Reply of Senator Geo. P. Hoar.
Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, replied to Senator Miller, and presented the supposed view of the Eastern States in a masterly manner. The speech covered twenty-eight pamphlet pages, and was referred to by the newspaper as an effort equal to some of the best by Charles Sumner. We make liberal extracts from the text, as follows:
“Mr. President: A hundred years ago the American people founded a nation upon the moral law. They overthrew by force the authority of their sovereign, and separated themselves from the country which had planted them, alleging as their justification to mankind certain propositions which they held to be self-evident.
“They declared—and that declaration is the one foremost action of human history—that all men equally derive from their Creator the right to the pursuit of happiness; that equality in the right to that pursuit is the fundamental rule of the divine justice in its application to mankind; that its security is the end for which governments are formed, and its destruction good cause why governments should be overthrown. For a hundred years this principle has been held in honor. Under its beneficent operation we have grown almost twenty-fold. Thirteen States have become thirty-eight; three million have become fifty million; wealth and comfort and education and art have flourished in still larger proportion. Every twenty years there is added to the valuation of this country a wealth enough to buy the whole German Empire, with its buildings and its ships and its invested property. This has been the magnet that has drawn immigration hither. The human stream, hemmed in by banks invisible but impassable, does not turn toward Mexico, which can feed and clothe a world, or South America, which can feed and clothe a hundred worlds, but seeks only that belt of States where it finds this law in operation. The marvels of comfort and happiness it has wrought for us scarcely surpass what it has done for other countries. The immigrant sends back the message to those he has left behind. There is scarcely a nation in Europe west of Russia which has not felt the force of our example and whose institutions are not more or less slowly approximating to our own.
“Every new State as it takes its place in the great family binds this declaration as a frontlet upon its forehead. Twenty-four of the States, including California herself, declare it in the very opening sentence of their constitutions. The insertion of the phrase ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ in the enumeration of the natural rights for securing which government is ordained, and the denial of which constitutes just cause for its overthrow, was intended as an explicit affirmation that the right of every human being who obeys the equal laws to go everywhere on the surface of the earth that his welfare may require is beyond the rightful control of government. It is a birthright derived immediately from him who ‘made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation.’ He made, so our fathers held, of one blood all the nations of men. He gave them the whole face of the earth whereon to dwell. He reserved for himself by his agents heat and cold, and climate, and soil, and water, and land to determine the bounds of their habitation. It has long been the fashion in some quarters, when honor, justice, good faith, human rights are appealed to, and especially when the truths declared in the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence are invoked as guides in legislation to stigmatize those who make the appeal as sentimentalists, incapable of dealing with practical affairs. It would be easy to demonstrate the falsehood of this notion. The men who erected the structure of this Government were good, practical builders and knew well the quality of the corner-stone when they laid it. When they put forth for the consideration of their contemporaries and of posterity the declaration which they thought a decent respect for the opinions of mankind required of them, they weighed carefully the fundamental proposition on which their immortal argument rested. Lord Chatham’s famous sentence will bear repeating again:
When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself I must declare and avow that in all my reading and observation—and it has been my favorite study, I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master states of the world—that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress assembled at Philadelphia.
The doctrine that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right with which men are endowed by their Creator, asserted by as religious a people as ever lived at the most religious period of their history, propounded by as wise, practical, and far-sighted statesmen as ever lived as the vindication for the most momentous public act of their generation, was intended to commit the American people in the most solemn manner to the assertion that the right to change their homes at their pleasure is a natural right of all men. The doctrine that free institutions are a monopoly of the favored races, the doctrine that oppressed people may sever their old allegiance at will, but have no right to find a new one, that the bird may fly but may never light, is of quite recent origin.
California herself owing her place in our Union to the first victory of freedom in the great contest with African slavery, is pledged to repudiate this modern heresy, not only by her baptismal vows, but by her share in the enactment of the statute of 1868. Her constitution read thus until she took Dennis Kearney for her lawgiver:
We, the people of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, do establish this constitution.
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.
Section 1. All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and defending property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.
Sec. 17. Foreigners who are or who may hereafter become bona fide residents of this State, shall enjoy the same rights in respect to the possession, enjoyment, and inheritance of property, as native-born citizens.
In the Revised Statutes, section 1999, Congress in the most solemn manner declare that the right of expatriation is beyond the lawful control of government:
Sec. 1999. Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and
Whereas in the recognition of this principle this Government has freely received emigrants from all nations, and invested them with the rights of citizenship.
This is a re-enactment, in part, of the statute of 1868, of which Mr. Conness, then a California Senator, of Irish birth, was, if not the author, the chief advocate.
The California Senator called up the bill day after day. The bill originally provided that the President might order the arrest and detention in custody of “any subject or citizen of such foreign government” as should arrest and detain any naturalized citizen of the United States under the claim that he still remained subject to his allegiance to his native sovereign. This gave rise to debate.
But there was no controversy about the part of the bill which I have read. The preamble is as follows:
Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for the protection of which the Government of the United States was established; and whereas in the recognition of this principle this Government has freely received emigrants from all nations and vested them with the rights of citizenship, &c.
Mr. Howard declares that—
The absolute right of expatriation is the great leading American principle.
Mr. Morton says:
That a man’s right to withdraw from his native country and make his home in another, and thus cut himself off from all connection with his native country, is a part of his natural liberty, and without that his liberty is defective. We claim that the right to liberty is a natural, inherent, God-given right, and his liberty is imperfect unless it carries with it the right of expatriation.
The bill containing the preamble above recited passed the Senate by a vote of 39 to 5.
The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from the one country to the other for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents.
“The bill which passed Congress two years ago and was vetoed by President Hayes, the treaty of 1881, and the bill now before the Senate, have the same origin and are parts of the same measure. Two years ago it was proposed to exclude Chinese laborers from our borders, in express disregard of our solemn treaty obligations. This measure was arrested by President Hayes. The treaty of 1881 extorted from unwilling China her consent that we might regulate, limit, or suspend the coming of Chinese laborers into this country—a consent of which it is proposed by this bill to take advantage. This is entitled “A bill to enforce treaty stipulations with China.”
“It seems necessary in discussing the statute briefly to review the history of the treaty. First let me say that the title of this bill is deceptive. There is no stipulation of the treaty which the bill enforces. The bill where it is not inconsistent with the compact only avails itself of a privilege which that concedes. China only relaxed the Burlingame treaty so far as to permit us to ‘regulate, limit, or suspend the coming or residence’ of Chinese laborers, ‘but not absolutely to prohibit it.’ The treaty expressly declares ‘such limitation or suspension shall be reasonable.’ But here is proposed a statute which for twenty years, under the severest penalties, absolutely inhibits the coming of Chinese laborers to this country. The treaty pledges us not absolutely to prohibit it. The bill is intended absolutely to prohibit it.
“The second article of the treaty is this:
“Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as traders, students, or merchants, or from curiosity, together with their body and household servants, and Chinese laborers, who are now in the United States, shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nations.
“Yet it is difficult to believe that the complex and cumbrous passport system provided in the last twelve sections of the bill was not intended as an evasion of this agreement. Upon what other nation, favored or not, is such a burden imposed? This is the execution of a promise that they may come and go ‘of their own free will.’
“What has happened within thirteen years that the great Republic should strike its flag? What change has come over us that we should eat the bravest and the truest words we ever spoke? From 1858 to 1880 there was added to the population of the country 42,000 Chinese.
“I give a table from the census of 1880 showing the Chinese population of each State:
| Statement showing the Chinese population in each State and Territory, according to the United States censuses of 1870 and of 1880. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 4 | |
| Alaska | ||
| Arizona | 20 | 1,630 |
| Arkansas | 98 | 134 |
| California | 49,310 | 75,025 |
| Colorado | 7 | 610 |
| Connecticut | 2 | 124 |
| Dakota | 238 | |
| Delaware | 1 | |
| District of Columbia | 3 | 13 |
| Florida | 18 | |
| Georgia | 1 | 17 |
| Idaho | 4,274 | 3,378 |
| Illinois | 1 | 210 |
| Indiana | 33 | |
| Iowa | 3 | 47 |
| Kansas | 19 | |
| Kentucky | 1 | 10 |
| Louisiana | 71 | 481 |
| Maine | 1 | 9 |
| Maryland | 2 | 5 |
| Massachusetts | 97 | 237 |
| Michigan | 2 | 27 |
| Minnesota | 53 | |
| Mississippi | 16 | 52 |
| Missouri | 3 | 94 |
| Montana | 1,949 | 1,764 |
| Nebraska | 18 | |
| Nevada | 3,152 | 5,420 |
| New Hampshire | 14 | |
| New Jersey | 15 | 176 |
| New Mexico | 55 | |
| New York | 29 | 924 |
| North Carolina | ||
| Ohio | 1 | 114 |
| Oregon | 3,330 | 9,513 |
| Pennsylvania | 14 | 160 |
| Rhode Island | 27 | |
| South Carolina | 1 | 9 |
| Tennessee | 26 | |
| Texas | 25 | 141 |
| Utah | 445 | 501 |
| Vermont | ||
| Virginia | 4 | 6 |
| Washington | 234 | 3,182 |
| West Virginia | 14 | |
| Wisconsin | 16 | |
| Wyoming | 143 | 914 |
| Total | 63,254 | 105,463 |
“By the census of 1880 the number of Chinese in this country was 105,000—one five-hundredth part of the whole population. The Chinese are the most easily governed race in the world. Yet every Chinaman in America has four hundred and ninety-nine Americans to control him.
The immigration was also constantly decreasing for the last half of the decade. The Bureau of Statistics gives the numbers as follows, (for the first eight years the figures are those of the entire Asiatic immigration:)
The number of immigrants from Asia, as reported by the United States Bureau of Statistics is as follows, namely:
| 1871 | 7,236 |
| 1872 | 7,825 |
| 1873 | 20,326 |
| 1874 | 13,857 |
| 1875 | 16,498 |
| 1876 | 22,943 |
| 1877 | 10,640 |
| 1878 | 9,014 |
| Total | 108,339 |
And from China for the year ended June 30—
| 1879 | 9,604 | |
| 1880 | 5,802 | |
| Total | 15,406 | |
| Grand Total | 123,745 |
“See also, Mr. President, how this class of immigrants, diminishing in itself, diminishes still more in its proportion to the rapidly increasing numbers who come from other lands. Against 22,943 Asiatic immigrants in 1876, there are but 5,802 in 1880. In 1878 there were 9,014 from Asia, in a total of 153,207, or one in seventeen of the entire immigration; and this includes all persons who entered the port of San Francisco to go to any South American country. In 1879 there were 9,604 from China in a total of 250,565, or one in twenty-six. In 1880 there were 5,802 from China in a total immigration of 593,359, or one in one hundred and two. The whole Chinese population, then, when the census of 1880 was taken, was but one in five hundred of our people. The whole Chinese immigration was but one in one hundred and two of the total immigration; while the total annual immigration quadrupled from 1878 to 1880, the Chinese was in 1880 little more than one-half what it was in 1878, and one-fourth what it was in 1876.
“The number of immigrants of all nations was 720,045 in 1881. Of these 20,711 were Chinese. There is no record in the Bureau of Statistics of the number who departed within the year. But a very high anti-Chinese authority places it above 10,000. Perhaps the expectation that the hostile legislation under the treaty would not affect persons who entered before it took effect stimulated somewhat their coming. But the addition to the Chinese population was less than one seventy-second of the whole immigration. All the Chinese in the country do not exceed the population of its sixteenth city. All the Chinese in California hardly surpass the number which is easily governed in Shanghai by a police of one hundred men. There are as many pure blooded Gypsies wandering about the country as there are Chinese in California. What an insult to American intelligence to ask leave of China to keep out her people, because this little handful of almond-eyed Asiatics threaten to destroy our boasted civilization. We go boasting of our democracy, and our superiority, and our strength. The flag bears the stars of hope to all nations. A hundred thousand Chinese land in California and everything is changed. God has not made of one blood all the nations any longer. The self-evident truth becomes a self-evident lie. The golden rule does not apply to the natives of the continent where it was first uttered. The United States surrender to China, the Republic to the despot, America to Asia, Jesus to Joss.
“There is another most remarkable example of this prejudice of race which has happily almost died out here, which has come down from the dark ages and which survives with unabated ferocity in Eastern Europe. I mean the hatred of the Jew. The persecution of the Hebrew has never, so far as I know, taken the form of an affront to labor. In every other particular the reproaches which for ten centuries have been leveled at him are reproduced to do service against the Chinese. The Hebrew, so it was said, was not a Christian. He did not affiliate or assimilate into the nations where he dwelt. He was an unclean thing, a dog, to whom the crime of the crucifixion of his Saviour was never to be forgiven. The Chinese quarter of San Francisco had its type in every city of Europe. If the Jew ventured from his hiding-place he was stoned. His wealth made him the prey of the rapacity of the noble, and his poverty and weakness the victim of the rabble. Yet how has this Oriental conquered Christendom by the sublimity of his patience? The great poet of New England, who sits by every American fireside a beloved and perpetual guest, in that masterpiece of his art, the Jewish Cemetery at Newport, has described the degradation and the triumph of these persecuted children of God.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o’er the sea—that desert desolate—
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
· · · · ·
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street;
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where’er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
Forty years ago—
Says Lord Beaconsfield, that great Jew who held England in the hollow of his hand, and who played on her aristocracy as on an organ, who made himself the master of an alien nation, its ruler, its oracle, and through it, and in despite of it, for a time the master of Europe—
Forty years ago—not a longer period than the children of Israel were wandering in the desert—the two most dishonored races in Europe were the Attic and the Hebrew. The world has probably by this discovered that it is impossible to destroy the Jews. The attempt to extirpate them has been made under the most favorable auspices and on the largest scale; the most considerable means that man could command have been pertinaciously applied to this object for the longest period of recorded time. Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Roman emperors, Scandinavian crusaders, Gothic princes, and holy inquisitors, have alike devoted their energies to the fulfillment of this common purpose. Expatriation, exile, captivity, confiscation, torture on the most ingenious and massacre on the most extensive scale, a curious system of degrading customs and debasing laws which would have broken the heart of any other people, have been tried, and in vain.
“Lord Beaconsfield admits that the Jews contribute more than their proportion to the aggregate of the vile; that the lowest class of Jews are obdurate, malignant, odious, and revolting. And yet this race of dogs, as it has been often termed in scorn, furnishes Europe to-day its masters in finance and oratory and statesmanship and art and music. Rachel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Disraeli, Rothschild, Benjamin, Heine, are but samples of the intellectual power of a race which to-day controls the finance and the press of Europe.
“I do not controvert the evidence which is relied upon to show that there are great abuses, great dangers, great offenses, which have grown out of the coming of this people. Much of the evil I believe might be cured by State and municipal authority. Congress may rightfully be called upon to go to the limit of the just exercise of the powers of government in rendering its aid.
“We should have capable and vigilant consular officers in the Asiatic ports from which these immigrants come, without whose certificate they should not be received on board ship, and who should see to it that no person except those of good character and no person whose labor is not his own property be allowed to come over. Especially should the trade in human labor under all disguises be suppressed. Filthy habits of living must surely be within the control of municipal regulation. Every State may by legislation or by municipal ordinance in its towns and cities prescribe the dimension of dwellings and limit the number who may occupy the same tenement.
“But it is urged—and this in my judgment is the greatest argument for the bill—that the introduction of the labor of the Chinese reduces the wages of the American laborer. ‘We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor’ is a cry not limited to the class to whose representative the brilliant humorist of California first ascribed it. I am not in favor of lowering any where the wages of any American labor, skilled or unskilled. On the contrary, I believe the maintenance and the increase of the purchasing power of the wages of the American working man should be the one principal object of our legislation. The share in the product of agriculture or manufacture which goes to labor should, and I believe will, steadily increase. For that, and for that only, exists our protective system. The acquisition of wealth, national or individual, is to be desired only for that. The statement of the accomplished Senator from California on this point meets my heartiest concurrence. I have no sympathy with any men, if such there be, who favor high protection and cheap labor.
“But I believe that the Chinese, to whom the terms of the California Senator attribute skill enough to displace the American in every field requiring intellectual vigor, will learn very soon to insist on his full share of the product of his work. But whether that be true or not, the wealth he creates will make better and not worse the condition of every higher class of labor. There may be trouble or failure in adjusting new relations. But sooner or later every new class of industrious and productive laborers elevates the class it displaces. The dread of an injury to our labor from the Chinese rests on the same fallacy that opposed the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and which opposed the coming of the Irishman and the German and the Swede. Within my memory in New England all the lower places in factories, all places of domestic service, were filled by the sons and daughters of American farmers. The Irishmen came over to take their places; but the American farmer’s son and daughter did not suffer; they were only elevated to a higher plane. In the increased wealth of the community their share is much greater. The Irishman rose from the bog or the hovel of his native land to the comfort of a New England home, and placed his children in a New England school. The Yankee rises from the loom and the spinning-jenny to be the teacher, the skilled laborer in the machine shop, the inventor, the merchant, or the opulent landholder and farmer of the West.”
A letter from F. A. Bee, Chinese Consul, approving the management of the estate, accompanied the report of the referee:
“Mr. President, I will not detain the Senate by reading the abundant testimony, of which this is but the sample, of the possession by the people of this race of the possibility of a development of every quality of intellect, art, character, which fits them for citizenship, for republicanism, for Christianity.
“Humanity, capable of infinite depths of degradation, is capable also of infinite heights of excellence. The Chinese, like all other races, has given us its examples of both. To rescue humanity from this degradation is, we are taught to believe, the great object of God’s moral government on earth. It is not by injustice, exclusion, caste, but by reverence for the individual soul that we can aid in this consummation. It is not by Chinese policies that China is to be civilized. I believe that the immortal truths of the Declaration of Independence came from the same source with the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount. We can trust Him who promulgated these laws to keep the country safe that obeys them. The laws of the universe have their own sanction. They will not fail. The power that causes the compass to point to the north, that dismisses the star on its pathway through the skies, promising that in a thousand years it shall return again true to its hour and keep His word, will vindicate His own moral law. As surely as the path on which our fathers entered a hundred years ago led to safety, to strength, to glory, so surely will the path on which we now propose to enter ring us to shame, to weakness, and to peril.”
On the 3d of March the debate was renewed. Senator Farley protested that unless Chinese immigration is prohibited it will be impossible to protect the Chinese on the Pacific coast. The feeling against them now is such that restraint is difficult, as the people, forced out of employment by them, and irritated by their constantly increasing numbers, are not in a condition to submit to the deprivations they suffer by the presence of a Chinese population imported as slaves and absorbing to their own benefit the labor of the country. A remark of Mr. Farley about the Chinese led Mr. Hoar to ask if they were not the inventors of the printing press and of gunpowder. To this question Mr. Jones, of Nevada, made a brief speech, which was considered remarkable, principally because it was one of the very few speeches of any length that he has made since he became a Senator. Instead of agreeing with Mr. Hoar that the Chinese had invented the printing press and gunpowder, he said that information he had received led him to believe that the Chinese were not entitled to the credit of either of these inventions. On the contrary, they had stolen them from Aryans or Caucasians who wandered into the kingdom. Mr. Hoar smiled incredulously and made a remark to the effect that he had never heard of those Aryans or Caucasians before.
Continuing his remarks, Mr. Farley expressed his belief that should the Mongolian population increase and the Chinese come in contact with the Africans, the contact would result in demoralization and bloodshed which the laws could not prevent. Pig-tailed Chinamen would take the place everywhere of the working girl unless Congress extended its protection to California and her white people, who had by their votes demanded a prohibition of Chinese immigration. Mr. Maxey, interpreting the Constitution in such a way as to bring out of it an argument against Chinese immigration, said he found nothing in it to justify the conclusion that the framers of it intended to bring into this country all nations and races. The only people the fathers had in view as citizens were those of the Caucasian race, and they contemplated naturalization only for such, for they had distinctly set forth that the heritage of freedom was to be for their posterity. Nobody would pretend to express the opinion that it was expected that the American people should become mixed up with all sorts of races and call the result “our posterity.” While the American people had, in consequence of their Anglo-Saxon origin, been able to withstand the contact with the African, the Africans would never stand before the Chinese. Mr. Maxey opposed the Chinese because they do not come here to be citizens, because the lower classes of Chinese alone are immigrants, and because by contact they poison the minds of the less intelligent.
Mr. Saulsbury had something to say in favor of the bill, and Mr. Garland, who voted against the last bill because the treaty had not been modified, expressed his belief that the Government could exercise properly all the powers proposed to be bestowed by this bill. Some time was consumed by Mr. Ingalls in advocacy of an amendment offered by him, proposing to limit the suspension of immigration to 10 instead of 20 years. Mr. Miller and Mr. Bayard opposed the amendment, Mr. Bayard taking the ground that Congress ought not to disregard the substantially unanimous wish of the people of California, as expressed at the polls, for absolute prohibition. The debate was interrupted by a motion for an executive session, and the bill went over until Monday, to be taken up then as the unfinished business.
On March 6th a vote was ordered on Senator Ingalls’ amendment. It was defeated on a tie vote—yeas 23, nays 23.
The vote in detail is as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Cockrell, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Harris, Hoar, Ingalls, Jackson, Lapham, McDill, McMillan, Mitchell, Morrell, Saunders, Sewell, Sherman and Teller—23.
Nays—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Hale, Hampton, Hill of Colorado, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, McPherson, Marcy, Miller of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Ransom, Slater, Vest and Walker—23.
Pairs were announced between Davis, of West Virginia, Saulsbury, Butler, Johnson, Kellogg, Jones, of Florida, and Grover, against the amendment, and Messrs. Windom, Ferry, Hawley, Platt, Pugh, Rollins and Van Wyck in the affirmative. Mr. Camden was also paired.
Mr. Edmunds, partially in reply to Mr. Hoar argued that the right to decide what constitutes the moral law was one inherent in the Government, and by analogy the right to regulate the character of the people who shall come into it belonged to a Government. This depended upon national polity and the fact as to most of the ancient republics that they did not possess homogeneity was the cause of their fall. As to the Swiss Republic, it was untrue that it was not homogeneous. The difference there was not one of race but of different varieties of the same race, all of which are analogous and consistent with each other. It would not be contended that it is an advantage to a republic that its citizens should be made of diverse races, with diverse views and diverse obligations as to what the common prosperity of all required. Therefore there was no foundation for the charge of a violation of moral and public law in our making a distinction as to the foreigners we admit. He challenged Mr. Hoar to produce an authority on national law which denied the right of one nation to declare what people of other nations should come among them. John Hancock and Samuel Adams, not unworthy citizens of Massachusetts, joined in asserting in the Declaration of Independence the right of the colonies to establish for themselves, not for other peoples, a Government of their own, not the Government of somebody else. The declaration asserted the family or consolidated right of a people within any Territory to determine the conditions upon which they would go on, and this included the matter of receiving the people from other shores into their family. This idea was followed in the Constitution by requiring naturalization. The Chinaman may be with us, but he is not of us. One of the conditions of his naturalization is that he must be friendly to the institutions and intrinsic polity of our Government. Upon the theory of the Massachusetts Senators, that there is a universal oneness of one human being with every other human being on the globe, this traditional and fundamental principle was entirely ignored. Such a theory as applied to Government was contrary to all human experience, to all discussion, and to every step of the founders of our Government. He said that Mr. Sumner, the predecessor of Mr. Hoar, was the author of the law on the coolie traffic, which imposes fines and penalties more severe than those in this bill upon any master of an American vessel carrying a Chinaman who is a servant. The present bill followed that legislation. Mr. Edmunds added that he would vote against the bill if the twenty-year clause was retained, but would maintain the soundness of principle he had enunciated.
Mr. Hoar argued in reply that the right of expatriation carried with it the right to a home for the citizen in the country to which he comes, and that the bill violated not only this but the principles of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments which made citizenship the birthright of every one born on our soil, and prohibited an abridgement of the suffrage because of race, color, etc.
Mr. Ingalls moved an amendment postponing the time at which the act shall take effect until sixty days after information of its passage has been communicated to China.
After remarks by Messrs. Dawes, Teller and Bayard, at the suggestion of Mr. Brown Mr. Ingalls modified his amendment by providing that the act shall not go into effect until ninety days after its passage, and the amendment was adopted.
On motion of Mr. Bayard, amendments were adopted making the second section read as follows: “That any master of any vessel of whatever nationality, who shall knowingly on such vessel bring within the jurisdiction of the United States and permit to be landed any Chinese laborer,” &c.
Mr. Hoar moved to amend by adding the following: “Provided, that this bill shall not apply to any skilled laborer who shall establish that he comes to this country without any contract beyond which his labor is the property of any person besides himself.”
Mr. Farley suggested that all the Chinese would claim to be skilled laborers.
Mr. Hoar replied that it would test whether the bill struck at coolies or at skilled labor.
The amendment was rejected—Yeas, 17; nays, 27.
Mr. Call moved to strike out the section which forfeits the vessel for the offense of the master. Lost.
Mr. Hoar moved to amend by inserting: “Provided that any laborer who shall receive a certificate from the U.S. Consul at the port where he shall embark that he is an artisan coming to this country at his own expense and of his own will, shall not be affected by this bill.” Lost—yeas 19, nays 24.
On motion of Mr. Miller, of California, the provision directing the removal of any Chinese unlawfully found in a Customs Collection district by the Collector, was amended to direct that he shall be removed to the place from whence he came.
On motion of Mr. Brown an amendment was adopted providing that the mark of a Chinese immigrant, duly attested by a witness, may be taken as his signature upon the certificate of resignation or registration issued to him.
The question then recurred on the amendment offered by Mr. Farley that hereafter no State Court or United States Court shall admit Chinese to citizenship.
Mr. Hawley, of Conn., on the following day spoke against what he denounced as “a bill of iniquities.”
On the 9th of March what proved a long and interesting debate was closed, the leading speech being made by Senator Jones (Rep.) of Nevada, in favor of the bill. After showing the disastrous effects of the influx of the Chinese upon the Pacific coast and answering some of the arguments of the opponents of restriction, Mr. Jones said that he had noticed that most of those favoring Chinese immigration were advocates of a high tariff to protect American labor. But, judging from indications, it is not the American laborer, but the lordly manufacturing capitalist who is to be protected as against the European capitalist, and who is to sell everything he has to sell in an American market, one in which other capitalists cannot compete with him, while he buys that which he has to buy—the labor of men—in the most open market. He demands for the latter free trade in its broadest sense, and would have not only free trade in bringing in laborers of our own race, but the Chinese, the most skilful and cunning laborers of the world. The laborer, however, is to buy from his capitalist master in a protective market, but that which he himself has to sell, his labor, and which he must sell every day (for he cannot wait, like the capitalist, for better times or travel here and there to dispose of it), he must sell in the openest market of the world. When the artisans of this country shall be made to understand that the market in which they sell the only thing they have to sell is an open one they will demand, as one of the conditions of their existence, that they shall have an open market in which to buy what they want. As the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Dawes) said he wanted the people to know that the bill was a blow struck at labor, Mr. Jones said he reiterated the assertion with the qualification that it was not a blow at our own, but at underpaid pauper labor. That cheap labor produces national wealth is a fallacy, as shown by the home condition of the 350,000,000 of Chinamen.
“Was the bringing of the little brown man a sort of counter balance to the trades unions of this country? If he may be brought here, why may not the products of his toil come in? Now, when the laborer is allowed to get that share from his labor that civilization has decided he shall have, the little brown man is introduced. He (Mr. Jones) believed in protection, and had no prejudice against the capitalist, but he would have capital and labor equally protected. Enlarging upon the consideration that the intelligence or creative genius of a country in overcoming obstacles, not its material resources, constitutes its wealth, and that the low wages of the Chinese, while benefiting individual employers, would ultimately impoverish the country by removing the stimulant to create labor-saving machinery and like inventions. Mr. Jones spoke of what he called the dearth of intellectual activity in the South in every department but one, that of politics.
“This was because of the presence of a servile race there. The absence of Southern names in the Patent Office is an illustration. We would not welcome the Africans here. Their presence was not a blessing to us, but an impediment in our way. The relations of the white and colored races of the South were now no nearer adjustment than they were years ago. He would prophesy that the African race would never be permitted to dominate any State of the South. The experiment to that end had been a dismal failure, and a failure not because we have not tried to make it succeed, but because laws away above human laws have placed the one race superior to and far above the other. The votes of the ignorant class might preponderate, but intellect, not numbers, is the superior force in this world. We clothed the African in the Union blue and the belief that he was one day to be free was the candle-light in his soul, but it is one thing to aspire to be free and another thing to have the intelligence and sterling qualities of character that can maintain free government. Mr. Jones here expressed his belief that, if left alone to maintain a government, the negro would gradually retrograde and go back to the methods of his ancestors. This, he added, may be heresy, but I believe it to be the truth. If, when the first ship-load of African slaves came to this country the belief had spread that they would be the cause of political agitation, a civil war, and the future had been foreseen, would they have been allowed to land?
“How much of this country would now be worth preserving if the North had been covered by Africans as is South Carolina to-day, in view of their non-assimilative character? The wisest policy would have been to exclude them at the outset. So we say of the Chinese to-day, he exclaimed, and for greater reason, because their skill makes them more formidable competitors than the negro. Subtle and adept in manipulation, the Chinaman can be put into almost any kind of a factory. His race is as obnoxious to us and as impossible for us to assimilate with as was the negro race. His race has outlived every other because it is homogeneous, and for that reason alone. It has imposed its religion and peculiarities upon its conquerors and still lived. If the immigration is not checked now, when it is within manageable limits, it will be too late to check it. What do we find in the condition of the Indian or the African to induce us to admit another race into our midst? It is because the Pacific coast favor our own civilization, not that of another race, that they discourage the coming of these people. They believe in the homogeneity of our race, and that upon this depends the progress of our institutions and everything on which we build our hopes.
Mr. Morill, (Rep.) of Vt., said he appreciated the necessity of restricting Chinese immigration, but desired that the bill should strictly conform to treaty requirements and be so perfected that questions arising under it might enable it to pass the ordeal of judicial scrutiny.
Mr. Sherman, (Rep.) of Ohio, referring to the passport system, said the bill adopted some of the most offensive features of European despotism. He was averse to hot haste in applying a policy foreign to the habits of our people, and regarded the measure as too sweeping in many of its provisions and as reversing our immigration policy.
After remarks by Messrs. Ingalls, Farley, Maxey, Brown and Teller, the amendment of Mr. Farley, which provides that hereafter no court shall admit Chinese to citizenship, was adopted—yeas 25, nays 22.
The following is the vote:
Yeas—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Cockrell, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Harris, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Maxey, Morgan, Pugh, Ransom, Slater, Teller, Vance, Vest, Voorhees and Walker—25.
Nays—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hale, Hill of Colorado, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan, Miller of New York, Mitchell, Morrill, Plumb, Saunders and Sawyer—22.
Mr. Grover’s amendment construing the words “Chinese laborers,” wherever used in the act, to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining prevailed by the same vote—yeas 25, nays 22.
Mr. Brown, (Dem.) of Ga., moved to strike out the requirement for the production of passports by the permitted classes whenever demanded by the United States authorities. Carried on a viva voce vote, the Chair (Mr. Davis, of Illinois) creating no little merriment by announcing, “The nays are loud but there are not many of them.”
MR. INGALLS’ AMENDMENT.
Upon the bill being reported to the Senate from the Committee of the Whole Mr. Ingalls again moved to limit the suspension of the coming of Chinese laborers to ten years.
Mr. Jones, of Nevada, said this limit would hardly have the effect of allaying agitation on the subject as the discussion would be resumed in two or three years, and ten years, he feared, would not even be a long enough period to enable Congress intelligently to base upon it any future policy.
Mr. Miller, of California, also urged that the shorter period would not measurably relieve the business interest of the Pacific slope, inasmuch as the white immigrants, who were so much desired, would not come there if they believed the Chinese were to be again admitted in ten years. Being interrupted by Mr. Hoar, he asserted that that Senator and other republican leaders, as also the last republican nominee for President, had heretofore given the people of the Pacific slope good reason to believe that they would secure to them the relief they sought by the bill.
Mr. Hoar, (Rep.) of Mass., briefly replied.
The amendment was lost—yeas 20, nays 21.
The vote is as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hale, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan, Mahone, Morrill, Plumb, Sawyer and Teller—20.
Nays—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Miller of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Ransom, Slater, Yance, Voorhees and Walker—21.
Messrs. Butler, Camden, McPherson, Johnston, Davis of West Virginia, Pendleton and Ransom were paired with Messrs. Hawley, Anthony, Sewell, Platt, Van Wyck, Windom and Sherman.
Messrs. Hampton, Pugh, Vest, Rollins and Jones of Florida were paired with absentees.
PASSAGE OF THE BILL.
The question recurred on the final passage of the bill, and Mr. Edmunds closed the debate. He would vote against the bill as it now stood, because he believed it to be an infraction of good faith as pledged by the last treaty; because he believed it injurious to the welfare of the people of the United States, and particularly the people on the Pacific coast, by preventing the development of our great trade with China.
The vote was then taken and the bill was passed—yeas 29, nays 15.
The following is the vote in detail:—
Yeas—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Cockrell, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Hale, Harris, Hill of Colorado, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Miller of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Pugh, Ransom, Sawyer, Teller, Vance, Vest, Voorhees and Walker—29.
Nays—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan and Morrill—15.
Pairs were announced of Messrs. Camden, Davis of West Virginia, Grover, Hampton, Butler, McPherson, Johnston, Jones of Florida and Pendleton in favor of the bill, with Messrs. Anthony, Windom, Van Wyck, Mitchell, Hawley, Sewell, Platt, Rollins and Sherman against it.
Mr. Frye, (Rep.) of Me., in casting his vote, stated that he was paired with Mr. Hill, of Georgia, on all political questions, but that he did not consider this a political question, and besides, had express permission from Senator Hill to vote upon it.
Mr. Mitchell, (Rep.) of Pa., in announcing his pair with Mr. Hampton stated that had it not been for that fact he would vote against the bill, regarding it as un-American and inconsistent with the principles which had obtained in the government.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read, “An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” though Mr. Hoar suggested that “execute” ought to be stricken out and “violate” inserted.
The Senate then, at twenty minutes to six, adjourned until to-morrow.
PROVISIONS OF THE BILL.
The Chinese Immigration bill as passed provides that from and after the expiration of ninety days after the passage of this act and until the expiration of twenty years after its passage the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States shall be suspended, and prescribes a penalty of imprisonment not exceeding one year and a fine of not more than $500 against the master of any vessel who brings any Chinese laborer to this country during that period. It further provides that the classes of Chinese excepted by the treaty from such prohibition—such as merchants, teachers, students, travelers, diplomatic agents and Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the 17th of November, 1880—shall be required, as a condition for their admission, to procure passports from the government of China personally identifying them and showing that they individually belong to one of the permitted classes, which passports must have been indorsed by the diplomatic representative of the United States in China or by the United States Consul at the port of departure. It also provides elaborate machinery for carrying out the purposes of the act, and additional sections prohibit the admission of Chinese to citizenship by any United States or State court and construes the words “Chinese laborers” to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining.
The sentiment in favor of the passage of this bill has certainly greatly increased since the control of the issue has passed to abler hands than those of Kearney and Kalloch, whose conduct intensified the opposition of the East to the measure, which in 1879 was denounced as “violating the conscience of the nation.” Mr. Blaine’s advocacy of the first bill limiting emigrants to fifteen on each vessel, at the time excited much criticism in the Eastern states, and was there a potent weapon against him in the nominating struggle for the Presidency in 1880; but on the other hand it is believed that it gave him strength in the Pacific States.
Chinese immigration and the attempt to restrict it presents a question of the gravest importance, and was treated as such in the Senate debate. The friends of the bill, under the leadership of Senators Miller and Jones, certainly stood in a better and stronger attitude than ever before.
The anti-Chinese bill passed the House just as it came from the Senate, after a somewhat extended debate, on the 23d of March, 1882. Yeas 167, nays 65, (party lines not being drawn) as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Aikin, Aldrich, Armfield, Atkins, Bayne, Belford, Belmont, Berry, Bingham, Blackburn, Blanchard, Bliss, Blount, Brewer, Brumm, Buckner, Burrows, of Missouri; Butterworth, Cabell, Caldwell, Calkins, Campbell, Cannon, Casserley, Caswell, Chalmers, Chapman, Clark, Clements, Cobb, Converse, Cook, Cornell, Cox, of New York; Cox, of North Carolina; Covington, Cravens, Culbertson, Curtin, Darrell, Davidson; Davis, of Illinois; Davis, of Missouri; Demotte, Deuster, Dezendorf, Dibble, Dibrell, Dowd, Dugro, Ermentrout, Errett, Farwell, of Illinois; Finley, Flowers, Ford, Forney, Fulkerson, Garrison, Geddes, George, Gibson, Guenther, Gunter, Hammond, of Georgia; Hardy, Harmer, Harris, of New Jersey; Haseltine, Hatch, Hazelton, Heilman, Herndon, Hewitt, of New York; Hill, Hiscock, Hoblitzell, Hoge, Hollman, Horr, Houk, House, Hubbell, Hubbs, Hutchins, Jones, of Texas; Jones, of Arkansas; Jorgenson, Kenna, King, Klotz, Knott, Ladd, Leedom, Lewis, Marsh, Martin, Matson, McClure, McCook, McKenzie, McKinley, McLane, McMillan, Miller, Mills, of Texas; Money, Morey, Moulton, Murch, Mutchler, O’Neill, Pacheco, Page, Paul, Payson, Pealse, Phelps, Phister, Pound, Randall, Reagan, Rice of Missouri, Richardson, Robertson, Robinson, Rosecrans, Scranton, Shallenberger, Sherwin, Simonton, Singleton, of Mississippi, Smith of Pennsylvania, Smith of Illinois, Smith of New York, Sparks, Spaulding, Spear, Springer, Stockslager, Strait, Talbott, Thomas, Thompson of Kentucky, Tillman, Townsend of Ohio, Townsend of Illinois, Tucker, Turner of Georgia, Turner of Kentucky, Updegraff, of Ohio, Upson, Valentine, Vance, Van Horn, Warner, Washburne, Webber, Welborn, Whitthorne, Williams of Alabama, Willis, Willetts, Wilson, Wise of Pennsylvania, Wise of Virginia, and W. A. Wood of New York—167.
The nays were Messrs. Anderson, Barr, Bragg, Briggs, Brown, Buck, Camp, Candler, Carpenter, Chase, Crapo, Cullen, Dawes, Deering, Dingley, Dunnell, Dwight, Farwell of Iowa, Grant, Hall, Hammond, of New York, Hardenburgh, Harris, of Massachusetts, Haskell, Hawk, Henderson, Hepburn, Hooker, Humphrey, Jacobs, Jones of New Jersey, Joyce, Kasson, Ketchum, Lord, McCoid, Morse, Norcross, Orth, Parker, Ramsey, Rice of Ohio, Rice of Massachusetts, Rich, Richardson of New York, Ritchie, Robinson of Massachusetts, Russel, Ryan, Shultz, Skinner, Scooner, Stone, Taylor, Thompson of Iowa, Tyler, Updegraff of Iowa, Urner, Wadsworth, Wait, Walker, Ward, Watson, White and Williams of Wisconsin—65.
In the House the debate was participated in by Messrs. Richardson, of South Carolina; Wise and Brumm, of Pennsylvania; Joyce, of Vermont; Dunnell, of Minnesota; Orth, of Indiana; Sherwin, of Illinois; Hazelton, of Wisconsin; Pacheco, of California, and Townsend, of Illinois, and others. An amendment offered by Mr. Butterworth, of Ohio, reducing the period of suspension to fifteen years, was rejected. Messrs. Robinson, of Massachusetts; Curtin, of Pennsylvania, and Cannon, of Illinois, spoke upon the bill, the two latter supporting it. The speech of Ex-Governor Curtin was strong and attracted much attention. Mr. Page closed the debate in favor of the measure. An amendment offered by Mr. Kasson, of Iowa, reducing the time of suspension to ten years, was rejected—yeas 100, nays 131—and the bill was passed exactly as it came from the Senate by a vote of 167 to 65. The House then adjourned.