Letters from an American - January 31, 2026

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

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January 31st, 26. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning, Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare and the right to vote. All visas are abridged to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the U.S. can do so, exercise the franchise in the U.S., and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits they're in.

After his call for a labor class excluded from citizenship and a voice in government, Miller went on to reject the idea that, living and working legally in Ohio should be described as part of Ohio communities. Calling out former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for the Senate again this year, for including them, Miller posted, Democrats just flatly reject any concept of nationhood that has ever existed in human history. History is doing that rhyming thing again. In 1858, Senator James Henry, Hammond, a Democrat of South Carolina, a wealthy enslaver, rose to explain to his northern colleagues why their objection to human enslavement was so badly misguided. In all social systems,

there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life, he said. Such workers needed few brains and little skill. They just had to be strong, docile, and loyal to their betters, who would organize their labor and then collect the profits from it, concentrating that wealth into their own hands to move society forward efficiently. Hammond called such workers the mudsill of society and political government. Much like the beams driven into the ground to support a stately home above, the mudsill supported that other class, which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. The South had pushed black Americans into that mudsill role. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves, he said. The North also had a mudsill class, he added.

The man who lives by daily labor, in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and operatives, as you call them, are essentially slaves. But Hammond warned that the North was making a terrible mistake. Our slaves do not vote, he said. We give them no political power. Yours do vote and being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret that the ballot box is stronger than an army with banners and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided, by the quiet process of the ballot box. Hammond was very clear about what he believed the world should look like. Black Americans should always

be subordinate to white men, of course, but white women too were subordinate. They were made to breed, as toys for recreation, or to bring men wealth and position, he had explained to his son in 1815. Hammond's promising early career had been nearly derailed when he admitted that for two years he had sexually assaulted his four young nieces, the daughters of the powerful Wade Hampton II, although he insisted he was being wronged because he should get credit for showing any restraint at all when faced with four such lovely creatures. If women and black people were at the bottom of society, Southern white men were an aristocracy, by the virtue of their descent from the ancient cavaliers of Virginia, a race of men without fear and without reproach, alike incapable of servility and selfishness. By definition, whatever such leaders did was what was good for society, and any man who had not achieved that status was excluded because of his own failings or criminal inclinations. The southern system, Hammond told the Senate, was

the best in the world, such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth, and spreading it would benefit everyone. The next year, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee that he rejected Hammond's mudsill theory. Lincoln explained that Hammond's mudsill theory divided the world into permanent casts, arguing that men with money drove the economy, and workers were stuck permanently at the bottom. For his part, Lincoln embraced a different theory. It was workers, not wealthy men, who drove the economy. While men of wealth had little incentive to experiment and throw themselves into their

work, men on the make were innovative and hardworking. Such men could and should rise. This free labor theory, articulating the true meaning of American democracy for northerners and for the non-slave-holding Southerners, who, as Lincoln reminded his listeners, made up a majority in the South. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages a while, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him, he explained. In the election of 1860, Southern Democrats tried to get voters to back their worldview

by promising they were reflecting God's will and by using virulent racism, warning that Black Americans must be kept in their place or they would destroy American society. But in a nation of immigrants and men who had worked their way up from day laborers to become prominent men, Lincoln stood firm on the Declaration of Innsia. independence. He warned that if people started to make exceptions to the idea that all men are created equal, they would not stop. They would transform this government into a government of some other form. If that declaration is not the truth, Lincoln said, let us get the statute book in which we find it and tear it out. To cries of no, no, he responded, let us stand firmly

buy it then. Miller's white nationalism is not the concept on which this nation was built. The United States of America was built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the sweat and blood of almost 250 years of Americans, often those from marginalized communities, working to make those principles a reality. The hierarchical system, Milibald, embraces echoes the system championed by those like Hammond, who imagined themselves the nation's true leaders who had the right to rule. They were not bound by the law, and they rejected the idea that those unwilling to recognize their superiority should have either economic or political power. The horrors of the Epstein files show a group of

powerful and wealthy men and women who sexually assaulted children and showed no concern either for their crimes or that they might have to answer to the law. The public still does not know the extent of the horrors or the human trafficking business in which Epstein and others were engaged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch told reporters yesterday that the Department of Justice was not releasing any item from the Epstein files that showed death, physical abuse, or injury. You know the biggest problem with being friends with you? Dr. Peter Attia wrote in an email to Epstein

in response to an email with a subject line, Got a Fresh Shipment. Attia answered his own question. The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can't tell a soul. Trump echoed Hammond in a different way tonight on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida. Asked by a reporter how he would handle being on both sides of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS,

he suggested that taking the money of the American people into his own hands would enable him to use it for the public good. I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself, he said. We could make it a substantial amount. Nobody would care because it's going to go to numerous very good charities. Another story tonight indicated the degree to which the president sees himself as part of a wealthy cast that is above the law. Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhouse, Elliott Brown, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal, published a blockbuster report showing that four days before Trump's 2025 inauguration, men working for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy

49% of their brand new cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial. The investors would pay half immediately, sending $187 million to entities held by the Trump family, and at least $31 million to entities held by Steve Whitkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial, whom Trump had named U.S. envoy to the Middle East weeks earlier. The deal was backed. by Sheikh Tanun bin Zayed al-Nayyat, who is the brother of the President of the United Arab Emirates and oversees more than $1.3 trillion that includes the country's largest wealth fund. Tannoon has wanted access to U.S. AI technology, but the Biden administration blocked access out of concern it could end up in Chinese hands. The Trump administration, in striking contrast, has committed

to allowing the United Arab Emirates to buy about half a million of the most advanced AI chips a year. Federal agents acting for the Trump administration are trying to enforce the authority of those like Miller, tear gassing, arresting, and killing American citizens. Thousands marched peacefully in Portland, Oregon today, but as Alex Baumhart of the Oregon Capitol Chronicle recorded, federal officers outside the ice facility in Portland indiscriminately through loads of gas and flashbangs at marchers, including children. Portland, Oregon City Councilor Mitch Green reported, I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had

their families with them. Federal agents at the ice facility tear gassed children, We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions. Tim Dickinson of the Contrarian wrote, Today I saw ice-gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they're doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps. And yet, in another echo of the 1850s, MAGA Republicans are reversing victim and offender, blaming the people under assault for the violence. Trump officials insist that community watch groups and protesters are engaged in domestic terrorism. Greg Jaffe and Thomas

Gibbons Neff of the New York Times flagged that Representative Eli Crane, a Republican of Arizona, told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday that those people protecting their neighbors from the violence of federal agents want revolution. They want to fundamentally remake and tear down the institutions and the culture of this country. In an order requiring the release of five-year-old Liam Kanejo Ramos and his father, asylum seeker Adrian Kanejo Arias from detention, U.S. District Judge Fred Beery noted that in their crusade against undocumented immigrants, U.S. U.S. officials are ignoring the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. For some among us, the judge wrote, the perfidious lust for unbridled power

and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency, and the rule of law be damned. Judge Beery signed the order after saying he was putting a judicial finger in the constitutional dyke. Under his signature, he posted the now famous image of the little boy detained in his blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, along with the notations for two biblical passages. Jesus said, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them,

for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. And Jesus wept. Tonight, voters flipped a seat in the Texas Senate from Republican to Democratic in a special election. Democrat Taylor Remitt, an Air Force veteran and machinist, defeated right-wing Republican Lee Wamsgans for a seat that Republicans have held since the early 1990s. Robert Downen of Texas Monthly noted that it's In the final days of the campaign, the Wamsgans campaign spent $310,000, while Remit spent nothing. And Daniel Nican of Boltz Magh posted that overall, Wamsgans spent nearly $2.2 million more than Remit in the campaign.

Both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Trump himself publicly supported Wamsgans. And yet, as G. Eliot Morris of strength and numbers noted, voters flipped a district that Trump won in 2024 by 17 points to rem it, electing him by more than a 14-point margin. After removing the minor party candidates in the vote, the swing from the Republican in 2024 was 32 points toward the Democrats in Texas. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.