194 



CONGEESS, UNITED STATES. 



from Asia, or Africa, or Europe. The people 

 that first settled here, and who now chiefly 

 inhabit the United States, came from Europe. 

 Originally few in numbers and feeble, it was 

 to their interest to encourage immigration and 

 the bringing of capital to the country, to 

 strengthen themselves and build up govern- 

 ments. 



"Now, what is the objection to naturalizing 

 these Chinese? We do not compel anybody 

 to become an American citizen, but we pro- 

 vide the means by which a person of foreign 

 birth may become a citizen of the United 

 States ; we do that by a uniform rule, and 

 whenever a Chinamen conforms to that rule 

 it seems to me that he is clearly entitled to 

 become a citizen as if he were born in England, 

 or France, or Germany, or any other country 

 outside of the United States. 



"But, Mr. President, what looks to me as 

 extraordinary at the present time is that the 

 Eepublican party, which has achieved all its 

 triumphs in the name of freedom and equal- 

 ity, which has emblazoned upon its banners, 

 'Equal rights to all men; no distinction on 

 account of race or color,' should be alarmed 

 lest the Chinese take possession of the country, 

 arid that Senators should be frightened, not 

 only from their propriety, but from principle, 

 and be willing to forsake the foundation upon 

 which they have stood for twenty years advo- 

 cating human rights and equal privileges to all 

 men alike. I, sir, have not been extreme ; I 

 have sometimes been charged with lagging 

 behind ; but I never abandoned the great prin- 

 ciple of equal rights, nor can I consent now to 

 deny a man the rights of citizenship simply 

 because of the color of his skin or the place 

 of his birth. 



" The pending amendment provides that per- 

 sons from all nations may be naturalized ex- 

 cept those who are born in China. Why ex- 

 clude the inhabitants of China, the people from 

 the oldest nation in the world, and who are so 

 far advanced in arts and literature ? Everybody 

 else can be naturalized, the Hottentot and the 

 cannibal, to use the language of the Senator 

 from Oregon ; but he proposes an amendment 

 that shall exclude from naturalization the pa- 

 tient, that laborious, the industrious, the skil- 

 ful, the intelligent Chinaman." 



" Mr. Pomeroy : " There are several Sen- 

 ators who have been invited out to dinner, and 

 we cannot sit straight on. I hope we shall 

 take a recess." 



Mr. Conkling : " If I can only consult the 

 convenience of Senators in regard to this mat- 

 ter I should like to do it without consulting 

 my own." 



Mr. Sumner : " Have a recess." 



Mr. Conkling: "The Senator from Massa- 

 chusetts says, let us have a recess. I fear the 

 Greeks. He has no good-will for this bill ; 

 and if New York ever holds an honest elec- 

 tion it is to be in spite of the honorable Sen- 

 ator from Massachusetts, and not because he 



gives one ounce of aid to the Eepublican party 

 in that State." 



Mr. Sumner : " I took the liberty of saying 

 from my seat, 'Have a recess.' I said so sin- 

 cerely. I am always in my place. I intended 

 to be here to-night. I know not why the Sen- 

 ator from New York should strike back at me 

 because I made that simple suggestion. He 

 says that I gave no aid to his bill. I have 

 voted for his bill from beginning to end on 

 every proposition ; and, as I now understand it, 

 I shall to the end as faithfully as the Senator 

 himself. But allow me to say that there is 

 something higher than this bill; it is a great 

 American principle which that Senator now, 

 on the Fourth of July, declares his readiness 

 to sacrifice. It shall not be sacrificed if I can 

 save it." 



Mr. Conkling: "I shall never be able with 

 the ostentation of the honorable Senator from 

 Massachusetts to vaunt my great achievements 

 in the cause of human progress, human equal- 

 ity, and human rights ; yet when the volume 

 is closed, though it should close with the now 

 setting sun, I will put against the record of 

 that Senator the humbler consistency of my 

 own record from first to last. Nor do I fear 

 that those who vote with me, having some 

 regard to common-sense, and not alone to 

 declamation, sensation, and high-sounding 

 professions, will find 'their ineffectual fires' 

 paled before the blazing light of the distin- 

 guished Senator from Massachusetts. 



" I will vote to eliminate this amendment 

 from the bill, and going to my constituents I 

 will say, 'As the last sands were running out, 

 when the time had come when, if ever, the pro- 

 tecting shield could be thrown around the bal- 

 lot-box, I had too much sincerity and too little 

 regard for personal effect in the galleries and 

 in the country to trample under foot a prac- 

 tical opportunity to do a good thing for the 

 sake of a flourish of rhetoric or a vain and 

 empty profession of love of human rights ; ' 

 and pointing to the record of my votes, insig- 

 nificant as that record may be, which has at 

 least no vacant place where an entry might 

 have been made in behalf of human progress 

 and human rights, I will trust the intelligence 

 and honesty of my constituents, by which they 

 discern light from darkness, to discern also 

 the difference between improving practically 

 an occasion to do good and trifling it away by 

 vaulting and hollow attempts which everybody 

 knows can result in no good, and which mean 

 nothing but pretension and popular effect. 



"Therefore, the honorable Senator intend- 

 ing, as I presume he did, according to a favorite 

 phrase of his, to give a ' black eye ' to my 

 position, and to affix to me with the force of 

 his name the stigma of being unfaithful to 

 human rights, I say to the honorable Senator 

 that his shafts fall unheeded if not harmless at 

 my feet. I listen with as much indifference to 

 his fling as I have felt at other times when the 

 same Senator has in other t>hrases depreciated 



