Lincoln on Immigration

A beautiful quote, which I found at The Reality Based Community. Abraham Lincoln speaks:

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that "All men are created equal." We now practically read it "All men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "All are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."