Speech #680107956

It will be found that that power can not invade the legislative department. Therefore. I have for many years thought and contended that a matter of immigration is domestic. and exclusively within the province of the legislative branch of our Government. and I have so thought and contended quite regardless of persons. quite regardless of political palties. for. if I may say so. I endeavor to project my mind far into the future. and to think of this Republic when you and I and all who are now here shall have long passed away. . I never shall consent to place this great question of immigration within the treatymaking power. Reference was nmde here to an early Chinese treaty. If it will not trespass too much upon the attention of the Senate. when this matter comes regularly before us I propose to say a few words with regard to one who. if the Nation understood him. should be odious forever. and I am referring nowand Senators can look up the historyto a man who was a renegade. abandoning the service of his own country to enter into the service of China. I refer to Anson 3urlingame. to whom we are indebted for the treaty of 1868. That was the beginning. a departure which the men of that day did not fully grasp. or the consequences of which they did not fully realize. It was that old and inifamous treaty. negotiated by a renegade. entered into through weakness. or forgetfulness. or haste by our own country. which carried the idea that the treatymaking power could control the question of immigration as bearing upon the affairs of the United States. I merely allude to that treaty of 1868 with China. I may hereafter enlarge upon it. I rose. as I said. not to discuss the merits of this matter. but to notify all. present or elsewhere. that I shall regret. I shall deplore. the necessity of raising a point of order. which I assume now will be sustained. and In the.courise of that discussion I shall express myself upon the merits of the conferees report and upon the right. the power. and the duty of the legislative branch of the Government to determine and declare the policy of the Nation in respect of immigration. I indulge myself. however. In this hope: The conferees have not reported.