IMMIGRATION AND CRIME. 629 



sliare with us the legislation. Tliey will infuse into it their spirit, warp 

 and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted 

 mass. I may apj)eal to experience during the present contest for a verifi- 

 cation of these conjectures. But if they be not cei'tain in event are they 

 not possible, are they not probable ? Is it not safer to wait with patience 

 twenty-seven years and three months longer for the attainment of any 

 degree of population desired or expected ? May not our Government be 

 more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable ? Suppose twenty mil- 

 lions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what 

 would be the condition of that kingdom ? If it would be more turbulent, 

 less happy, less sti'ong, we may believe that the addition of half a million 

 of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. 

 If they come of themselves they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship, 

 but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encourage- 

 ments. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importa- 

 tion of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very dif- 

 ferent considerations. (Works, viii, p. 330.) 



The prophesy in the above passage has most certainly come 

 true ; and the last two sentences are also worth considering. " I 

 mean not/' he says, "that these doubts should be extended to 

 the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure 

 depends on very different considerations." This will at once be 

 recognized as agreeing exactly with Washington's words where 

 he says, "that except of useful mechanics and some particular 

 descriptions of men or professions there is no need of encour- 

 agement." Washington, though strongly opposed to the admis- 

 sion of foreign officers in the army, had made exceptions in the 

 case of certain artillerists and engineers, who he said were needed 

 to teach us some of the fine points of gunnery and construction, 

 and in his objection to immigration in general he made excep- 

 tions in favor of certain kinds of skilled labor. 



In short, these Fathers of the Republic were entirely opposed to 

 promiscuous, wholesale immigration, and thej'' undoubtedly repre- 

 sented the opinions of a large number of our people at that time. 

 The importation of paupers, vagrants, and criminals, together with 

 hundreds of thousands of men and women capable only of cheap 

 manual labor, was altogether foreign to their thoughts, or, if they 

 contemplated it at all, it was only to revolt from it. Even Madi- 

 son, who favored immigration more than any of the other fathers 

 of the republic, and who introduced in Congress the first bill in- 

 tended to encourage it, always insisted that he intended to bring 

 over only the " worthy part of mankind," and in a letter written 

 in 1813 he expresses almost the same opinion as Washington and 

 Jefferson : 



I am obliged at the same time to say, as you will doubtless learn from 

 others, that it is not either the provision of our laws or the practice of the 

 Government to give any encouragement to emigrants unless it be in cases 



