CIVIL WAR AND THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
By Robert Klein Engler (07/06/06)
CHICAGO (6 July, '06)--It seems clear to some who study the question of illegal immigration in the U. S. that this question is much like the past question of slavery. It is estimated, for example, that there was one slave for every two Southerners prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Nowadays, Latinos, many of them illegal immigrants from Mexico, make up about a third of the population of Chicago. This is the same proportion as the number of slaves who lived in the antebellum south.
More than a century ago, the movement to abolish slavery in the U. S. ended in violence and civil war. Will the same thing happen over the issue of illegal immigration? To imagine another civil war is to imagine a future that holds as many surprises as the past.
Jefferson Davis did not imagine he would become President of the Confederate States of America after he fought in the 1848 war with Mexico. Nevertheless, it was that service in Mexico that gave the Confederate States of America a military advantage when hostilities broke out. Could the same be said for the veterans returning from the Iraq war and their role in a future civil war, a war not over slavery but illegal immigration?
Hindsight teaches that slavery might have disappeared gradually from the southern states without a civil war. Perhaps the Abolitionists were simply a lunatic fringe that forced an issue. Regardless, the issue of slavery was forced, just as the issue of illegal immigration will be forced, because both slavery and illegal immigration stand in contradiction to the principles of citizenship that inspired the American Revolution in the first place.
There is disagreement among historians over the causes for the U. S. Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression, as some others call it. Slavery, tariff arguments between northern and southern states, unjust taxation and expenditures, various interpretations of the Declaration of Independence, and even the actions of politicians and President Lincoln: all have been offered as explanations for this bloody event in U. S. history.
One thing most historians agree upon, however, is that all these causes together ended in a violent upheaval where more than 630,000 Americans died. In our Civil War, the American Revolution postponed its Reign of Terror by 85 years.
Carl Pearlston admires the historian Charles Adams. In his essay about the Civil War, Pearlston quotes Adams' book, When in the Course of Human Events. There Adams writes that, "...the Civil War was not just a great national American tragedy, but even more so, a tragedy for civilization...In 1861, the world's first great democracy, which was going to show the world what great benefits and virtue this new form of government could bring, failed miserably, tragically, and horribly."
Today, for both the elites of big business and the elites of socialism and open borders, illegal immigrants make up a new "peculiar institution" who live beyond the law and citizenship. Illegal immigrants are our new slaves. The powers that be on the political right and left who want amnesty or a guest workers program support the new slave holders. We may be living in a time that is analogous to the 1860s.
Predictions of a new civil war are posted already on the liberal blogs. A writer for The Democratic Underground Forum predicted that, "The U. S. is being rattled apart...I don't see a "coming together"...anytime in the near future, if anything politicians are banking on the severe division within the country to get elected and corporations are getting rich off of it...Soon there will be no "middle" and the fight will be taken to the streets..."
What this writer fails to recognize is that it will be the issue of illegal immigration, not politics as usual, that will lead to violence in the streets. It will be illegal immigration that will rattle the country apart. Or, will it be that issue plus "a blundering generation of pompous, self-interested, fanatical politicians."
The conservative Doug McIntyre of Talk Radio 790 KABC has given up on the politicians who ignore the issue of illegal immigration. He rants, "I've talked so often about the border issue, I won't bore you with a rehash. It's enough to say this President has been a catastrophe...He doesn't believe in the sovereign borders of the country he's sworn to protect and defend."
McIntyre continues, "...his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President's January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me."
a look backwards
Let's assume that a revisionist theory about the Civil War is true. The war was the result of a political struggle over high tariffs and taxes, not slavery or democratic ideals. The northern industrialists and bankers wanted to control the agricultural and slave economy of the southern states. What can we learn from such an explanation that applies to the crisis we are facing now over illegal immigration? We should look back in time so that we may see forward.
The weather may have left a lot to be desired the spring morning of April 12th, 1861. Fort Sumter is crowded and damp. The brass buttons on the uniform of U. S. Army Major Robert Anderson grow dull in the humid air around Charleston harbor. In command of Fort Sumter, Anderson does not know what the Confederate forces on shore have in mind.
At 4:30 a.m. Major Anderson finds out. A mortar round explodes over Fort Sumter. There is no going back, now. The words of Robert Toombs, secretary of state for Jefferson Davis, would be written soon in blood. "Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."
Could Major Anderson have known that in a few years over six hundred thousand Americans would be dead and the legacy of slavery would extend into the 21st century? How could he have foreseen the transformation of northern cities into ghettos or the rise of rap music?
How could Major Anderson realize that many years later immigrant families would move from their traditional urban neighborhoods in Chicago and Detroit to escape the waves of African-American immigration to northern cities, all because of the failure of reconstruction in the South.
The decision to fire on Fort Sumter marks the beginning of a trail that leads to housing projects lining south State Street in Chicago and 50 years of failed Democratic policies for public education across the nation. Is all this to be repeated in the cities of the North again, only this time with illegal immigrants speaking Spanish? Motown may not be ready yet to accept a mariachi jazz band.
In 1859 the politicians debated slavery, taxes and tariffs. Self interest prevented many of them from finding solutions to these problems, even though the lives of thousands would hang in the balance. So, too, in 2006 other politicians debate citizenship and open borders while the lives of thousands are transformed. Again, party politics masks the growing tension in the lives of many Americans.
a look forward
Imagine the fiction that in a few years a jet descends into the caramel colored smog over Los Angeles International Airport. Roger Carter of The United States Marshals Service looks at his badge, then out the jet's window. The badge still has the luster it had the first day he took his oath.
Marshal Carter is due to pick up Antonio Zapata and escort him to stand trial in New York. Finally, one of the most notorious leaders of a Mexican drug gang operating in the U. S. will be brought to justice. Zapata is Federal property, now, Carter says to himself, as the plane touches down. In spite of this, the marshal is troubled by reports that al-Qaida has infiltrated the Mexican drug gangs.
Perhaps the Second Civil War will start the moment U. S. Marshal Carter tries to enforce Federal law in Los Angeles. That act will be like another Fort Sumter, but this time with salsa. Los Angeles and the surrounding counties had become part of Mexico for all practical purposes, because the federal government had refused to do its duty and secure the borders of the U. S. The Mexicans living in L. A. want no part of gringo law enforcement officers.
When U. S. Marshals try to move Zapata to the airport, a renegade Mexican Army unit prevents his extradition. Shots are fired. One U. S. Marshal is killed. The Mexicans view Zapata as a hero, because he used his drug fortune to set up a free hospital for illegal immigrants near San Diego. They spirit him over the porous border to Baja California and safety. The next day, the Sons of Monteczuma are on the move.
There are mass demonstrations against the "federales." Telemundo broadcasts images of stores burning on Rodeo Drive. Echoing the speech of Daniel Webster, the cry goes out among the Anglos, "English and Citizenship, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
In a few years thousands will be dead because the U. S. and Mexico war against one another. Taking advantage of this conflict, al-Qaida operatives already in the U. S. begin terrorists attacks. Legions long quiet swarm out and sting us.
When President Heather Radwan, a Democrat, approves the deportation of all illegal aliens as part of a policy to undermine a nationalist, third party presidential candidate, riots break out in more U. S. cities with large Latino and Mexican populations. Eventually, China sends aid and soldiers to Mexico to help in the settlement of illegal immigrants along the U. S.-Mexico border.
Just as President Lincoln could not solve the problem of slavery without freeing the slaves, President Radwan could not solve the problem of illegal immigration without deporting those who were in the country illegally. Yet, what should have been done could not be done until it was too late. It is unfortunate for nations, but sometimes politics does not keep pace with logic.
To keep some semblance of urban order, unemployed veterans from the Iraq war, trained in urban combat, patrol the downtown streets of Chicago and New York with the help of the newly formed National Defense Corps. They do this in spite of the sanctuary city policy renewed by the Mexican born mayor of Chicago, Antonio Emanuel Ortiz.
After years of unrest, Massachusetts and Oregon refuse to deport illegal immigrants or to collect Federal taxes as a protest against martial law. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans offer a candidate for election with the vision of Abraham Lincoln.
The closest any third party presidential candidate comes to victory is the Nationalist Party candidate, Senator Kevin Frost. He will be remembered for saying, "There is in the heart of some liberals a death wish--a desire to erase the past. In their zeal to erase injustice they will erase everything." This insight into motives proves him right, but it does not earn him votes.
Soon, most of the nation's cities are in turmoil, as minority group after minority group sides with the illegal immigrants. The union does not hold and the nation splits apart. The supermall that America had become, stocked with cheap Chinese goods, is now closed.
Following four years of civil war, a consortium of major international corporations lead by U. S. auto makers, enforces a peace. That peace is good for business and so the U. S. Constitution is suspended. Then, Russia, saved from waves of disastrous immigration by a long period of communism, closed borders and a depressed economy, emerges as the last stronghold of Western Civilization. The spirit of Dmitri Shostakovich comes home to roost.
If Russia can beat China to the moon and claim it as territory for the Orthodox West, then the Russians will command an insurmountable lead in the arms race. Back on earth, Alaskans, wanting nothing to do with Mexican politics, have already voted to become again part of Russia.
Hardly anyone remembers marshal Carter who died defending the Republicans at the battle of Bakersfield. Many others are forgotten, too, but cattle still roam the open range in what used to be Montana, and is now part of the New Canadian Territory.
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