In the Senate, Feb. 28th, 1882, Mr. Miller said:

“This measure is not a surprise to the Senate, nor a new revelation to the country. It has been before Congress more than once, if not in the precise form in which it is now presented, in substance the same, and it has passed the ordeal of analytical debate and received the affirmative vote of both Houses. Except for the Executive veto it would have been long ago the law of the land. It is again presented, not only under circumstances as imperative in their demands for its enactment, but with every objection of the veto removed and every argument made against its approval swept away. It is an interesting fact in the history of this measure, that the action which has cleared its way of the impediments which were made the reasons for the veto, was inaugurated and consummated with splendid persistence and energy by the same administration whose executive interposed the veto against it. Without stopping to inquire into the motive of the Hayes administration in this proceeding, whether its action was in obedience to a conviction that the measure was in itself right and expedient, or to a public sentiment, so strong and universal as to demand the utmost vigor in the diplomacy necessary for the removal of all impediments to its progress, it must be apparent that the result of this diplomatic action has been to add a new phase to the question in respect of the adoption of the measure itself.

“In order to fully appreciate this fact it may be proper to indulge in historical reminiscence for a moment. For many years complaints had been made against the introduction into the United States of the peculiar people who come from China, and the Congress, after careful consideration of the subject, so far appreciated the evil complained of as to pass a bill to interdict it.

“The Executive Department had, prior to that action, with diplomatic finesse, approached the imperial throne of China, with intent, as was said, to ascertain whether such an interdiction of coolie importation, or immigration so called, into the United States would be regarded as a breach of friendly relations with China, and had been informed by the diplomat, to whom the delicate task had been committed, that such interdiction would not be favorably regarded by the Chinese Government. Hence, when Congress, with surprising audacity, passed the bill of interdiction the Executive, believing in the truth of the information given him, thought it prudent and expedient to veto the bill, but immediately, in pursuance of authority granted by Congress, he appointed three commissioners to negotiate a treaty by which the consent of China should be given to the interdiction proposed by Congress. These commissioners appeared before the Government of China upon this special mission, and presented the request of the Government of the United States affirmatively, positively, and authoritatively made, and after the usual diplomatic ceremonies, representations, misrepresentations, avowals, and concealments, the treaty was made, the concession granted, and the interdiction agreed upon. This treaty was presented here and ratified by the Senate, with what unanimity Senators know, and which the rules of the Senate forbid me to describe.

“The new phase of this question, which we may as well consider in the outset, suggests the spectacle which this nation should present if Congress were to vote this or a similar measure down. A great nation cannot afford inconsistency in action, nor betray a vacillating, staggering, inconstant policy in its intercourse with other nations. No really great people will present themselves before the world through their government as a nation irresolute, fickle, feeble, or petulant; one day eagerly demanding of its neighbor an agreement or concession, which on the next it nervously repudiates or casts aside. Can we make a solemn request of China, through the pomp of an extraordinary embassy and the ceremony of diplomatic negotiation, and with prudent dispatch exchange ratifications of the treaty granting our request, and within less than half a year after such exchange is made cast aside the concession and, with childish irresolution, ignore the whole proceeding? Can we afford to make such a confession of American imbecility to any oriental power? The adoption of this or some such measure becomes necessary, it seems to me, to the intelligent and consistent execution of a policy adopted by this Government under the sanction of a treaty with another great nation.

“If the Executive department, the Senate, and the House of Representatives have all understood and appreciated their own action in respect of this measure; if in the negotiation and ratification of the new treaty with China, the Executive and the Senate did not act without thought, in blind, inconsiderate recklessness—and we know they did not—if the Congress of the United States in the passage of the fifteen passenger bill had the faintest conception of what it was doing—and we know it had—then the policy of this Government in respect of so-called Chinese immigration has been authoritatively settled.

“This proposition is submitted with the greater confidence because the action I have described was in obedience to, and in harmony with, a public sentiment which seems to have permeated the whole country. For the evidence of the existence of such a sentiment, it is only necessary to produce the declarations upon this subject of the two great historical parties of the country, deliberately made by their national conventions of 1880. One of these (the Democratic convention) declared that there shall be—

“‘No more Chinese immigration except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and therein carefully guarded.’

“The other (the Republican) convention declared that—

“‘Since the authority to regulate immigration and intercourse between the United States and foreign nations rests with Congress, or with the United States and its treaty-making power, the Republican party, regarding the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese as an evil of great magnitude, invokes the exercise of these powers to restrain and limit the immigration by the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable provisions as will produce that result.’

“These are the declarations of the two great political parties, in whose ranks are enrolled nearly all the voters of the United States; and whoever voted at the last Presidential election voted for the adoption of the principles and policy expressed by those declarations, whether he voted with the one or the other of the two great parties. Both candidates for the Presidency were pledged to the adoption and execution of the policy of restriction thus declared by their respective parties, and the candidate who was successful at the polls, in his letter of acceptance, not only gave expression to the sentiment of his party and the country, but with a clearness and conciseness which distinguished all his utterances upon great public questions, gave the reasons for that public sentiment.” He said:

“‘The recent movement of the Chinese to our Pacific Coast partakes but little of the qualities of an immigration, either in its purposes or results. It is too much like an importation to be welcomed without restriction; too much like an invasion to be looked upon without solicitude. We cannot consent to allow any form of servile labor to be introduced among us under the guise of immigration.’

“In this connection it is proper also to consider the probable effect of a failure or refusal of Congress to pass this bill, upon the introduction of Chinese coolies into the United States in the future. An adverse vote upon such a measure, is an invitation to the Chinese to come. It would be interpreted to mean that the Government of the United States had reversed its policy, and is now in favor of the unrestricted importation of Chinese; that it looks with favor upon the Chinese invasion now in progress. It is a fact well known that the hostility to the influx of Chinese upon the Pacific coast displayed by the people of California has operated as a restriction, and has discouraged the importation of Chinese to such a degree that it is probable that there are not a tenth part the number of Chinese in the country there would have been had this determined hostility never been shown. Despite the inhospitality, not to say resistance, of the California people to the Chinese, sometimes while waiting for the action of the General Government difficult to restrain within the bounds of peaceable assertion, they have poured through the Golden Gate in constantly increased numbers during the past year, the total number of arrivals at San Francisco alone during 1881 being 18,561. Nearly two months have elapsed since the 1st of January, and there have arrived, as the newspapers show, about four thousand more.

“The defeat of this measure now is a shout of welcome across the Pacific Ocean to a myriad host of these strange people to come and occupy the land, and it is a rebuke to the American citizens, who have so long stood guard upon the western shore of this continent, and who, seeing the danger, have with a fortitude and forbearance most admirable, raised and maintained the only barrier against a stealthy, strategic, but peaceful invasion as destructive in its results and more potent for evil, than an invasion by an army with banners. An adverse vote now, is to commission under the broad seal of the United States, all the speculators in human labor, all the importers of human muscle, all the traffickers in human flesh, to ply their infamous trade without impediment under the protection of the American flag, and empty the teeming, seething slave pens of China upon the soil of California! I forbear further speculation upon the results likely to flow from such a vote, for it presents pictures to the mind which one would not willingly contemplate.

“These considerations which I have presented ought to be, it seems to me, decisive of the action of the Senate upon this measure; and I should regard the argument as closed did I not know, that there still remain those who do not consider the question as settled, and who insist upon further inquiry into the reasons for a policy of restriction, as applied to the Chinese. I am not one of those who would place the consideration of consistency or mere appearances above consideration of right or justice; but since no change has taken place in our relations with China, nor in our domestic concerns which renders a reversal of the action of the government proper or necessary, I insist that if the measure of restriction was right and good policy when Congress passed the fifteenth passenger bill, and when the late treaty with China was negotiated and ratified, it is right and expedient now.

“This measure had its origin in California. It has been pressed with great vigor by the Representatives of the Pacific coast in Congress, for many years. It has not been urged with wild vehement declamation by thoughtless men, at the behest of an ignorant unthinking, prejudiced constituency. It has been supported by incontrovertible fact and passionless reasoning and enforced by the logic of events. Behind these Representatives was an intelligent, conscientious public sentiment—universal in a constituency as honest, generous, intelligent, courageous, and humane as any in the Republic.

“It had been said that the advocates of Chinese restriction were to be found only among the vicious, unlettered foreign element of California society. To show the fact in respect of this contention, the Legislature of California in 1878 provided for a vote of the people upon the question of Chinese immigration (so called) to be had at the general election of 1879. The vote was legally taken, without excitement, and the response was general. When the ballots were counted, there were found to be 883 votes for Chinese immigration and 154,638 against it. A similar vote was taken in Nevada and resulted as follows: 183 votes for Chinese immigration and 17,259 votes against. It has been said that a count of noses is an ineffectual and illusory method of settling great questions, but this vote of these two States settled the contention intended to be settled; and demonstrated that the people of all others in the United States who know most of the Chinese evil, and who are most competent to judge of the necessity for restriction are practically unanimous in the support of this measure.

“It is to be supposed that this vote of California was the effect of an hysterical spasm, which had suddenly seized the minds of 154,000 voters, representing the sentiment of 800,000 people. For nearly thirty years this people had witnessed the effect of coolie importation. For more than a quarter of a century these voters had met face to face, considered, weighed, and discussed the great question upon which they were at last called upon, in the most solemn and deliberate manner, to express an opinion. I do not cite this extraordinary vote as a conclusive argument in favor of Chinese restriction; but I present it as an important fact suggestive of argument. It may be that the people who have been brought face to face with the Chinese invasion are all wrong, and that those who have seen nothing of it, who have but heard something of it, are more competent (being disinterested) to judge of its possible, probable, and actual effects, than those who have had twenty or thirty years of actual continuous experience and contact with the Chinese colony in America; and it may be that the Chinese question is to be settled upon considerations other than those practical common sense reasons and principles which form the basis of political science.

“It has sometimes happened in dealing with great questions of governmental policy that sentiment, or a sort of emotional inspiration, has seized the minds of those engaged in the solution of great problems, by which they have been lifted up into the ethereal heights of moral abstraction. I trust that while we attempt the path of inquiry in this instance we shall keep our feet firmly upon the earth. This question relates to this planet and the temporal government of some of its inhabitants; it is of the earth earthly; it involves principles of economic, social, and political science, rather than a question of morals; it is a question of national policy, and should be subjected to philosophical analysis. Moreover, the question is of to-day. The conditions of the world of mankind at the present moment are those with which we have to deal. If mankind existed now in one grand co-operative society, in one universal union, under one system of laws, in a vast homogeneous brotherhood, serenely beatified, innocent of all selfish aims and unholy desires, with one visible temporal ruler, whose judgments should be justice and whose sway should be eternal, then there would be no propriety in this measure.

“But the millennium has not yet begun, and man exists now, as he has existed always—in the economy of Providence—in societies called nations, separated by the peculiarities if not the antipathies of race. In truth the history of mankind is for the most part descriptive of racial conflicts and the struggles between nations for existence. By a perfectly natural process these nations have evolved distinct civilizations, as diverse in their characteristics as the races of men from which they have sprung. These may be properly grouped into two grand divisions, the civilization of the East and the civilization of the West. These two great and diverse civilizations have finally met on the American shore of the Pacific Ocean.

“During the late depression in business affairs, which existed for three or four years in California, while thousands of white men and women were walking the streets, begging and pleading for an opportunity to give their honest labor for any wages, the great steamers made their regular arrivals from China, and discharged at the wharves of San Francisco their accustomed cargoes of Chinese who were conveyed through the city to the distributing dens of the Six Companies, and within three or four days after arrival every Chinaman was in his place at work, and the white people unemployed still went about the streets. This continued until the white laboring men rose in their desperation and threatened the existence of the Chinese colony when the influx was temporarily checked; but now since business has revived, and the pressure is removed, the Chinese come in vastly increased numbers, the excess of arrivals over departures averaging about one thousand per month at San Francisco alone. The importers of Chinese had no difficulty in securing openings for their cargoes now, and when transportation from California to the Eastern States is cheapened, as it soon will be, they will extend their operations into the Middle and Eastern States, unless prevented by law, for wherever there is a white man or woman at work for wages, whether at the shoe bench, in the factory, or on the farm, there is an opening for a Chinaman. No matter how low the wages may be, the Chinaman can afford to work for still lower wages, and if the competition is free, he will take the white man’s place.

“At this point we are met by the query from a certain class of political economists, ‘What of it? Suppose the Chinese work for lower wages than white men, is it not advantageous to the country to employ them?’ The first answer to such question is, that by this process white men are supplanted by Chinese. It is a substitution of Chinese and their civilization for white men and Anglo-Saxon civilization. This involves considerations higher than mere economic theories. If the Chinese are as desirable as citizens, if they are in all the essential elements of manhood the peers or the superiors of the Caucasian; if they will protect American interests, foster American institutions, and become the patriotic defenders of republican government; if their civilization does not antagonize ours nor contaminate it; if they are free, independent men, fit for liberty and self-government as European immigrants generally are, then we may begin argument upon the question whether it is better or worse, wise or unwise, to permit white men, American citizens, or men of kindred races to be supplanted and the Chinese to be substituted in their places. Until all this and more can be shown the advocates of Chinese importation or immigration have no base upon which to even begin to build argument.

“The statistics of the manufacture of cigars in San Francisco are still more suggestive. This business was formerly carried on exclusively by white people, many hundreds finding steady and lucrative employment in that trade. I have here the certified statement from the office of the collector of internal revenue at San Francisco, showing the number of white people and Chinese, relatively, employed on the 1st of November last in the manufacture of cigars. The statement is as follows:

“The facts of this statement were carefully ascertained by three deputy collectors. The San Francisco Assembly of Trades certify that there are 8,265 Chinese employed in laundries. It is a well-known fact that white women who formerly did this work have been quite driven out of that employment. The same authority certifies that the number of Chinese now employed in the manufacture of clothing in San Francisco, is 7,510, and the number of whites so employed is 1,000. In many industries the Chinese have entirely supplanted the white laborers, and thousands of our white people have quit California and sought immunity from this grinding competition in other and better-favored regions.”

“If you would ‘secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,’ there must be some place reserved in which, and upon which, posterity can exist. What will the blessings of liberty be worth to posterity if you give up the country to the Chinese? If China is to be the breeding-ground for peopling this country, what chance of American posterity? We of this age hold this land in trust for our race and kindred. We hold republican government and free institutions in trust for American posterity. That trust ought not to be betrayed. If the Chinese should invade the Pacific coast with arms in their hands, what a magnificent spectacle of martial resistance would be presented to a startled world! The mere intimation of an attempt to make conquest of our western shore by force would rouse the nation to a frenzy of enthusiasm in its defense. For years a peaceful, sly, strategic conquest has been in progress, and American statesmanship has been almost silent, until the people have demanded action.

“The land which is being overrun by the oriental invader is the fairest portion of our heritage. It is the land of the vine and the fig tree; the home of the orange, the olive, and the pomegranate. Its winter is a perpetual spring, and its summer is a golden harvest. There the northern pine peacefully sways against the southern palm; the tender azalea and the hardy rose mingle their sweet perfume, and the tropic vine encircles the sturdy oak. Its valleys are rich and glorious with luscious fruits and waving grain, and its lofty

“I would see its fertile plains, its sequestered vales, its vine-clad hills, its deep blue canons, its furrowed mountain-sides, dotted all over with American homes—the homes of a free, happy people, resonant with the sweet voices of flaxen-haired children, and ringing with the joyous laughter of maiden fair—

like the homes of New England; yet brighter and better far shall be the homes which are to be builded in that wonderland by the sunset sea, the homes of a race from which shall spring

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:

“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:

And from China for the year ended June 30—

“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.