The Black Republican

In 1858, South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond, a wealthy plantation owner, made the following statement on the floor of the US Senate in which he laid out his Mudsill Theory in support of the continuation of slavery:

In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill.

To his thinking, not just South Carolina but the country as a whole needed this mudsill in order to prosper and grow:

It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.

Today it seems as though we have a new Mudsill - a new social class of people to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. And those people are the Illegal Aliens.

...the American economy would suffer tremendously. I don't know who's going to cut all those lawns, I don't know who's going to do all this laundry, I don't know who's going to dig all those wells, and pick all that fruit...

Now, before you start typing out those nasty e-mails, let me just say that I am not the one advancing this thinking. I believe that such thinking, as with the thinking of James Henry Hammond regarding slavery, is as wrong-headed as wrong-headedness can be. No class of people should be exploited for the benefit of others. No, the person who spoke those words is none other than Juan Williams of National Public Radio (on Special Report with Brit Hume, 2/3rds of the way down, in the Panel discussion segment).

When I heard Juan say these words I felt as if someone had just slapped me across the face. I could not believe that a man who identifies himself with the African-American community (even though he was actually born in Panama) could actually verbalize an argument espoused by antebellum proponents of slavery.

I'm not sure if Juan is aware of the historical parallel and irony his words betray - because I think if he did he would not have uttered them - but it is obvious his words provide evidence that there is a segment of this country that believe as he does, that the prosperity of this country is dependent on the perpetuation of a semi-subservient under-class of people.

Now, just as then, people that believe this are just plain wrong. Our country, our society, and our government were not built on the mudsill of an under-class of people, but on the bedrock of the Constitution and the rule of law, the Liberty that document enshrines, and the hard work and ingenuity of all who have come to these shores. To suggest anything else, whether consciously or not, is but an erosion of those principals.

I guess George Santayana was right...