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affirmatively, positively, and authorita- | (the Democratic convention) declared that tively made, and after the usual diplomatic there shall be

ceremonies, representations, misrepresenta- "No more Chinese immigration except tions, avowals, and concealments, the for travel, education, and foreign comtreaty was made, the concession granted, merce, and therein carefully guarded.' and the interdiction agreed upon. This "The other (the Republican) convention treaty was presented here and ratified by declared that— the Senate, with what unanimity Senators know, and which the rules of the Senate forbid me to describe.

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"Since the authority to regulate immi gration and intercourse between the United States and foreign nations rests with ConThe new phase of this question, which gress, or with the United States and its we may as well consider in the outset, sug. treaty-making power, the Republican gests the spectacle which this nation should party, regarding the unrestricted immipresent if Congress were to vote this or a gration of the Chinese as an evil of great Similar measure down. A great nation magnitude, invokes the exercise of these caunot afford inconsistency in action, nor powers to restrain and limit the immigrabetray a vacillating, staggering, incon- tion by the enactment of such just, hustant policy in its intercourse with other mane, and reasonable provisions as will nations. No really great people will pre-produce that result.'

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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:

sent themselves before the world through These are the declarations of the two their government as a nation irresolute, great political parties, in whose ranks are 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 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.

"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.'

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"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 "This proposition is submitted with the to the Chinese to come, It would be ingreater confidence because the action Iterpreted to mean that the Government of have described was in obedience to, and in the United States had reversed its policy, harmony with, a public sentiment which and is now in favor of the unrestricted imseems to have permeated the whole coun-portation of Chinese; that it looks with try. For the evidence of the existence of favor upon the Chinese invasion now in such a sentiment, it is only necessary to progress. It is a fact well known that the 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

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.

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fornia. 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 $83 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 "These considerations which I have minds of 154,000 voters, representing the presented ought to be, it seems to me, de- sentiment of 800,000 people. For nearly cisive of the action of the Senate upon this thirty years this people had witnessed the measure; and I should regard the argu-effect of coolie importation. For more than ment 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 Cali

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 | the white people unemployed still went to be settled upon considerations other about the streets. This continued until than those practical common sense reasons the white laboring men rose in their desand principles which form the basis of political science.

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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.

peration 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 Chinanian. 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 But the millennium has not yet begun, for white men and Anglo-Saxon civilizaand man exists now, as he has existed tion. This involves considerations higher always-in the economy of Providence than mere economic theories. If the Chiin societies called nations, separated by nese are as desirable as citizens, if they the peculiarities if not the antipathies of are in all the essential elements of manrace. In truth the history of mankind is hood the peers or the superiors of the Caufor the most part descriptive of racial con- casian; if they will protect American inflicts and the struggles between nations for terests, foster American .institutions, and existence. By a perfectly natural process become the patriotic defenders of republithese nations have evolved distinct civ- can government; if their civilization does ilizations, as diverse in their characteristics not antagonize ours nor contaminate it; if as the races of men from which they have they are free, independent men, fit for sprung. These may be properly grouped liberty and self-government as European into two grand divisions, the civilization immigrants generally are, then we may of the East and the civilization of the begin argument upon the question whether West. These two great and diverse civiliza- it is better or worse, wise or unwise, to tions have finally met on the American permit white men, American citizens, or shore of the Pacific Ocean. men of kindred races to be supplanted During the late depression in busi-and the Chinese to be substituted in their ness affairs, which existed for three or four places. Until all this and more can be 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

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

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"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 homesthe homes of a free, happy people, resonant with the sweet voices of flaxen-haired children, and ringing with the joyous laughter of maiden fair—

Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies

The flower of men,

To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginuing of a time."

"The facts of this statement were carefully ascertained by three deputy collectors. The San Francisco Assembly of like the homes of New England; yet Trades certify that there are 8,265 Chinese brighter and better far shall be the homes employed in laundries. It is a well-known which are to be builded in that wonderfact that white women who formerly did land by the sunset sea, the homes of a race this work have been quite driven out of from which shall spring 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 betterfavored regions.'

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Reply of Senator Geo. F. 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 twentyeight 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:

"If you would 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,' there must be some place reserved in Mr. PRESIDENT: A hundred years which, and upon which, posterity can exist. ago the American people founded a nation What will the blessings of liberty be worth upon the moral law. They overthrew by to posterity if you give up the country to force the authority of their sovereign, and the Chinese? If China is to be the breed-separated themselves from the country ing-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 mirtial resistance would be presented to a startled world! The mere intimation of an attempt to make conquest of our west-governments are formed, and its destrucern 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.

which had planted them, alleging as their justification to mankind certain propositions which they held to be self-evident.

"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

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

tion 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 hun

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dred worlds, but seeks only that belt of my reading and observation-and it has States where it finds this law in operation. been my favorite study, I have read The marvels of comfort and happiness it Thucydides, and have studied and admired has wrought for us scarcely surpass what the master states of the world-that for it has done for other countries. The im- solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and migrant sends back the message to those wisdom of conclusion, under such a comhe has left behind. There is scarcely aplication of difficult circumstances, no nanation in Europe west of Russia which has tion or body of men can stand in preference not felt the force of our example and whose to the general Congress assembled at institutions are not more or less slowly ap- | Philadelphia. proximating to our own.

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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 farsighted 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 alleglance 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:

"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 SECTION 1. All men are by nature free those who make the appeal as sentimenta- and independent, and have certain inalienlists, incapable of dealing with practical able rights, among which are those of enjoyaffairs. It would be easy to demonstrate ing and defending life and liberty, acquirthe falsehood of this notion. The men who ing, possessing, and defending property, erected the structure of this Government and pursuing and obtaining safety and were good, practical builders and knew happiness. 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

We, the people of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, do establish this constitution.

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DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.

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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 be yond 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

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