of the country. Their sole object is to make money. When they have accomplished that, they do not invest their earnings in land nor homesteads, but return with their wealth to their native China. They come with no desire or purpose to make this their permanent home. So strong is their feeling in this respect, that the poorest laborers stipulate, as a part of the contract by which they sell their services, that their dead bodies shall be carried back to China, and thousands have been thus exported. They have no conception of the American judicial or legislative system. They can not be relied upon to perform military duty. They are incompetent as jurymen. Indeed, the only purpose for which they are available is to perform manual labor. They bring with them neither wives nor families, nor do they intermarry with the resident population. They have an inferior intelligence and different civilization. Mentally, morally, physically, socially, and politically, they have remained a distinct and antagonistic race. Nor, in view of their strong national prejudices, is there any hope that the future will be different. Instances are numerous where an inferior race has been absorbed and improved by a superior one; but the condition precedent to such a result is an acknowledgment on the part of the lower race of such inferiority, nations as well as individuals, who must conclude that they need help before they are willing to ask or receive it. The Chinese have not, and never will, come to such a conclusion. Their inordinate vanity leads them to believe their country to be the center of a terrestrial system, and they therefore call it Midland, or Central Kingdom. They boast of a civilization which antedates the birth of Christ. They point with pride to a philosopher, Confucius, whose maxims, as perfections of wisdom, had become their code of laws. They obey a Government which, in their faith, is heaven - descended-an absolute despotism, vast, awful, and impressive, whose terrible and mysterious power regulates their lives or decrees their death, and under which liberty is an unknown idea. Thus intrenched behind national prejudices, they are impregnable against all influences, and remain a great, united class, distinct from Americans in color, in size, in features, in dress, in language, in customs, in habits, and in social peculiarities.

The result of the investigation was the recommendation that Congress adopt a resolution requesting the President to open a correspondence with the Governments of China and Great Britain, with a view of securing a change or abrogation of all stipulations in existing treaties which permit unlimited emigration of Chinese to the United States. Other measures, such as a capitation tax and restriction of the number of Mongolians admissible on any one vessel, have been suggested. Meantime the question whether Chinese are admissible to naturalization has been decided in the nega

was

tive by the United States Circuit Court in California. The decision is written by Judge Lorenzo Sawyer, and proceeds upon the ground that a Chinaman is not a "free white person" within the meaning of the United States statutes. The latest revision of the naturalization laws provides that they shall apply "to aliens, being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity, and to persons of African descent." Judge Sawyer interprets this provision in accordance with the presumptive meaning of Congress when the law amended. He shows that the question of the admission of the Chinese to citizenship then occupied the attention of Congress, and that there was clearly no idea or intention of opening the door to that race. He holds that the purpose of Congress was to include only members of the Caucasian race in the term “free white persons." A similar case has been decided in New York, where there are some Chinese who have received naturalization papers. There is, however, no ground for supposing that the Chinese as a body have entertained any idea of seeking naturalization.

The election of members of the State Constitutional Convention was held on June 19th. It did not excite a lively general interest in the State, but provoked a good deal of feeling in San Francisco on account of the violent effort made by the Kearney party to carry the city and county-an effort which appears to have been successful through the division of its opponents. There were six tickets in the field, the two leading ones being the Citizens' Nonpartisan and that of the Kearneyites. The latter were originally organized as a Workingmen's party, but their leader, Kearney, soon developed into a violent revolutionist. Nevertheless, the thirty-three candidates on the Kearney ticket were elected in San Francisco, being in a majority over either of the other tickets. The result of the entire election was: Non-partisan, 85; Workingmen, 49; Republicans, 9; Democrats, 5; Independents, 2; unclassified, 2. Total, 152.

The session of the Convention commenced on September 28th. It was limited by the law to one hundred days. It was permanently organized by the election of Joseph P. Hoge as President. The vote on the fifth ballot was: Hoge, 74; W. J. Tinnin, 73. Mr. J. A. Johnson, of Alameda, was chosen Secretary. It was still in session at the close of the year, and its hundred days expired only on January 6th. The work of the Convention and its final report will form a portion of the history of 1879. Its action on the Chinese question, the most interesting subject before the State, it may not be out of place to mention at this time.

The Committee of the Convention to whom was referred the subject of the Chinese immigration were unable to agree on a definite plan to remedy the so-called evil. On the first section of their report all agreed. It was as follows:

The Legislature shall have and shall exercise the power to enact all needful laws, and prescribe necessary regulations for the protection of the State, and the counties, cities, and towns thereof, from the burdens and evils arising from the presence of aliens, who are or who may become vagrants, paupers, mendicants, criminals, or invalids afflicted with contagious or infectious diseases, and aliens ortherwise dangerous or detrimental to the well-being or peace of the State, and to impose conditions upon which such persons may reside in the State, and to provide the means and mode of their removal from the State upon failure or refusal to comply with such conditions: provided, that nothing contained in the foregoing shall be construed to impair or limit the power of the Legislature to pass such other police laws or regulations as it may deem necessary.

This plan was based on the assumption that the State had not the power within itself to settle this question. It was believed, however, by all the Committee that the State had the power to protect itself from vagrants, paupers, criminals, etc., under its police powers, and for selfpreservation. This did not interfere with the rights of Congress to regulate commerce. It was proposed that courts should be established in San Francisco and elsewhere, where vagrants, mendicants, and others could be examined, and, if it was found that they were likely to become chargeable upon the tax-payers, placed in safe keeping until they could be removed from the State. With respect to criminals it was proposed that after they had been convicted, instead of being sent to prison, they should be deported from the State. This was a sort of banishinent. California had tried, by means of the capitation tax and by preventing the landing of lewd women, to rid itself from the dangers of Chinese immigration, but these statutes had been declared in contravention of the Federal Constitution. The suggestions contained in the first section did not come within the inhibition of the Federal Constitution, and the opinion of Justice Wayne in passengers' cases was quoted in support of this theory. In the passenger cases it was proposed by the Legislatures of New York and Massachusetts to impose a tax of $1.50 on each passenger, or require bonds of $450 from captains of vessels that the passengers should not become a charge upon the States. The United States Supreme Court decided that these enactments of the two States were unconstitutional, being a regulation of commerce; but it was admitted in the decision that the States had the right in the exercise of police powers to protect themselves from criminal vagrants and other dangerous classes. No denial was made that the provisions contained in this section were strictly within the limits of the police powers of the State, and might have been exercised by the Legislature. In Bump's notes on United States decisions it is laid down: "A State has the same undeniable and unlimited jurisdiction over all persons and things within its territorial limits as any foreign nation, where that jurisdiction is not surrendered or restrained by the Constitution. By virtue of this, it not only is

the right but the solemn and bounden duty of a State to advance the safety, happiness, and prosperity of its people, and to provide for its general welfare by any and every act of legislation which it may deem to be conducive to those ends, where the power over the particular subject, or the manner of its exercise, is not surrendered or restrained. All these powers, which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what may perhaps more properly be called internal police, are not thus surrendered these the authority of a State is complete, unor restrained; and consequently in relation to qualified, and exclusive." The same author also states: "The State may pass poor-laws and laws to prevent the introduction of paupers or persons likely to become paupers."

The remarks of the "Sacramento Record " on this plan proposed to the Convention are too appropriate to be omitted:

If it is sought to regulate Chinese immigration on the ground that the State has the right to prohibit the importation of paupers, vagrants, and criminals, we fear the attempt will prove a failure. The great majority of the Chinese who land in this country the law was so strained in administering it as to perwould not come under either of those heads, unless vert the language utterly. The Chinese are, as everybody knows, one of the most industrious races on the face of the earth. It is their industry that renders them so dangerous to our civilization. They are not only always willing to work, but they will work for a wage which inost white men would find insufficient to support life upon. They are neither paupers nor vagrants, and to attempt to put them in such a category would almost certainly end in failure.

embraced in the next section of the report of The second plan of treating the subject was the Committee, and was as follows:

All further immigration to this State of Chinese, and all other persons ineligible to become citizens of the United States under the naturalization laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. The Legislature shall provide for the enforcement of this section by appropriate legislation.

A division of opinion appeared before the Committee relative to the powers of the State, one side holding that the State had no power to enforce such a prohibition, and the other that it had the power. Several decisions of the United States Supreme Court were referred to, as showing that the section incorporated a power belonging to the Federal Government. A memorial to Congress was suggested, request ing legislation on the Chinese question, and another to the treaty-making power to modify the Burlingame treaty. It was urged that an attempt to nullify an act of Congress, or to interfere with the powers of the Government, would raise an antagonistic feeling all through the Eastern States.

The third plan proposed in the report of the Committee was contained in the following

sections:

the United States shall not have the right to sue or SEC. 6. Foreigners ineligible to become citizens of be sued in any of the courts of this State; and any lawyer appearing for or against them, or any of them,

in a civil proceeding, shall forfeit his license to practice law. No such foreigner shall be granted license to carry on any business, trade, or occupation in this State, nor shall such license be granted to any person or corporation employing them. No such foreigner shall have the right to catch fish in any of the waters under the jurisdiction of the State; nor to purchase, own, or lease real property in this State; and all contracts of conveyance or lease of real estate to any such foreigner shall be void.

SEO. 7. The presence of foreigners ineligible to become citizens of the United States is declared herein to be dangerous to the well-being of the State, and the Legislature shall discourage their immigration by all the means within its power. It shall provide for their exclusion from residence or settlement in any portion of the State it may see fit, or from the State, and provide suitable methods, by their taxation or otherwise, for the expense of such exclusion. It shall prescribe suitable penalties for the punishment of persons convicted of introducing them within forbidden limits. It shall delegate all necessary power to the incorporated cities and towns of this State for their removal without the limits of such cities and towns.

SEC. 8. Public officers within this State are forbidden to employ Chinese in any capacity whatever. Violation of this provision shall be ground for removal from office; and no person shall be eligible to any office in this State who, at the time of election and for three months before, employed Chinese.

SEC. 9. The exercise of the right of suffrage shall be denied to any person employing Chinese in this State, and it shall be a sufficient challenge that the person offering to vote is employing Chinese, or has employed them within three months next preceding

the election.

The objections were urged against these sections by dissentient members of the Committee, that they denied the right of the Chinese to the protection of law; that it was a plan of starvation by constitutional provision; that the sections interfered with the rights of American citizens by declaring whom they should employ. It was well known that the principal portion of the Chinese coming to California belonged to dangerous classes. The convictions of the Chinese in San Francisco for one year to the 31st of October, 1878, were 2,488. It would cost less to send these convicted criminals out of the State than to keep them in jail. They could be sent away for $15 each. It was not an entire remedy for the Chinese evil, but it was the best thing that could be done under the circumstances. Congress could remove the evil. Not much would come from requesting a modification of the Burlingame treaty. The Chinese were already taking action to procure delay. It was patent to every observer that China was encouraging this immigration. Congress could legislate and prevent Chinese immigration. This was fully established, even though it leads to a declaration of war. The state of political parties at present was favorable for securing such legislation. It had been said that to exclude Chinese from the country was contrary to the policy of the American people, but from the foundation of the Government liberal naturalization laws had only entitled the white race to settle in this country. One fact had always stood out in this republic, that it was a white man's gov

ernment for white men. Citizenship had been conferred upon four millions of colored people, but this arose from necessity. The naturalization laws excluded Orientals from citizenship because it would be a disturbing element in the government. If these people were not adapted to become citizens, there were some arguments against allowing them to become denizens. It was a mistake to suppose that cheap labor was beneficial to a country. There was no need now of fostering immigration, because, by the law of material increase, a healthy, vigorous race doubled itself in twentyfive years. Taking the present population at 40,000,000, it may be naturally expected that the population of the United States at the end of the century would be 75,055,000. Chinamen had learned the art of drawing the maximum from the soil and living on the minimum of subsistence. For ten thousand years Chinese had been learning how to live on next to nothing, working sixteen hours out of twentyfour. Five Chinamen could exist on food sufficient for one white laboring man. The white man, therefore, can not compete with him, not without adaptation brought on by training for thousands of years, and no one wanted to see white laborers thus degraded. If the Chinese are to continue coming here, schoolhouses must be pulled down, for white men can not send children to school. Marriage among white people would cease on account of poverty. Migration could be accounted for by natural law. Starvation had been the great cause in past ages. There were seventy millions of Chinamen now starving, and the only country open to this starving race is the Pacific States and Territories of the United States. The question was, therefore, a subject deserving the atten tion of American statesmen.

A debate continuing two or three days took place, when the report of the Committee was adopted, after very little alteration by the Convention. This was chiefly verbal. The impression seemed to prevail that the settlement of the question was beyond the power of the State, and that these sections would be declared unconstitutional by the courts.

The proposition to address a memorial to Congress on the subject was approved by the Convention. The following able memorial was reported by the Committee and unanimously adopted by the Convention:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The people of the State of California, by their delegates now assembled in Constitutional Convention, respectfully present to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States invoke the exercise of the supreme national authority this memorial, the object and purpose of which is to for relief from Chinese immigration, an evil of such magnitude and of a character so threatening to the highest interests of the State as to excite in the minds of our whole people the most serious dissatisfaction and alarm. As becomes a people devoted to the national Union, and filled with a profound reverence for law, we have repeatedly, by petition and memorial, through the action of our Legislature, and

by our Senators and Representatives in Congress, sought the appropriate remedies against this great wrong, and patiently awaited with confidence the action of the General Government. Meanwhile this giant evil has grown, and strengthened, and expanded its baneful effect upon the material interests of the people, upon public morals and our civilization, becoming more and more apparent, until patience is almost exhausted and the spirit of discontent pervades the State. It would be disingenuous in us to attempt to conceal our amazement at the long delay of appropriate action by the National Government toward the prohibition of an immigration which is rapidly approaching the character of an Oriental invasion, and which threatens to supplant Anglo-Saxon civilization on this coast. If the facts relating to this immigration now patent to all observers, if the ascertained knowledge now within the reach of every intelligent man, will not serve to awaken an interest upon this subject in the minds of the governing power of this nation, we are tempted to despair of ever reaching a remedy.

If it be supposed, as has been often said, that the hostility to Chinese immigration is confined to a small and ignorant class of our people, we protest against such assumption. The discontent from this cause is almost universal. It is not limited to any particular party, nor to any class or nationality. It does not spring from race antipathies, nor alone from economic considerations, nor from any religious sentiment, nor from low hatreds or mercenary motives. We submit that, our people being interested to a greater extent in commerce with China than any other portion of the American people, the reasons for this hostility to Chinese immigration must be considered overwhelming, when sufficient to array the whole body of our people against a treaty which was intended to secure to that people, more than to any other, the great benefits to be derived from Asiatic commerce. Our sincerity can not therefore be doubted, since we are willing to forego all the benefits of commerce with China, if need be, rather than suffer the ills which this immigration must inevitably entail upon us and our descendants.

Among the many reasons for our opposition to Chinese immigration, all of which can not be stated in a brief memorial, we submit the following:

1. The country being now stocked with a vigorous, intelligent, progressive, and highly civilized people, there is no need of immigration for the increase of our population, certainly not of the immigration of a non-assimilative and alien race.

2. That, considering the character of Chinese immigrants in respect to their habits and modes of life and physical peculiarities, this immigration operates as a substitution of Chinese for white men of the Caucasian race, and not as an addition to our population; the question being, Shall Chinese ultimately occupy the country, or shall it be held for the homes of men of the Caucasian race?

3. There is danger of an immense increase of Chinese immigrants in the near future. The effect of the famine now unhappily prevailing in the northern provinces of China is sure to cause a migration of greater proportions than any known in the history of the human race. The fear of hunger will drive the survivors of this calamity forth in prodigious numbers, in quest of food, eastward, because there is no other outlet, and California offers the most fruitful field for their sustenance. The speculators in Chinese labor will, if permitted, seize the opportunity to augment their fortunes by the importation of these hunger-driven creatures into our ports. This invasion is to be dreaded by us more than a hostile invasion by armed men, for, upon the first note of alarm from such a cause, the nation would hasten to our rescue and defense. 4. The Chinese bring with them habits and customs the most vicious and demoralizing. They are scornful of our laws and institutions. They estab

lish their own tribunals for the redress of wrongs and injuries among themselves, independent of our courts, and subject the victims of such tribunals to secret punishments the most barbarous and terrible. In our cities they live crowded and herded together like beasts, generating the most dangerous diseases. They introduce the ancient, infectious, and incurable malady called leprosy, the germs of which, when once distributed, can never be eradicated, but fasten themselves upon the people as an eternal consuming rot. They poison our youth in both mind and body. They build no homes. They are generally destitute of moral principle. They are incapable of patriotism, and utterly unfitted for American citizenship. Their existence here in great numbers is a perpetual menace to republican institutions, a source of constant irritation and danger to the public peace.

The system of labor which results from their presence is a system which includes all or nearly all the vices of slavery, without the conservative influences incident to the domestic or paternal relation between master and slave. It degrades labor to the standard of mere brute energy, and this excludes the labor of free white men, who will not and can not endure the degradation of competition with servile labor. Chinese labor is, therefore, substituted for the labor of free white men, and the State is afflicted with a quasi slave system, under which Chinese population supplants white American citizens, and drives them

to other fields or to starvation.

The necessary brevity of this memorial forbids the further enlargement of facts and reasons for the almost universal hostility in California to their immigration. We beg the earnest attention of the Government at Washington to this subject, fraught with immense interest to us, and, as we believe, to the whole people of the United States. Whatever the State of California may lawfully do to abate or mitigate this evil, it has resolved to do, declaring, however, our settled determination to avoid all conflict with the national authority, and to limit our action to the exercise of the police power of the State. We ask most earnestly and respectfully of the Congress of the United States such prohibitory legislation as will effectually prevent the further immigration of Chinese coolies or laborers to the ports of the coast.

There is another view of this subject which was occasionally alluded to in the debates of the Convention, and recognized by all the considerate members. The representation of the public action of the State would be imperfect without some notice of this aspect of the question. It is briefly set forth in the "Sacramento Record," whose language aptly expresses it, thus: "Every man who has ever thought upon this question knows perfectly well that John Chinaman is formidable, not because of his bad qualities, but because of his good ones. If he were really the poor, miserable creature depicted by extravagant hostility, there would be no need for any protective or proscriptive legislation in regard to him. No race was ever so hated unless it was feared; and that is a truth which ought to be recognized in this case. The Chinaman is formidable because he is industrious, temperate, frugal, patient, tractable, and, above all, cheap. He works for very low wages, but it is none the less true that he does the work he undertakes. He has found his way into every industry on the Pacific coast, because those who want labor find that his labor pays. That is the secret of the enmity to him. That is the reason we are all