Reply to “Americans won’t do those jobs” is the worst argument for mass immigration ever

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You clearly have never employed anyone or otherwise run a competitive retail/agriculture type business.

Because the questions you are asking suggest either no employment history or solely white collar type history like a lawyer or someone who otherwise sits behind a keyboard all day.[/quote]

Funny you mention this. My dad owned a business that employed illegal immigrants. He tried to hire citizens, and he tried to get his employees on visas, but it never worked out, the citizens tended not to be as reliable of workers and he was too small of a shop to be successful on the visa front.

You are correct that my dad would not have been able to stay afloat if he had to hire citizens at higher wages, but that is only because literally every other similar small business was also employing illegal immigrants. If they were all subjected to the same playing field, then the industry would have to change and some businesses might not survive, but that would not be predicated on whether or not they employed illegal inmigrants.[/quote]

Your dad's business was simply not economically viable. So he broke the law.[/quote]

Hard to say it was not viable because we never had a control group. Every other small business in his industry did the same. All of those businesses would have had to operate on a very different model had there not been a supply of illegal immigrant labor.

From an economic standpoint, it does not matter that much whether the immigration is legal or illegal except that illegal immigrants are more exploitable and therefore easier to subject to bad working conditions and low wages. Over the past several years, much of the migration was authorized via TPS or whatever program, but legal or not, a surge of low skilled labor is going to have a similar effect on labor markets.

And yes, there are some industries that would not be able to survive without illegal immigrant labor. If prices go up due to labor costs, then people will have to make choices where to spend their money. Obviously they need food. They do not need pedicures.

Our world as we know it has been heavily shaped by the steady availability of cheap labor. Large houses on suburban lots requiring maintenance inside and outside come to mind. If cheap house cleaners and landscapers weren’t available, a lot fewer people would want those large suburban houses. Not to mention the people needed to build those houses. Suburban sprawl is enabled by cheap immigrant labor. [/quote]
Same thing with plantation houses. They were only viable because of the cheap labor. People adapt though. Hopefully it doesn’t take a war this time.[/quote]

Ah yes the mud sill class Democrats Majoritarianism at its worst, the party of Jackson, the "We need forced labor party".  I saw an illegal immigrant sitting in air conditioning at restaurant the other day, looked just as lazy as me.

The term **“mud sill class”** (more commonly “mudsill theory”) originated in the mid-19th century—and it’s deeply rooted in pro-slavery ideology.

---

### 🔍 Origins of the Term

* **Etymology**: Originally, a *mudsill* was a construction beam laid directly on wet, unstable ground—effectively the lowest foundation stone. By the 1680s, the term also had figurative use for society’s lowest class. ([Etymology Online][1])

* **Political usage**: The concept was explicitly formalized on **March 4, 1858**, by South Carolina Senator **James H. Hammond**. In what later became known as his **Mudsill Speech**, he claimed that every society needs a permanent lower class—“a class to do the menial duties…constitutes the very mud‑sill of society”([Wikipedia][2]).

---

### 🏛️ Role in Pro‑Slavery Rhetoric

* Hammond contended that enslaved African Americans fulfilled this foundational role naturally—due to supposed docility, adaptability, and physical strength—thus justifying the racial hierarchy of slavery as essential to civilization’s stability .

* He also claimed that Northern wage laborers were effectively slaves in all but name: transient, exploited, and poorly compensated([PBS][3]).

* The argument was embraced widely among Southern elites and echoed by other pro-slavery writers like Calhoun and Fitzhugh ([Wikipedia][4]).

---

### 📚 Historical Impact and Backlash

* **Northern reaction**: Hammond’s idea sparked outrage among Northern laborers. They reappropriated “mud-sill” as a badge of working-class pride—forming **Mud‑Sill Clubs**, rallying under banners at the Lincoln–Douglas debates, and even enlisting as “mud-sills” in Union regiments during the Civil War ([The Journal of the Civil War Era][5]).

* **Lincoln’s opposition**: Abraham Lincoln vehemently rejected the mudsill doctrine. He argued instead that labor precedes and enables capital, and that wage workers are not trapped permanently but can advance through free labor opportunities([Michigan Publishing][6]).

---

### ✅ Summary

1. **Term**: Built on a literal beam in architecture, then extended metaphorically to denote society’s lowest tier.
2. **Coined**: Politically by James H. Hammond in 1858.
3. **Justification**: Used to rationalize slavery and segregation by positing a “natural” lower labor class.
4. **Rejection**: Reclaimed by Northern workers as a points of pride and sharply opposed by Lincoln and Free-Labor advocates.

---

In short, the **mud sill class** concept began as an architectural analogy and was transformed by pro-slavery advocates like Hammond into a socially conservative argument for racialized labor hierarchy—only to be contested and redefined by Northern workers and abolitionists.

[1]: https://www.etymonline.com/word/mudsill?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Mudsill - Etymology, Origin & Meaning"
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudsill_theory?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Mudsill theory"
[3]: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3439t.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Africans in America/Part 4/Mudsill Theory"
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proslavery_thought?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Proslavery thought"
[5]: https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2018/12/mudsills-vs-chivalry/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Mudsills vs. Chivalry"
[6]: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/jala/article/id/2297/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Abraham Lincoln's Republic of Rules: The Logic of Labor ..."
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