Speech #450112096

President. if I believed that the representations which have been made in respect to the evils to be remedied by this legislation were as true. as faithful to the fact as no doubt those gentlemen sincerely do who make them. I should still be compelled to vote against this bill. If I believed that we not only had the constitutional power but the moral right to keep out from our social and political body voluntary immigrants from the Chineso Empire or elsewhere on the face of the globe. it I believed that the goodto be accomplished and the evil to be averted by keeping them out were as great as the gentlemen who represent on the floor of this body the States of the Pacific coast do believe them to be. nevertheless my respect for the sanctity of the plighted faith of the nation in a solemn treaty with a sovereign power would compel me to seek some other method of securing these results than this arbitrary act of legislation. Why. Mr. President. we are discussing the passage of this bill and about. I fear. to pass it. in the face of a treaty. a treaty made by the constitutional treatymaking power of this nation. made with remarkable circumstances of exceptional solemnity. made by a special embassy sent for the purpose. in which. in the face of great difficulties and obstructions occasioned by the impenetrable character of these people. we solicited from them the covenants which we are now about to break. and we are to do it by pntting upon that treaty the stamp of hypocrisy on our own part as a party to it. for we approached the Chinese government in the Burlingame treaty with such expressinus as these: The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allogiance. And also: The mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from one country to the other for purposes of curiosity. of trade. or of permanent reslience. What has occurred since the date of that treaty to give the lie to that declaration If none but our own convictions tave changed either as to the right ot the expediency. then by the same bonds with which we bound the parties let us seek to unloose them from the obligations into which we entered. Let us go to the Emperor of China and say that the experience of the nation and. of the world since that time has convicted us of the error of that profession. and that notwithstanding the mistake under which we entered into the contract at that time we desire to make the correction with their consent. as with their consent we entered into it.