The native American. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1840, 1839-09-07
INFLUX OF FOREIGN POPULATION.

INFLUX OF FOREIGN POPULATION.
In our last we copied some remarks from the
Native American, of New Orleans, in relation to
several communications addressed to the editors
ola Northern paper, by "A German" in which,
from pride of country and fraternal feeling for the
great multitude of his own people in the United
States, he undertakes to deny the allegation and
the argument, that the majority of inhabitants
here are descendants from the anglo-Saxons, and
speak the English language. If the statistics of
his pieces are correct, then it is very clear that
we have begun our efforts at repeal Of the law
of Naturalization little too late, by about ten
years, as it appears that excluding the slave po-
pulaton of upwards of two millions from our CEN
-sus, and supposing his data, that there more
than five millions Of Germans in the country, to
be true, then the Native population, at this day,
is scarcely more than equal to the Germans, and
if we add upwards of two millions Of Irish against
us, then the Natives are in clear minority, with
out counting the two millions of other foreigners
from every other part Of the world, to outnumber
us.
The writer alluded to, encourages his people in
their certain supremacy here, both as to language
and numbers, by the declaration that arrangements
are in progress for the emigration of 100000 an
nually, $50 that in ten years there will be more
Germans in the United States than there are in
Germany" This, we think, is no false predic-
ton, but however consolitory it may be to the
people who come from what Hume calls I" that
Northern Hive" to know, that our weakness and
their necessities have obtained them two nations
which they may claim and eventually control as
their own, it is, or ought to be, lamentable re-
Election for US, whose ancestors have fought against
those very people, that the land of their
and their liberty should be thus silently transfer
red from their children to the children and mono
with some-that they can be infatuated with a
sublimated Interpretation of philanthropy, or bin
ded by the fanaticism of party SO much, as to act
as if the love Of charity or humanity on the one
side, or Of political devotion on the other, can
alter that great law of nature, which teaches as
its first precept, selfprotection, or that moral
principle in charity, which confines its first re-
CARDS and acts to itself and its own home. For
us, who number in this place the greater portion
of the whole population, it may be presumed we
entertain the kindly virtues, at least as coeAten-
sive as others, and yet with all the desire for their
liberal exercise, we cannot shut our eyes against
the fact of foreign preponderance and its evils,
without total humiliation Of that faculty of men
tai vision which, by induction, ascerains the ter
minus, by seeing the paths that lead to it, Be-
lieving, then, that in few years, unless speedy
measures are taken to prevent it, our land, our
birth-right, and the control of our institutions,
will be transferred to other and strange and adj
versary hands, we have, apart from the slightest
consideration of private interest with no animos-
tiles against men who happened to be born IN
other lands, but with strict and honest convic-
ton of the public necessity and polity OF our
course, undertaken these efforts. Indeed we may
say, in the language of the people of Lexington
to their Representatives in the General Council
OF Massachusetts, in l772, Whether successful
or not, succeeding generations shall know that we
understood our rights and liberties, and were
neither afraid nor ashamed to assert or to main
tain them"