Speech #480122066

Nearly all the laboring men of our country were engaged in fighting enemies. and our industries languished. At the same time there was a demand in this country for all kinds of products. We therefore did pass that law to encourage immigration. and among the provisions of it was the second section.which the Senator from Missouri thinks was the fountainhead of all the evils which have overtaken our country sincea law that lasted three or four years. And here is the section towhich be refcrred. passed during the war: That all contracts that shall be made by emigrauts to the United States in foreign countries. in conformity to regulations that may be established by the said conmissioner. whereby emigrants shall pledge the wages of their labor. for a term not exceedingtwelve months. to repay the expensesof theiremigration. shall be held to be valid in law. and may be enforced in the courts of the United States. or of the several States and Territories. and such advances. if so stipulated in the contract. and the contract be recorded inthe recorders oice in the county where the emigrant shall settle. shall operate as a lien upon any land thereafter acquired by the emigrant. whether under the homestead law when the title is consummated or on property otherwise acquired. until liquidated by the emigrant. hut nothing herein contained shall be deemed to authorize any contract contravening the Constitution of the United States or creating in any way the relation of slavery or servitude. The next section provides: And be itfrlher enacted. That no emigrant to the United States who shall arrive after the passage of this act shall be compulsively enrolled for military service during the existing insurrection. unless such emigrant shall voluntarily renounce nderhis oath of allegiance to the country of his birth and declare his intention to become a citizen of the United States. It is well known that during the civilwar immigration to this country largely ceased. fell off to a very small number. and we therefore lost the benefit of the laboring men who naturally came in the course of immigration by the civil war. and the labor of those men became vital and necessary to us in July. 1864. when we were engaged in such a momentous struggle. and therefore we did invite those people to come here. and we did say that if they came here under contract by which the money for their passage should be advanced. that money should be paid back by the laborerwithin twelve months after that time. It was a wise provision under the circumstances. but mark it soon after the war ceased. when we had no longer enemies to fight. the whole of this act was repealed. It is not to be found in the Revised Statutes. It was one of those measures demanded by the war and the exigencies of the times. It was right. and I have no doubt that under it many an immigrant was encouraged to come to this country. Immigration had been deterred in agreat measure for fear thatwhen they came over and landed on our shores the men would be drafted into the military service. but when they were assured by the terms of this law that they were to be protected from enforced military service. that unless they chose to put themtelves voluntarily in a. condition to be enrolled and enlisted they were in no danger of being called into the military service. they came. Under the operation of that law a commissioner of immigration was appointed and was in active duty for some time. and induced laboring men to come to this country to aid us in one way to supply the place of the laboring men who had gone into thefield. That bill was voted for by every Democratic member of either House of Congress. The record shows that there was no question about its provisions. It waslikethe enrollment or conscription act and all those great measures which were adopted in the exigencies of war. andahis was one of the minor measures of that great occasion. After thewar was over the law was repealed. disappeared. and long before the revision of the statutes there was no such law upon the statutebook. Before arraigning me here personally for being inconsistent in supporting this bill. the Senator from Missouri ought to have recalled the circumstances that surrounded us at that time. he ought to have recalled the history of this legislation. the motives for it. the reasons for it. and I have no doubt that in the Southern confederacy theyadopted -imilar measures. or probably much more enforcive measures. to encourage immigration into the Southern States. It was an act of war designed to strengthen and invigorate the armies of the Union. But after the war was over the law disappeared. ecre I may say that all the measures intended to protect laboring men in this country emanated from the Republican party. It is the policy of the Republican party to develop and build up the laboring men of our country. it is the policy of the Republican party to diversify our industries. to make us independent of all foreign nation. to manufacture here everything that is necessary for human life. and no law can be shown passed by a Republican Congress intended to prevent free and voluntary immigration. This law did not do it. This law intended to encouragethe free immigration that was necessary then to strengthen our armies and enable us to manufacture the vast supplies needed for the support of our troops. All the policy adopted by the Republican party has been with an eye single to the development of our laborers. to their protection. to their support. to their encouragement and building them up. to giving them fair wages and hone.st pay for honest labor.. I will vote for this bill. not that it is framed with the precision that I think it ought to have been by a committee of lawyers limiting it to words meet for the occasion. I will vote for this bill because it was sent to us from the House of Representatives. I believe. without division of party. in a House composed of twothirds Democratssent to us to defeat a class of contracts that have sprung up in the last eight or ten years. Until after the close of the war the immigration to this country was a healthy European immigration. Since that time it has become the policy of Congress to prevent the immigration from Asiatic and other countries of races not akin to our own. I have nothing to say about that. Perhaps in passing those laws we went beyond the ordinary bounds of the old policy of the Government.. but that is now the policy. But this bill does nothing to protect our laboring men from the importation of free immigration. of men who come here as individual citizens to mingle their blood with ours. and to contribute with us in building up a great. free country. but men who are not free. who are slaves. I read this morning in one of the Philadelphia papers a statement of the condition of 2.000 of these people now in the city of Philadelphia. It is abhorrent to all the notions of an American free laborer that men are bought and sold. who can not understand our language. who do not expect to remain here. who do not mingle with us. who do not share with us. yet are brought here in masses under contracts with corporations to drive out of their fields the honest laboring men of the country.