In 1788, the year before he assumed the presidency, George Washington wrote a letter to the radical Dutch Mennonite minister Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, welcoming him to the United States: "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong."

This notion of America as a refuge for the oppressed has waxed and waned over our country's history, and has obviously never been absolute. (Washington's concern for the "persecuted part of mankind" co-existed, somehow, with his ownership of slaves.) But it still represents what is best about the United States.

The idea expressed in Washington's letter has, to varying degrees, been woven through America's culture since its inception. As much as some of the white nationalists in the Republican Party would like to deny........

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