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?