Speech #470032928

Of course. the right of the United States. like that of every other country that has been recognized from the foundation of civilization. to decide what persons shall come into it. cannot be doubted fairly. The only difficulty hitherto as to the Chinese question concerning legislation has been the circumstance of the Burlingame treaty. which bound us to receive people from that country under the circumstances named. Therecent treaty relieves us from that obligation and enables us. without violation of any understanding with the Empire of China. to exercise that political will concerning immigration which every civilized country. everywhere on the face of the globe. from the earliest of times. (including as a civilized country China herself.) has always exercised. There is no book of public law. there. is no writer upon natural law. that does not affirm and has not always affirmed the right of every people in their political character to determine the conditions upon which and the circumstances under which immigrants from other countries are to be received. and it goes upon the principle which is perhaps. in this modern and highly tooutterlyutter kind of an idea. out of fashion. that every nation is a family. that it has the rights of a family. and that for its own protection and its own wellbeing it is entitled to determine who shall become members of its own family. If you go off into the broad modern civilization that freetraders. and freethinkers. and freelovers. and freeeverybodies maintain. of course you must say that all mankindare of one kin. that they are of one nature. that they are of one destiny. that they are of one sympathy. and that they can be poured into one common receptacle everywhere. with mutual advantage to every one of the human beings who is thus brought into contact and amalgamation with other societies and human beings. hut the misfortune about it is that the common sense. the common tnformation. and the common observation of everybody has demonstrated that that is not true. We defend the right of the colored man to be a man born in our country. to have equal rights not as a slave but as a citizen.