GENERAL NOTES.

The Freedmen.

—The sum total of the money reported as sent for yellow fever relief to the South is as follows:

Contributed by the North$1,069,000
Contributed by the South (including $85,000 by St. Louis)251,000
Contributions from foreign lands39,000
—————
Total money contributions from all sources$1,359,000

The total value of contributions, including clothing and supplies, will aggregate about $2,000,000.

—The Colored Man during the Yellow Fever.—It gives us genuine satisfaction to be able to publish the following impartial testimony to the courage and faithfulness of the colored people during the yellow fever. Says the Memphis Avalanche: "Men worth hundreds of thousands of dollars have left their property in charge of blacks, and never provided a dollar for their support. They faithfully guarded the property of their employers. And yet if the Citizens' Relief Committee cut off the supplies from the servants of these rich men, what in God's name will they do?" The Nashville American, speaking of their conduct during the prevalence of the yellow fever, remarks: "If the negro is found to be true and reliable when he is entrusted with the grave responsibilities of citizenship, if he discharges faithfully the duties devolved upon him, and shows, in such trying times, that he may be entrusted with the preservation of order and the guarding of homes from the criminal classes even of his own race, it will go far towards giving new views on this subject." Col. Keating, of the Memphis Appeal, indignantly repels a charge by Dr. Ramsay, seriously damaging to the character of the colored yellow fever nurses in Memphis, and warmly declares: "The statement is a libel upon the negroes of Memphis, who have stood by us nobly as policemen and soldiers." Chief Athey has resolved to recommend that the colored citizens be represented on the police force in proportion to population. Nor did they fail to furnish their quota of physicians, among whom were two former students of the Central Tennessee College, of this city, Drs. Key and Bass, who were acknowledged through the papers to have rendered efficient services, the former at Mason, and the latter at Chattanooga, Tenn. Nor were there wanting among them, ministers ready to lay down their lives, as the deaths of the following clergymen, Mr. Madison, of New Orleans, Mr. Green, of Vicksburg, Mr. Ventris, of Tuscumbia, Mr. Henderson, of Florence, and others, sufficiently testify.—Fisk Expositor.

—The negroes who were formerly slaves of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and who still reside among those tribes, were emancipated by the United States, and part of the common domain apportioned to them. The operation of the treaty has, however, been evaded. These Freedmen are deprived of citizenship, the right to hold office and to vote; nor have their children any privilege of education under the school laws. It seems there is a ring of Indians as well as an Indian ring, and that they will not consent to have the land divided and held in severalty. This not only keeps the Freedman out of his rights, but prevents the common Indians from coming to understand their own.

The Chinese.

—In the fifth article of the treaty of 1868 between the United States and China, the two governments mutually recognize, affirm and guarantee "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 sixth article of the same treaty says: "Citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities or exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by citizens or subjects of the most favored nation; and, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities and exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation."

—Treaties of the United States are recognized as part of "the supreme law of the land;" and in the early and famous case of Ware vs. Hylton, 3 Dall., 199, the principle was laid down by the Supreme Court, which has ever since been followed, that any exercise of State authority inconsistent with a treaty is thereby rendered wholly void.

—Among the powers assigned to Congress, in the eighth section of the first article of the National Constitution, is that "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization," and "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution this power." This remits the whole subject as to aliens, and their admission to citizenship, to Congress, with full authority.

—The Legislature of California, a few years ago, tried to solve the Chinese problem by a law of exclusion; but, unfortunately for the effort, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Chy Lung vs. Freeman et al., 2 Otto, 275, declared the law to be unconstitutional. Mr. Justice Miller, in stating the opinion of the Court, said: "The passage of laws which concern the admission, of citizens and subjects of foreign nations to our shores belongs to Congress, and not to the States. It has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The responsibility for the character of those regulations, and for the manner of their execution, belongs solely to the National Government. If it be otherwise, a single State can, at her pleasure, embroil us in disastrous quarrels with other nations." The Court, on this general ground, pronounced the law to be a nullity.

—The committee of the Constitutional Convention of California having in charge the question relating to Chinese immigration have decided that it is impossible to put into that constitution any provision that will forbid such immigration, and not at the same time conflict with the Constitution of the United States.

—The real difficulty lies in the relation of the Chinaman to the labor question. But this is not generic to him. There are Norwegians and Swedes who will save as much on as little as the Chinese. But we welcome them. We take in thousands every year of the race which especially breeds all those foul fellows—hoodlums, tramps and bummers. How can we consistently refuse to welcome these others, who are patient, industrious and frugal? Shall we pass a new law that shall compel our customs officials to catechise all new-comers as to the minimum on which they can manage to subsist, and when their estimate falls below Mr. Denis Kearney's judgment of what is the proper sum for a laboring man, pack them back again whence they came?—Congregationalist.