Obama’s Finest Hour?

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

President Obama’s immigration speech last night could yet go down as his finest hour. No doubt there are those who will retort that this isn’t saying a whole lot, given the disappointments of his presidency. But we are among those on the right who reckon that if we want — as we do — the free movement of trade and capital we also need the free movement of labor. Nor does the free movement of people burden our economy. The virtue of our system of democratic capitalism is that it incents individuals to produce more than they consume, so that the more is the merrier.

This was understood by the American Founders. More than understood. The penchant of the British tyrant, George III, for interfering with immigration to the colonies was one of the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. George III, the Declaration says, had “endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.” We’d have liked to see Mr. Obama quote that famous formulation.

When the question of naturalization arose at Philadelphia, the father of the Constitution, James Madison, pressed the point. He recorded in his Notes that he’d said he wished “to maintain the character of liberality which had been professed in all the constitutions and publications of America. He wished to invite foreigners of merit and republican principles among us. America was indebted to emigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture, and the arts.”

The Founders gave Congress a free hand in writing a rule of naturalization, requiring only that it be “uniform,” so as to avoid chaos among the states. Mr. Obama would no doubt characterize his own remarks last night as an attempt to seize as much power as the Constitution would allow him absent the kind of legislation the solons had a chance to pass when, in 2007, immigration came to a head in the 110th Congress. But it is no small thing that it is to Congress, not the president or the states, that the Constitution grants the naturalization power.

This is why people are saying that the president is playing with constitutional fire, and whether he will get away with it is now the question. Mr. Obama challenged Congress last night to “pass a bill.” It certainly puts the focus where it ought to be. But it would be wrong of the president to assume that the failure of the Congress to act is a license for him to usurp powers that are not his. Failing to legislate is, after all, itself a decision by Congress, a principle well-recognized by our courts. Congress has good reason to respect the alarm on the southern border.

The reports of lawlessness there, the loss of control of the border, the abuse of welfare, and the scent of rebellion north of the Rio Grande, these problems would have horrified the Founders (as the editor of the Sun suggested in Time magazine this week). But the Founders feared a king, too, and this is the problem the president faces. The best part of his speech was when he quoted the Torah, which enjoins us in Exodus that, as Mr. Obama put it, “we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too.” Let us see whether he can lead the Congress into the promised land.


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