In the 1820 Census, the United States population reached 10 million for the first time, almost three times what it was just 30 years earlier. While this was a remarkable event, it was even more remarkable because the growth was almost exclusively native. There was very little immigration to the United States between 1790 and 1830. Prior to 1790, about 1 million of the 3.9 million population were immigrants including about 360,000 enslaved peoples born in the countries of Africa. But by 1823, only about 2% of the population were foreign born immigrants.
Today, we often think of the United States as a melting pot, and hear of the old days when our government opened her arms to the huddled masses, but in 1823, the U.S. was a country of native born citizens. America in 1823, was not as eager to pull in new immigrants from Europe. Even with the low numbers of immigrants, there were still some 300,000 Catholics who immigrated to America posing concerns that their allegiance to the Pope or a foreign political leader would subvert American institutions and freedoms. If Europeans were to emigrate to America, they would need to be "healthy, industrious, and fugal laborers" who would cast off any "European skin". These are the traits that Secretary of State John Quincy Adams espoused in an 1819 letter. On April 29, 1820 the Niles' Register reprinted such a letter from Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Adams was responding to a German national who had inquired about "encouragement and favors" that the U.S. government might bestow upon German immigrants.
Adams opened the letter by stating that "the government of the United States has never adopted any measure to encourage or invite emigrants from any part of Europe. It has never held out any incitements to induce the subjects of any other sovereign to abandon their own country to become inhabits of this." Adams explained that this did not mean that the government would not provide humanitarian help to immigrants arriving with special needs, nor did he mean to say that the "general government of the union, nor those of the individual states" were ignorant of the blessings of strength and wealth of "healthy, industrious, and fugal laborers" form other countries. Adams just made it clear that the United States did not grant special favors to any new-comers. America was different than Europe, Europeans granted privileges based upon class, whereas the United States granted them equally to all. "Emmigrants from Germany, therefore, or from elsewhere, coming here, are not to favors from the governments."
Adams then gave an simple explanation of what he believed made America strong in 1819. "They come to a life of independence, but to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical, of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, the Atlantic is always open to them, to return to the land of their nativity and their fathers." In other words, they were not to come to America looking for hand-outs, but they were to come here to work hard. More then hard work was expected, Adams also expected them to assimilate. "To one thing they must make up their minds, or, they will be disappointed in every expectation of happiness as Americans. They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. they must look forward to their posterity rather than backward to their ancestors; they must be sure that whatever their own feelings may be, those of their children will cling to the prejudices of this country, and will partake of that proud spirit, not unmingled with disdain, which you have observed is remarkable in the general character of this people".
Adam closed the letter with final remarks regarding offers of work. Adams explained that "All the places in the department to which I belong, allowed by laws, are filled, nor is there a prospect of an early vacancy in any of them. Whenever such vacancies occur, the applications from natives of the country to fill them, are far more numerous than the offices, and recommendations in behalf of the candidates so strong and so earnest, that it would seldom be possible, if it would ever be just to give a preference over them to foreigners". The United States in 1823 was a young nation, but as Monroe stated it was a nation of natives. Immigrants were welcome, but they had to be industrious, of good moral an character. They were not to expect handouts or favors, and when it came to jobs they should expect to get in the back of the line.
With only promising of a life of hard work, the United States was about to see an explosion of immigrants to America. Over the next 2 decades, as America's population continued to grow, immigration became more and more of a factor. By 1850, the foreign born population would reach well over 2 million and represent almost 10% of the United States Population. And the Germans kept coming, during period between 1850 and 1930, about 5 million Germans migrated to the United States. In 1823, President Monroe could not have imagined this, when he wrote in his State of the Union address that "immigration from other countries has been inconsiderable".
"If we compare the present condition of our Union with its actual state at the close of our Revolution, the history of the world furnishes no example of a progress in improvement in all the important circumstances which constitute the happiness of a nation which bears any resemblance to it. At the first epoch our population did not exceed 3,000,000. by the last census it amounted to about 10,000,000, and, what is more extraordinary, it is almost altogether native, for the immigration from other countries has been inconsiderable."http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29465
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/nativism/pages/historical_bg.html
Niles' Register Volume 18, April 29 1820 pgs. 157-159
http://thefederalist.com/2014/08/18/what-john-quincy-adams-said-about-immigration-will-blow-your-mind/
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