Excerpt from the Journal of Charles Pinckney of South
Carolina, of the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1789. Regarding the statement of Benjamin
Franklin at the convention concerning Jewish immigra-
tion.
"There is a great danger for the United States of America.
This great danger is the Jew. Gentlemen, in every land the
Jews have settled, they have depressed the moral level and
lowered the degree of commercial honesty. They have re-
mained a-part and un-assimilated; oppressed, they at-
tempt to strangle the nation financially, as in the case
of Portugal and Spain.
For more than seventeen hundred years they have la-
mented their sorrowful fate — namely, that they have been
driven out of their mother land; but. gentlemen, if the
civilized world today should give them back Palestine and
their property, they would immediately find pressing
reason for not returning there. Why? . . . Because they
are vampires and vampires cannot live on other vampires
— they cannot live among themselves. They must live
among Christians and others who do not belong to their
race.
If they are not expelled from the United States by the
Constitution within less than one hundred years, they
will stream into this country in such numbers that they
will rule and destroy us and change our form of Govern-
ment for which we Americans shed our blood and sacri-
ficed our life, property and personal freedom. If the Jews
are not excluded within two hundred years, our children
will be working in the fields to feed Jews while they
remain in counting houses, gleefully rubbing their hands.
I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews
forever, your children and your children's children will
curse you in their graves. Their ideas are not those of
Americans, even when they lived among us for ten genera-
tions. The leopard cannot change his spots. The Jews are
a danger to this land and if they are allowed to enter,
they will imperil our institutions. They should be ex-
cluded by the Constitution."
The original of this copy is in the Franklin Institute.
Philadelphia, Pa.
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