Their people are subject to be conquered. their lands often confiscated. and. if not reduced to personal bondage. they are sometimes so burdened by taxation that constant labor barely supports a lean and hungry existence of the original owners of the soil. It is not strange that such nations suspect and dread the approach and intercourse of unknown and more powerful cotemporaries. and when such intercourse is refused by an independent nation. having the growth of centuries. what moral right or what public law justifies war or coercion? If the United States can rightfully refuse to open their ports to Chinese immigrants. why may not the Japanese close their ports to Americans? A tolerably satisfactory answer to this will be found in the fact that the United States had obtained a tenyears foothold in Japan. through four ostensibly friendly treaties. and only joined other powers in coercive measures when it became evident that the rulers of Japan intended to evade and disregard their treaty compacts. and also to secure the expulsion of all foreigners from their country by a system of wanton and bloody persecutions. Insensibility to these wrongs would have been sheer cowardice.
Keywords matched
immigrants