It is an evil and treacherous sophism when it comes up as an appeal to selfishness. [Renewed applause.] I have abstained from weaxying the House with statistics and figures. They provenothing. I have shown that the history of the nation is an argument greater than all statistics. and the facts before our eyes provide an argument which we can not ignorewhich duty to our fellowmen and to humanity forbid us to ignorethat this c0tintry. with a faculty of absorption and assimilation of which the history of the world knows no parallel. and furnishes no similar example. has grown great by absorbing more than forty million of foreigners who came here after 1790I may say after 1820because foreign immigration up to that period was substantially insignificant. A nation that could do this. a manhood that combines within its great heart and its brilliant intellect the faculties of the American people. is great enough to absorb more and grow in the absorption. Do not believe. as has been said. that contact with socalled inferior races will degrade the superior.
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immigration