“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.”