228 



CONGRESS. (CHINESE EXCLUSION.) 



The motion to reconsider was lost by a vote 

 of 20 to 21, September 17, and a resolution to 

 withhold the measure from the House was 

 offered by Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, but 

 not until it had passed beyond control of 

 the Senate and into the hands of the House 

 Committee on Foreign Relations. The com- 

 mittee delayed sending the bill to the Presi- 

 dent until news came that the Chinese Gov- 

 ernment had refused to ratify the treaty, and 

 the President signed the measure October 1. 



To the Congress : 



I have tins day approved House bill No. 11,336, 

 supplementary to an act entitled " An act to execute 

 certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese," ap- 

 proved the 6th day of May, 1882. 



It seems to me that some, suggestions and recom- 

 mendations may properly accompany my approval of 

 this bill. 



Its object is to more effectually accomplish by legis- 

 lation the exclusion from this country of Chinese la- 

 borers. 



The experiment of blending the social habits and 

 mutual race idiosyncrasies of the Chinese laboring- 

 classes with those of the great body of the people of 

 the United States has been proved by the experience 

 of twenty years, and ever since the Burlingame treaty 

 of 1863, to' be in every sense unwise, impolitic, and 

 injurious to both nations. With the lapse of time 

 the necessity for its abandonment has grown in force, 

 until those having in charge the government of the 

 respective countries have resolved to modify and suffi- 

 ciently abrogate all those features of prior conven- 

 tional arrangements which permitted the coming of 

 Chinese laborers to the United States. 



In modification of prior conventions, the treaty of 

 November 17, 1880. was concluded, whereby, in the 

 first article thereof, it was agreed that the United 

 States should at will regulate, limit, or suspend the 

 coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, but 

 not absolutely prohibit it ; and under this article an 

 act of Congress, approved May 6, 1882 (see volume 

 22, page 58, Statutes at Lanje), and amended July 

 5, 1884 (volume 23, page 115, ^Statutes at Large), sus- 

 pended for ten years the coming of Chinese laborers 

 to the United States, and regulated the going and 

 coining of such Chinese laborers as were at that time 

 in the United States. 



It was, however, soon made evident that the mer- 

 cenaiy greed of the parties who were trading in the 

 labor of this class of the Chinese population was prov- 

 ing too strong for the just execution of tho law, and 

 that the virtual defeat of the object and intent of both 

 law and treaty was being fraudulently accomplished 

 by false pretense and perjury, contrary to the ex- 

 pressed will of both governments. 



To such an extent has the successful violation of 

 the treaty and the laws enacted for its execution pro- 

 gressed, that the courts in the Pacific States have 

 been for some time past overwhelmed by the exami- 

 nation of cases of Chinese laborers who are charged 

 with having entered our ports under fraudulent cer- 

 tificates of return or seek to establish by perjury the 

 claim of prior residence. 



Such demonstration of the inoperative and ineffi- 

 cient condition of the treaty and law has produced 

 deep-seated and increasing discontent amontt the peo- 

 ple of the United States, and especially with those 

 resident on the Pacific coast. This has induce^} me 

 to omit no effort to find an effectual remedy for the 

 evils complained of and to answer the earnest popu- 

 lar demand for the absolute exclusion of Chinese la- 

 borers having objects and purposes unlike our own 

 and wholly disconnected with American citizenship. 



Aided by the presence in this country of able and 

 intelligent diplomatic and consular officers of the 

 Chinese Government and the representations made 



from time to time by our minister in China under 

 the instructions of the Department of State, the act- 

 ual condition of public sentiment and the status of 

 affairs in the United States has been fully made known 

 to the Government of China. 



The necessity for remedy has been fully appreci- 

 ated by that Government, and in August, 1886, our 

 minister at Pekin received from the Chinese Foreign 

 Office a communication announcing that China, of her 

 own accord, proposed to establish a system of strict 

 and absolute prohibition of her laborers, under heavy 

 penalties, from coming to the United States, and like- 

 wise to prohibit the return to the United States ol' 

 any Chinese laborer who had at any time gone back 

 to China " in order" un the words of the communi- 

 cation) " that the Chinese laborers may gradually be 

 reduced in number and causes of danger averted and 

 lives preserved." 



This view of the Chinese Government, so com- 

 pletely in harmony with that of the United States, 

 was by mv direction speedily formulated in a treaty 

 draught between the two nations, embodying the 

 propositions so presented by the Chinese Foreign Of- 

 fice. 



The deliberations, frequent oral discussions, and 

 correspondence on the general questions that ensued, 

 have been fully communicated by me to the Senate 

 at the present session, and, as contained in Senate 

 Executive Document O, parts 1 and 2, and in Senate 

 Executive Document No. 272. may be properly re- 

 ferred to as containing a complete history of the trans- 

 action. 



It is thus easy to learn how the joint desires and 

 unequivocal mutual understanding of the two gov- 

 ernments were brought into articulated form in the 

 treaty, which, after a mutual exhibition of plenary 

 powers from the respective governments, was signed 

 and concluded by the plenipotentiaries of the United 

 States and China at this capital on March 1 2 last. 



Being submitted for the advice and consent of the 

 Senate, its confirmation, on the 7th day of May last, 

 was accompanied by two amendments, whicn that 

 body ingrafted upon it. 



On the 12th day of the same month the Chinese 

 minister, who was the plenipotentiary of his Govern- 

 ment in the negotiation and the conclusion of the 

 treaty, in a note to the Secretary of State, gave his 

 approval to these amendments, " as they did not alter 

 the terms of the treaty," and the amendments were 

 at once telegraphed to China, whither the original 

 treaty had previously been sent immediately after its 

 signature on March 12. 



On the 13th day of last month I approved Senate 

 bill No. 3304 "to prohibit the coming of Chinese 

 laborers to the United States." This bill was in- 

 tended to supplement the treaty, and was approved 

 in the confident anticipation of an early exchange of 

 ratifications of the treaty and its amendments and the 

 proclamation of the same, upon which event the legis- 

 lation so approved was by its terms to take effect. 



No information of any definite action upon the 

 treaty by the Chinese Government was received un- 

 til the 21st ultimo the day the bill which I have just 

 approved was presented to me when a telegram 

 from our minister at Pekin to the Secretary of State 

 announced the refusal of the Chinese Government to 

 exchange ratifications of the treaty unless further dis- 

 cussion should be had with a view to shorten the 

 period stipulated in the treaty for the exclusion of 

 Chinese laborers, and to change the conditions agreed 

 on, which should entitle any Chinese laborer who 

 might go back to China to return again to the United 

 States. 



By a note from the charge-d' 'affaires ad interim of 

 China to the Secretary of State, received on the 

 evening of the 25th ultimo (a copy of which is here- 

 with transmitted, together with tne reply thereto), a 

 third amendment is proposed, wherebv th"e certificate, 

 under which any departing Chinese laborer alleging 

 the possession of property in the United States would 



