Joe. What Degree of Madness?: Madison’s Method to Make America STATES Again (pp. 64-65). Shotwell Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.
[3] https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2022/econ/local/public-use-datasets.html
[4] Ibid, 65.
[5] Ibid.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily the views of the Abbeville Institute.
Mr. Goodloe is woefully inaccurate in his statement that the war for Southern Independence “Was an unambiguous conflict between the North and South over slavery, and that is generally accurate.”
Another Southerner, writing dissertations on Southern history as fabricated by the victors over States Rights and the rights of a people as expressly and explicitly written into the Declaration of Independence.
I am sorry, but the statement is uncalled for and almost gratuitous in this dissertation about the current situation.
Mr. Goodloe should stick to his subject as it applies to his PhD in public policy and leave the Southern Propaganda to the experts at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC.
@Nicki Cribb, it appears that Mike Goodloe was quoting The American Spectator. That magazine reeks of neo-conservatism.
It just reeks, period.
Absolutely fantastic analysis. States rights do not cut only one way. If California wants to pretend that she has the right to aid and shelter hostile non-citizens, then WE have the right to say 1) we will not pay for it, 2) we will not have those hostile non-citizens entering OUR state and killing our fellow-citizens, and 3) for God’s sake we have the right to police our borders as we see fit. It’s beyond hypocritical for these liberals to on the one hand pretend that California has the Constitutional right to harbor hostile aliens and on the other maniacally condemn Texas (and the other states with the spine to support Operation Lone Star) for keeping the hostile aliens out.
It is even more bizarre to see the libs – and tragically quite a few conservatives poisoned by the ubiquitous Confederaphobia mass-produced by the wokesters – assert that California can give shelter and *transportation* to a walking talking armed gangster from Venezuela or terrorist from Afghanistan – who will go around murdering our fellow Americans, even in States that never were delusional enough to want to give him shelter – but shriek if somebody in Dixie dares to fly any of the Confederacy’s flags, which are not only a perfectly fair expression of local pride and history (and to the educated, a representation of defending the Constitution as our Founding Fathers created it) but are not going to come down off their poles, cross into another state and hurt someone, or worse.
Besides which, half the States that seceded to form the Confederacy did so only *after* Lincoln’s unconstitutional declaration of war. They would have chosen neutrality if Lincoln allowed it, but seceded not willing to send their sons to coerce and kill the citizens of their sister states. In other words they stood as a bulwark of Constitutional and moral principals against the army of a man who ripped up the US constitution and sought to turn a voluntary union of Sovereign States to a stalin-esque autocracy (and who incidentally brought hundreds of thousands of hostile Communist immigrants, e.g. the 48ers to our shores). What higher moral principle exists than in the man or woman who says, “I’d rather face down a dictator’s army sent to kill me than murder another?”
And of course the Spectator is wrong as usual. People who want to repeat the “facts” they have heard should first look long and hard at where those “facts” originated. Just 50 short years ago, people knew better, in general. But then came the Communist infiltration of the 70s, chiefly in our news and TV (note: infamously Jewish-founded Hollywood had been unapologetically pro-Southern before the Communists subverted it much as Lincoln subverted the US government) and even the conservatives got poisoned by the nonstop deluge of slander against the South (and by extension against America’s founding principles). The extent of the first wave of secession being driven by the slavery issue was limited to the understandable horror that Southerners felt seeing New England ideologues *with ties to the Lincoln Administration* sacralize, aid and abet the terrorism of that execrable John Brown – a man made a saint today but who had only mass-murder on his mind, seeking to trigger a race war to annihilate both the South and the slaves we pretend he was trying to help. But the States of the Deep South had already been at their limit with the financial hemorrhage exacted out of them by the Whig party. Dixie was being bled dry to feed and house millions of (chiefly Communist) immigrants in the north.
If one bothers to look at the facts, the correct analogy is not to compare the Confederacy to the so-called Sanctuary states, but rather the New England states to the “sanctuary” states, as both have torn up the Constitution, imported hostile aliens by the millions, legitimized said aliens’ crimes and terrorism against the citizens of other States, and sucked other States dry, financially, to pay for these hostile aliens.
My ancestors fought for the Confederacy because no one was going to tell us what, or how, to think.
Same today. Good fight we have going on today! I’m in
Thank you all for your comments. Mr. LeBeau is correct in his response to Mr. Cribb. I thought it was pretty clear that I was merely quoting the piece about an opinion that I found abhorrent and that it was not the only place I had seen that view expressed. I hope Mr. Cribb will read the my article again with that in mind. I’m sure he and I are really on the same page. To Promethea Pythaitha thank you for your hearty endorsement of the article and for your cogent expansions on the topic. And my ancestors were of the same mindset as those of Mr. Ciesemier. I wrote the piece with two objectives in mind. The first was to point out the absurdity in the claim of the quoted article. The second was to indicate that an immigration policy that actually followed the Constitution without the contortions introduced by other national policies would actually produce a more beneficial and stable outcome. But thank you all again for your lively responses.