Speech #890139702

I shall vote affirmatively when the roll is called on it. However. I invite attention to the fact that the problem of immigration goes back to the days of the American Revolution. One of the remonstrances that Thomas Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence against King George III was that. among other things. he obstructed naturalization and discouraged migration from the Old World to the New World. It was. in fact. on the very day of the Declaration of Independence. in 1776. that the Continental Congress passed a resolution covering into citizenship all persons who were in the Colonies. In the Articles of Confederation. on the 2d of March 1781. it was declared that the "free inhabitants shall be entitled to all privileges and Immunities of free citizens." When. finally. the Articles of Confederation gave way to the Constitution of the United States. the Constitution. among other things. in its delegation of power to the legislative branch provided Congress with the power "to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." Naturalization. of course. connotes the very fact that people *ill be coming here from foreign shores. As a consequence. the problem was how to cover them into the citizenship of the country. That is a power that lies in the legislative branch and should be exercised when the occasion calls for it. We lived with the problem of migrants and immigration even in the days of the War of 1812. because the British undertook to impress what they thought were British subjects from American vessels and take them back to England. Even in 1858. this practice prevailed. and President Buchanan had to send the American Navy into the Gulf of Mexico in order to stop it. It was not until 1870. when Queen Victoria was on the throne of Great Britain. that we finally managed to have an understanding and secure rights. whereby a British subject. if he so desired. could expatriate himself. With citizenship and naturalization pretty well settled. we could expect greater immigration of people from other countries. It is rather interesting to take a look at the various forces that sent people here. Of course. some of them probably came with romantic notions as to what the new land offered. but there were other reasons besides that.