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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



as it now is does not stay upon the soil of this 

 country, but is flowing back again, and is there- 

 fore diminished, first by death, and secondly 

 by the return of many of those who have come, 

 we may safely assume that to bring a million 

 Chinamen to this country at the rate of 

 twenty thousand a year will take about seventy- 

 five years. Have you thought of it what the 

 aggregate population of this country is likely 

 to be in seventy -five years ? 



" But let us assume that the Chinese will 

 come at the rate of fifty thousand a year. Then 

 it would take twenty years to bring over a mill- 

 ion; and, counting the deaths and the returns, 

 it is fair to assume that it would take about 

 thirty years to show a round million China- 

 men in this country. 



"Now, sir, it appears that this tremendous 

 deluge, if indeed it is to come, will not over- 

 whelm us, after all, so very quickly, consid- 

 ering that within twenty or thirty years the 

 population of this country will amount to about 

 one hundred millions." 



Mr. Carpenter, of "Wisconsin, said-: "The 

 bill before us proposes to amend, in several 

 respects, our naturalization laws. The Sen- 

 ator from Massachusetts has moved ah amend- 

 ment to strike the word ' white ' from all 

 laws upon the subject of naturalization ; and 

 our friends the Eepublican Senators from the 

 Pacific slope are horror-stricken at the thought 

 that the Chinamen may claim admission to 

 citizenship under our laws thus amended ; and 

 the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Williams) pro- 

 poses to amend this bill by declaring that 

 no person shall be admitted to citizenship who 

 was born in the Chinese empire. We have re- 

 ceived the ambassador of that empire with 

 more distinction than we ever received the am- 

 bassador of any foreign nation since we became 

 a nation. Yet it is now proposed to say by law 

 that no subject of that empire, no matter how 

 long he has resided among us, nor how thor- 

 oughly he may have become identified in inter- 

 est with us, and no matter what may be his 

 character, intelligence, or virtue, shall ever be- 

 come an American citizen. 



"Whenever a new question arises in the 

 details of administration, whenever a new sub- 

 ject is presented for legislative regulation, and 

 doubts exist in regard to the course to be pur- 

 sued, it is safer to be guided by principle than by 

 prejudice or passion. What, then, is the Ameri- 

 can principle that should guide us here ? There 

 are, of course, many theories as to where the 

 right of ' suffrage should be vested. Those 

 writers on the science of government who 

 believe that the few were designed to govern 

 the many have long since predicted the ruin 

 of our nation, because the right of siiffrage is 

 so widely extended. Some contend for a stand- 

 ard of intelligence ; some would seek the stand- 

 ard in wealth; some in blood; some in one 

 thing, and some in another. But we Amer- 

 icans have met all the discussions and argu- 

 ments upon this subject with a broad American 



principle, which is that every man who is bound 

 by the law ought to have a voice in making the 

 law. This single maxim, the corner-stone of 

 our institutions, we have laid down as our 

 ultimate determination of the whole matter. 



" When the war closed, emancipating four 

 million slaves, degraded and ignorant, we were 

 confronted with the question whether they 

 should be admitted to full rights of citizenship. 

 It was objected that they were ignorant and 

 degraded by their long condition of servitude. 

 But, sir, we determined this question in a states- 

 manlike way. We said that every free man 

 subject to the law ought to have a vote ; that 

 the freedman was free and subject to the law, 

 therefore he ought to vote. The difficulty 

 bravely met, the problem solved upon principle, 

 the emergency has passed, and no man fears 

 that our institutions are endangered. 



" But now a new question arises. Shall Chi- 

 namen be citizens ; or, permitted to emigrate 

 to this country, shall they constitute a class 

 inferior to citizens ? And strange to say the 

 very men who settled the former question upon 

 principle now hesitate to apply the principle, 

 tested by its success in that case, to the instance 

 before us, and now interpose the very objec- 

 tions to the enfranchisement of Chinamen that 

 Democrats urged against the enfranchisement 

 of the freedman. 



Mr. President, every candid man admitted 

 that it was subjecting our American theory to 

 a severe trial when we admitted the freedmen 

 to citizenship ; but there was no choice ; we 

 had to apply the principle that every free man 

 bound by the law was entitled to vote, or we 

 had to say to the monarchists of Europe that 

 their theory of government was right and ours 

 was wrong ; that it would not do to permit all 

 men subject to the law to participate in the Gov- 

 ernment ; that there must be some limitations 

 and some exclusions, and that the man who 

 could not be trusted was the man who had a 

 black skin. The latter view was so manifestly 

 absurd that we determined to abide by our 

 maxim and give the negro the benefit of it. 

 And no man did more to carry the public mind 

 to this commendable conclusion than the Sen- 

 ator from Oregon. And now, coming to the 

 Chinese question, I would like to have that 

 Senator show, if he can, how we are to escape 

 the same dilemma. If all free men subject to 

 the law ought to have a vote, then the China- 

 man is entitled to vote. And if he be not 

 entitled to vote, it is because the theory of free 

 government, ' of the people, for the people, by 

 the people,' is a delusion. Sir, for one, I pro- 

 pose to stand by our American principle of free 

 government, and, applying it to the case before 

 us, to say -that the Chinaman who comes to 

 reside among us, who conforms to our laws, 

 shall be admitted to the rights of a citizen. 



But, sir, suppose we were to make this ad- 

 mission to the monarchists of Europe, and 

 confess that the dogma of self-government is 

 a delusion, and that the Chinaman, although 



