The Statue of Liberty Has Nothing to Do with Immigration

RUSH: It happens every time I reveal what to me is common information. I check the email, and there were a bunch of people that were shocked to learn the Statue of Liberty wasn’t about immigration. It shows you how successful left-wing-created narratives have been. Let me tell you the truth about this, as abbreviated as I can with the lack of time I’ve got. The Statue of Liberty represents Libertas, Roman goddess of Liberty. She bears a torch liberty. She bears a torch and a tabula ansata. It’s a tabula that evokes the law on which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence.

That’s what words are on the Statue of Liberty, words that commemorate July 4th, 1776. A broken chain lies at the feet of the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty had absolutely nothing to do with immigration. So why do people think that it does? Well, there was a socialist poet. (Are poets anything other than socialists and communists?) Her name was Emma Lazarus, and her poem was called The New Colossus, and it included the lines, “Give me your tired, give me your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

That was not part of the creation of the Statue of Liberty. It was not delivered with the Statue of Liberty. It came later. The poem written by Emma Lazarus was written to help raise money for the statue’s pedestal. We had to build the pedestal, which is also a room underneath the statue. A bronze tablet bearing the Emma Lazarus poem was only put inside the pedestal in 1903. And yet there’s Lester Holt out there on NBC holding out the Statue of Liberty as a beacon to immigrants as so that’s what it was intended to be, fighting against Trump’s executive order of the weekend. They have nothing to do with immigration. Zilch.

RUSH: I don’t want to make too big a deal about this, but I’m a stickler for reality and detail, and I hate liberal rewrites of things because it’s lies and it’s designed to create emotions in people that cause actions which are not helpful to the country. And that’s essentially what liberalism has done is feed off of and promote emotions over thought and fact. Lester Holt last night on NBC Nightly News:

“Behind me, the Statue of Liberty, which for nearly 130 years has symbolized the welcome arms of a country of immigrants,” is how he opened the program. The NBC Nightly News. However, he said, “But tonight she also stands as a symbolic flash point in a country in the midst of soul-searching over the limits of its generosity in an age of international terrorism. It’s total BS, folks. The Statue of Liberty (further details) was given to America by the French. Even now when I tell people that I run into people that didn’t know that. It was donated by the French as a tribute to liberty and freedom and independence in 1886.

It was originally intended to be delivered to celebrate the centennial of the Declaration, the American Revolution. It was supposed to arrive in 1876, but it didn’t make it. It was 10 years late, or eight years late, depending on how you look at it. It was not until 1903 that they decided they needed to build the pedestal. They needed money for it, and they commissioned that poet, Emma Lazarus, to write what she wrote, and that line, of course is, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and that’s all it’s taken.

The statue was not intended to recognize immigration. It was intended to recognize liberty and freedom. If you think they’re intertwined, don’t be misled. Here’s Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state during the Clinton years — who stood by Bill Clinton during all of his womanizing, during all of his misogyny, during all of his reprobate behavior. Here’s Madeleine Albright standing by the guy. She was on CNN this morning. Chris Cuomo, who probably doesn’t know anything I just told you about the Statue of Liberty, said, “You’ve got the Statue of Liberty on your lapel this morning. What is the concern about the ban that you have, Madam Albright?”

ALBRIGHT: Every part of it, Chris, because what it is is… In many ways it’s anti-American and what this country stands for. It is we are a country that has been, uh, created and, uhh, populated by people from other countries, and so, uhh, the Statue of Liberty’s message is, in fact, one of which open arms and welcoming people. And, umm, I, uh, do think that there are tears in the eyes of the statue at the moment.

RUSH: No. The statue doesn’t cry. The statue is a statue. It’s made out of bronze. It doesn’t cry. There aren’t any tears coming from the eyes of the Statue of Liberty ’cause there aren’t any eyes, and the Statue of Liberty is not welcoming immigrants. What it represents is the beacon of liberty and freedom! It doesn’t say, “If you’re from a war-torn area, come on in.” We have laws that deal with that! The Statue of Liberty does not grant anybody entry into the United States of America. The Statue of Liberty does not say, “You want in? This is the way! Come right over here to Ellis Island, and we’ll send you through there.”

It’s not what it means. Now, I imagine some of you are saying, “Rush, did you get a little overboard on this?” No, folks. It may sound like I’m going a little overboard, but I’m a stickler for truth and fact here, and this is all being used to work up what is already deranged lunacy on the left. It’s fanning the flames of this stuff by furthering the misinformation and the lies that people are getting to keep that emotional flame supposedly burning in the minds and the hearts of these leftists who, in truth, are miserably unhappy.

"Ideas have consequences!" - Weaver

". . . your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

". . . yearning to breathe free." Now, that's the money line so-called "progressive" regressives either overlook, or deliberately ignore in any discussion of migration to these shores!

For over 200 years, millions of oppressed citizens from all over the world fled other countries and came to America to participate in a place where a written Constitution limited the power of government and freed individuals in the society to "pursue" their own individual interpretations of "happiness."

As they "breathed free," in a land where what James Madison called a "benign government" left them alone, except when they harmed another citizen, they thrived.

Within only a relatively short time, their innovation, ingenuity, and industry--left alone by that "benign" government--was enriching the entire world.

The exceptional "idea" upon which America was formed produced amazing results. As evidence, read a few excerpted portions of Edmund Burke's 1775 Speech on Conciliation. . ." before the British Parliament

(Excerpts)"I have in my hand two accounts; one a comparative state of the export trade of England to its Colonies, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772; the other a state of the export trade of this country to its Colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England to all parts of the world (the Colonies included) in the year 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your table, the earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who first established the Inspector-General's office, which has been ever since his time so abundant a source of Parliamentary information.
"The export trade to the Colonies consists of three great branches: the African which, terminating almost wholly in the Colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce, the West Indian, and the North American. All these are so interwoven that the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and, if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade.
"The trade to the Colonies, taken on the export side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:
Exports to North America and the West Indies. L483,265 To Africa. .................................. 86,665 L569,930
"In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as follows:
To North America and the West Indies ...... L4,791,734 To Africa. ................................ 866,398 To which, if you add the export trade from Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence .. 364,000 L6,022,132
"From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to six millions. It has increased no less than twelve-fold. This is the state of the Colony trade as compared with itself at these two periods within this century, and this is matter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account. See how the export trade to the Colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other point of view; that is, as compared to the whole trade of England in 1704:
The whole export trade of England, including that to the Colonies, in 1704. ................... L6,509,000 Export to the Colonies alone, in 1772 ......... 6,024,000 Difference, L485,000
"The trade with America alone is now within less than L500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken the largest year of those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented, and augmented more or less in almost every part to which it ever extended; but with this material difference, that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the Colony trade was but one-twelfth part, it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more than a third of the whole. This is the relative proportion of the importance of the Colonies at these two periods, and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must have this proportion as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.
"Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. IT IS GOOD FOR US TO BE HERE.
"We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere, et quae sit potuit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision that when in the fourth generation the third Prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation which, by the happy issue of moderate and healing counsels, was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one if, amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and, whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarcely visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him: "Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life!" If this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day!
"Excuse me, Sir, if turning from such thoughts I resume this comparative view once more. You have seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small one. I will point out to your attention a particular instance of it in the single province of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704 that province called for L11,459 in value of your commodities, native and foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why, nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the export to Pennsylvania was L507,909, nearly equal to the export to all the Colonies together in the first period.
"I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details, because generalities, which in all other cases are apt to heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of the commerce with our Colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
"So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object, in view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many enjoyments they procure which deceive the burthen of life; how many materials which invigorate the springs of national industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curious subject indeed; but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast and various.
"I pass, therefore, to the Colonies in another point of view, their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest I am persuaded they will export much more. At the beginning of the century some of these Colonies imported corn from the Mother Country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted parent.

A reading of Burke's summary of the primary reason for all of the success of the colonies is his conclusion that it was rooted what he defined as "the spirit of liberty," coming from the beliefs and spirits of the colonists.

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