Speech #480122046

I expect to vote for this bill. but there are several provisions in it to -which I shall give a reluctant assent. I think the bill is immature and crude. but I shall vote for it on account of the salient principle which it announces. hoping that time and experience may perfect this legislation hereafter. If I understand the principle enunciated in this bill and attempted to be enforced. it is the prohibition of contract immigration to this country. what is termed upon the Pacific coast the cooly principle. a principle the results of which on the Atlantic seaboard and in the Western States are signiflcantly shown by the immigration to this country of the paupers. the abandoned. dangerous. and criminal classes of foreign countries who are unable to pay their own transportation and who become the instruments ofgreed and avarice on the part of speculators and corporations. I have no doubt as to the constitutional power of Congress to enact this legislation. The Supreme Court of the United States has declared in two cases that the power to preserve its own life gives this Government the authority to exclude the diseased and criminal and pauper classes from our country. and authority is found under the commerce clause of the Constitution. without reference to that Sancho Panza constitutonal blanket known as "the generalwelfare clause. in which I have no confidence and upon which I place no reliance. Mr. President. the men who formed this Government based it upon two great distinctive principles: one. local selfgovernment. and the other their appeal under unparalleled difficulties and dangers to the sentiment of the civilized world in favor of personal liberty and political freedom. Our fathers invited to this country every bona fide immigrant who came here to take his part in the responsiblity and the danger Which attended the problem of selfgovernment in this western hemisphere. To the warmhearted and intelligent Celt. to the industrious and economical German. to the selfreliant Scandinavian. let the doors of the Republic be thrown wide open. The party to which I belong has always held this doctrine and has always practically en! forced it. but it should not be prostituted to the greed and avarice of men -who seek to strike at the very life of the Republic by introducing the dangerous and pauper classes from abroad into our population. The Senator from New York has eloquently portrayed the practical results of this abuse within the great State which he represents upon this floor. Who introduced this system of contract pauper labor into the legislation of the United States? The Senator from Ohio denounced it upon this floor but the other day. yet the Senator from Ohio is the father of the bill that inaugurated contract i&-2 migration into the United States. In 1864. upon July 4. the natal day of Independence. I find that a bill became a law. of which the Senator from Ohio was the father. which he reported to the Senate. and which he advocated. the second sdction of which reads as followsit is "a n act to establish the office of commissioner of immigration:" SEc. 2. And be it further enacted. That all contracts that shall be made by emigrants to the United States in foreign countries. in conformity to regulations that maybe established by the said commissioner. whereby emigrants shall pledge the wages of their labor. for a terim not exceeding twelve months. to repay the expenses of their emigration. shall be heldto bevalid inlaw. andmay