Clyde Wilson on Immigration

At Macrobius, we mostly approach immigration from the standpoint of the post nati case. This case, in which Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Edward Coke did battle, determined the relation of the interrelationships of territory, allegiance, kinship, and birth in defining "Nation". As a late development in Anglo-Latin Law, it was naturally the inherited perspective from which the question of citizenship was approached by all the disputants in the American Revolution, at least those who practiced Law. And equally obviously, it is terra incognita for today's immigration debate. It is almost as though the current debate is being carried on by persons who have no memory or inheritance of Anglo-Latinity.

In any even, some of the few echoes of that earlier memory come from the quarter of Clyde Wilson, and in this thread his respondent Jimmy Cantrell, of Patriotist fame.

Clyde Wilson, after cataloguing the senators who voted for and against the bill, says:

``The South was the only part of the country to give a majority vote to the patriotic side, though with considerable help from the Plains and Rocky Mountains....''

His conclusion:

``Are you surprised that a number of Southerners decided several years ago that the Union was irredeemable and the best we could hope for was to save our own part?''

We will discuss Mr. Cantrell's response at length later on, but you may read it here:

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/wilson.cgi/Legacy%20of%20Lincoln/Deja_Vu_All_Over_Ag.writeback