164 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



How can you distinguish ? And yet, I believe 

 I am not sure that I am right about that 

 that this cooly bill came from the magnanimous 

 heart and the large brain of the predecessor of 

 my honorable friend from Massachusetts, Sum- 

 ner, the advocate of human rights as his suc- 

 cessor is, and as I hope I and my colleague 

 would be in our humble and more simple way. 

 I think it came from him. I remember once 

 certainly that he introduced a bill into this 

 body to improve that act which I think he was 

 the author of in the first place, and which de- 

 clared, if I remember it correctly, that the pen- 

 alties of the law should be imposed upon any 

 master of an American vessel that carries a 

 Chinaman who is a servant it does not say 

 * laborer,' but ' servant ' anywhere on the 

 face of the globe to be a servant for any man. 

 Of course that does not prove that that law is 

 right, but it seems to prove that it was thought 

 by somebody before us to-day that it was a 

 part of the just mission of every government 

 to be entitled to have an opinion, and to en- 

 force it upon such subjects. 



" That is what seems to me to be the state of 

 this case, sir, and while I shall feel compelled 

 to vote against this bill if the twenty years' 

 clause is retained, and I shall earnestly hope 

 that it will never become a law, it will not be 

 because I do not believe in the right of the 

 Government of the United States to determine 

 as to everybody, upon any ground that seems 

 good to itself, what persons from abroad shall 

 form a part of our political communities, and 

 compose a part of the people of the United 

 States." 



Mr. Hoar : " Mr. President, I wish only to 

 say a word. The honorable Senator from 

 Vermont challenged me to produce from the 

 writers on public law any who affirmed the 

 obligation of a people to receive persons from 

 any other nation whom they thought fit to ex- 

 clude. The Senator from Vermont knows 

 very well that all the writers on public law, 

 with scarcely an exception, deny altogether 

 the American doctrine of expatriation, and the 

 same authorities which affirm the right of the 

 people to exclude affirm the right of the sover- 

 eign from whom the subject wishes to depart 

 to retain. The American doctrine is different. 

 The American doctrine affirms, as the Declara- 

 tion of Independence affirms and as the New 

 Testament affirms, as I read it two authorities 

 which lie at the very foundation of all law, do- 

 mestic, international, individual, which governs 

 mankind that the right is equal, that the hu- 

 man being has the right, conforming to law, 

 conforming to the proper regulations of the 

 place to which he goes, to go and seek his for- 

 tune, and to earn his living by honest labor. 



" The Senator seems to me, when he alludes 

 to the right of Congress to pass laws providing 

 for naturalization, to confound two very dis- 

 tinct things. We may undoubtedly regulate 

 the conditions upon which the citizens of a 

 foreign country shall be admitted to citizen- 



ship here ; we may undoubtedly establish rules 

 or fix a period of time which will make it cer- 

 tain that that citizen of a foreign country has 

 renounced his old allegiance, and has acquired 

 sufficient knowledge of and respect for our in- 

 stitutions to make a good citizen, just as we, 

 the legislative power, properly fix the age of 

 twenty-one or twenty -five, or what other age 

 the experience of mankind dictates, at which 

 the native may exert the one great privilege of 

 citizenship, that of voting. But would the 

 Senator argue from the right of the legislative 

 power to fix twenty- one years as the earliest 

 age at which a person may exercise the privi- 

 lege of a voter the power to deny or to deny 

 any particular race the right to vote alto- 

 gether ? 



" The Declaration of Independence and the 

 Constitution are full of implied affirmations of 

 the truth of the doctrine upon which I stand. 

 Among the charges against the monarch of 

 Great Britain which justified the separation 

 was the fact that although our fathers recog- 

 nized his rightful share of legislative power 

 over the colonies and never before denied it, 

 they charged as one of the great abuses which 

 justified the separation that 



He has endeavored to prevent the population of 

 these States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws 

 for naturalization of foreigners : refusing to pass others 

 to encourage their migration hither, and raising the 

 conditions of new appropriations of lands. 



" The Constitution itself assumes that the 

 naturalization of persons of other communities 

 will be unrestricted except within the reason- 

 able limit which I have stated, and provides 

 that Congress shall pass laws for the natural- 

 ization of foreigners which shall be uniform, 

 not which shall distinguish between races and 

 between nationalities. The fourteenth amend- 

 ment, in the adoption of which I suppose the 

 honorable Senator from Vermont himself bore 

 a conspicuous part, as he does in all legislation 

 here, provides that every person born in the 

 United States becomes from that fact a citizen 

 thereof. The children of any of the Chinese 

 laborers now in California become citizens by 

 the affirmance in the Constitution itself of the 

 natural fitness of all men for republican life 

 and their natural equality without regard to 

 race. 



All persons born or naturalized in the United States, 

 and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of 

 the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 



" There is citizenship by birthright, without 

 regard to race or color or nationality. Then 

 the fifteenth amendment supplements it by the 

 provision that this citizenship which is a birth- 

 right shall carry with it the right of citizens to 

 vote, or that that right ' shall not be denied or 

 abridged by the United States, or by any State, 

 on account of race, color, or previous condi- 

 tion of servitude.' 



" So that this legislation is not only in viola- 

 tion of the treaty, not only in violation of the 

 solemn affirmation of Congress that the right 



