CONGRESS. (CHINESE Exci.r.-iox.) 



227 



is hereby declared void and of no effect ; and the 

 Chinese 'laborer claiming admission by virtue thereof 

 shall not be permitted to cuter the United State*. 



. :}. That all the duties prescribed, liabilities, 

 penalties, and forfeitures imposed, and the ; 



red, by the second, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth 

 sections of the act to which this is a supplement are 

 hereby extended and made applicable to the provis- 

 ions of this act. 



4. That all such part or parts of the act to 

 which this is a supplement as are mconsbtent here- 

 with are hereby repealed. 



In explanation of his measure. Mr. Scott 

 said: "I desire to call attention to what this 

 bill proposes to do. Under sections 4 and 5 of 

 the statute of 1882, enacted in conformity with 

 the treaty of 1880, it was provided that a 

 Chinaman then a resident of the United States 

 might, under certain conditions, leave the 

 United States, go to China, and return, but was 

 to do so under a certificate issued by the au- 

 thority of our Government certifying his iden- 

 tity and that he was a resident of the United 

 States. Under this authority, which our treaty 

 stipulations under the treaty of 1880 did not 

 require us to give, a Chinaman could take his 

 certificate and return to China; and as the 

 truth is a merchantable commodity from a 

 Chinese point of view, those certificates were, 

 in many instances, sold to Chinamen, who had 

 never been in this country, who took them and 

 came to the United States in violation of the 

 law. When a Chinaman reached the port of 

 San Francisco the duty of the collector of the 

 port under the law was to determine his iden- 

 tity ; and when the collector by positive evi- 

 dence knew that the Chinaman offering the 

 certificate was not the person to whom it had 

 been originally issued, the collector at once re- 

 quired such Chinaman to leave the country. 

 Bur it was just here that the United States 

 courts came in and upon habeas-corpus pro- 

 ceedings declared, in many instances, that the 

 Chinaman offering the certificate was the origi- 

 nal owner. By this process, Chinese laborers 

 by the thousands have been permitted to come 

 to the United States fraudulently under certifi- 

 cates which had never been issued to them." 



The measure was at once passed without a 

 division, and sent to the Senate. In that body 

 it was discussed at some length and passed 

 September 7, by a vote of 37 to 3, there being 

 36 Senators absent. Those voting in the nega- 

 tive were Brown, Hoar, and Wilson, of Iowa. 



September 10, Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, on a 

 motion to reconsider the passage of the bill, 

 said : " Mr. President, having already early in 

 this debate expressed my strong desire to vote 

 for the exclusion of Chinese laborers from 

 this country, and believing that this bill if it 

 stood alone, without any connection with the 

 treaty with China recently pending in the 

 Senate, would be a wise bill. I yet appeal to 

 Senators on both sides of the chamber, for 

 considerations of national honor which ought 

 always first to be heeded on any question that 

 is presented to us, that they allow the bill to 



stand in its present position until we can as- 

 certain whetlur or not the treaty now pend- 

 ing between the two nationawill be ratified. 

 That is my only desire. If this bill is allowed 

 to remain in its present position and it shall 

 turn out that this treaty will not be ratified 

 and that the Chinese Government has taken 

 ground against the ratification of the treaty, 

 then I should be willing to vote and I would 

 vote with pleasure for the passage of this bill : 

 but pending that question I submit as a matter 

 of national honor whether it is right and 

 proper for us to seek to nullity a treaty that 

 is now being considered by a friendly nation, a 

 treaty that has been ratified by this body, to 

 which we have committed ourselves in every 

 possible way whether it is right at this stage 

 of the proceedings to proceed to nullify and 

 abrogate not only all existing treaties with 

 China, but the treaty at present pending be- 

 tween these two nations ? I frankly say that if 

 our position were reversed, and Great Britain 

 were thus to act toward the American people, 

 I would without hesitation vote for a declara- 

 tion of non-intercourse or war. 



' It is a departure from all the usages of 

 civilized nations. It is a departure from all 

 considerations of national honor. Xo man 

 believes that the House of Representatives 

 would have passed this bill except upon the 

 supposition that the treaty had been rejected 

 by China. It was understood in that House at 

 the time it was passed that the Chinese Gov- 

 ernment had refused to ratify the treaty, or it 

 would not have passed. I can assume that but 

 for that supposed fact the bill could not have 

 passed the House of Representatives. It came 

 to us here; and but for the general idea that 

 the treaty had been rejected by China the 

 bill would surely have been referred to the 

 Committee on Foreign Relations and taken 

 the ordinary course prescribed by our rules 

 for the consideration of public measures. 

 There is no doubt about that. 



" Early in the debate I said that my action 

 and my neglect to make the ordinary motion 

 to refer the bill to the Committee on Foreign 

 Relations was based on the idea that I then 

 assumed to be accurate and correct, that the 

 President of the United States had informa- 

 tion that this treaty would not be ratified, and 

 therefore that the Congress of the United 

 States would be at liberty to proceed upon 

 that basis. Proceeding upon that basis I was 

 willing that Congress should by law put an 

 end to this whole system of Chinese immigra- 

 tion. 



" But since that time the condition has 

 changed. We are informed officially by the 

 President of the United States that this treaty 

 is still under consideration. We are informed 

 from other sources, of which there can be no 

 question, that the Chinese minister is now on 

 his way to this country for the purpose of 

 either conveying to us intelligence that it has 

 been ratified'or that it has not been ratified." 



