Later, in the spring of 1882, a bill was passed to carry
into effect the Treaty of 1880. That I resisted as best I
could. In opposition to this bill I made an earnest speech
showing it to be in conflict with the doctrines on which our
fathers founded the Republic; with the principles of the
Constitutions of nearly all the States, including that of
California, and with the declarations of leading statesmen down
to the year 1868. I showed also that the Chinese race had
shown examples of the highest qualities of manhood, of intelligence,
probity and industry. I protested against a compact between
the two greatest nations of the Pacific, just as we were about
to assert our great influence there, which should place in
the public law of the world, and in the jurisprudence of America,
the principle that it is fitting that there should be hereafter
a distinction in the treatment of men by governments and in
the recognition of their right to the pursuit of happiness
by a peaceful change of their homes, based, not on conduct,
not on character, but upon race and occupation; by asserting
that you might justly deny to the Chinese what you might not
justly deny to the Irish, that you might justly deny to the
laborer what you might not deny to the idler.
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