Speech #480078673

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his courtesy in extending me a portion of his allotted time in which to briefly express my views on this important measure. The limit of time will permit of but a cursory notice of the issues involved and of a statement of conclusions rather than of reasons upon which they axe founded. I apprehend that no one will deny the authority of the Government of the United States to regulate. limit. or wholly suspend immigration or importations where deemed injurious to the interests of its citizens. The clause of the Constitution providing for the general welfare confers the power and implies the duty. By no compact or sacred obligation has the Government parted with its privilege and duty to guard the wellbeing of its people from evils without and within. from the alien army arrayed fbr battle or the secret foe. more insidious and more to be dreaded. In the discussion of this bill. of the utmost importance is it to consider what limitation or condition. if any. has the law placed upon emigration. There must be some limit. There must be sonm condition expressed or no less clearly implied. I choose the word emigration rather than that used in the bill. importation. for the purposes of this discussion. as I believe there will be a disposition on the part of those whose schemes are antagonized by this measure to avoid the force and effect of its provisions under cover of the rights accorded to honest emigrants and bone fide emigration. To the honest emigrant are the gates thrown wide open. and unlimited is the measure of his welcome. I prefer. therefore. to consider how fax the greatest latitude accorded to emigration will lend aid or comfort to the iniquitous measures against which this legislation is aimed. There must in the very nature of things be limits to emigration. there must be conditions expressed or understood. for certainly the license to emigrate here. broad and generous though it be. is not so extended as to include the enemies of our land. the corrupters of her people. the destroyers of her institutions in whatever guise they may come. If the conditions of emigration are expressly defined they must appear in the treaties of this Government with foreign powers. in the Constitution. or in the acts of Congress. The primary purpose of a treaty is the establishment of peace and amity between the contracting nations. the.establishment of social and commercial relations. the mutual protection of the citizens of either abroad in the domain of the other in the pursuit of legitimate ends. and a recognition of the right of voluntary expatriation on the part of the citizens of each. If it is claimed that the treaty stipulations of our Government are a bar to restriction on emigration or importation as applied to the bill under discussion. I deny that any such restrictions exist. that any privilege is extended or sought to be conferred upon the class inhibited in this legislation. If such restrictive stipulations do exist the sooner they are abrogated the better. In construing the provisions of a treaty care will be exercised to mark the customs of commerce and social intercourse existing when the treaty was ratified. as being within the purview of either party at that time. No subsequent custom. especially if it be in its nature in defiance of previous codes. will enter into the construction of the treaty. The method of emigration sought to be limited and controlled by the provisions of this bill is wholly of modern origin. It was utterly unknown when the very latest treaties of our Government were made. and can not therefore be said to have been in the remotest contemplation of: our treatymaking agents. Shameful and humiliating in the extreme is it to contemplate this Government through agents. if such could befound base enough. giving even passing recognition to such a system. not to speak of conlirming and ratifying its evils in the bond of a sacred treaty. In all confidence we assert that only the wildest perversion of the treaty provisions can make them amenable to this claim. I Turning to the Constitution. the fundamental law and guarantee of our Federal system. and what do we find in the Constitution pertinent to this question? Section 9. article 1. of the Constitution left to the States of the Union the right to limit and regulate migration and emigration prior to 1808. the States by implication receding from the exercise of that right subsequent to 1808. or. in other words. since that time the Federal Government assumed jurisdiction in the premises. Care was exercised at the time the Constitution was adopted that the rights of the citizens of the several States in their commerce with each other should be protected from inhibitions by the States. section 2 of article 4 providing that the citizens of each State should be entitled to all the. privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. clearly involving the right of interstate migration without conditions. It will be. seen that neither of these provisions of the Constitution establishes a rule or condition to govern fbreign emigration or migration. The only acts of Congress upon the statutebook and relating to thesubject are the acts concerning the importation of slaves and the Chinese restrictive act passed by this Congress. The text of the former bill. if not restricted to importatidus from Oriental countries. would in my judgment cover the evils sought to be remedied here. as by its terms not only is the importation of slaves as such inhibited but of those lvho are to be lired out to service and apprenticeship.