Our Composite Nationality: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 7, 1869
OUR COMPOSITE NATIONALITY: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED
IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ON 7 DECEMBER 1869
Typescript, Speech File, reel 14, frames 553-59, FD Papers, DLC. Other texts in Boston
Daily Advertiser, 8 December 1869; Boston Commonwealth, 11 December 1869; Speech
File, reel 14, frames 539-51, FD Papers, DLC.
Fresh from speaking engagements in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New
Hampshire, Douglass arrived in Boston to deliver one of the season’s Parker
Fraternity lectures on the evening of 7 December 1869. Two of Boston’s “best
resident performers,” Carlyle Petersilia, a pianist, and Eugene Thayer, an
organist, entertained the audience at the Music Hall prior to the lecture.
Although Boston newspapers carried lengthy excerpts from the speech, none
is as complete as a typescript headed “COMPOSITE NATION. Delivered in
the Parker Fraternity Course, Boston, 1867 [sic],” which itself is probably a
copy of another typescript with corrections in Douglass’s hand. Douglass
delivered this speech in various locations, including Burlington, Vermont,
Chicago, and Peoria, Illinois, during the winter of 1869-70. See Appendix
A, text 5, for précis of alternate texts. Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, 3 De-
cember 1869; Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 7, 8 December 1869; Con-
cord (N.H.) Daily Monitor, 7 December 1869; Boston Daily Advertiser, 7
December 1869; NASS, 18 December 1869; Chicago Tribune, 10 February
1870; Peoria (Ill.) Weekly Transcript, 10 February 1870; Douglass to The-
odore Tilton, 2 December 1869, FD Mss., NRU.
As nations are among the largest and the most complete divisions into
which society is formed, the grandest aggregations of organized human
power; as they raise to observation and distinction the world’s greatest
men, and call into requisition the highest order of talent and ability for their
guidance, preservation and success, they are ever among the most attrac-
tive, instructive and useful subjects of thought, to those just entering upon
the duties and activities of life.
The simple organization of a people into a National body, composite or
otherwise, is of itself an impressive fact. As an original proceeding, it
marks the point of departure of a people, from the darkness and chaos of
unbridled barbarism, to the wholesome restraints of public law and society.
It implies a willing surrender and subjection of individual aims and ends,
often narrow and selfish, to the broader and better ones that arise out of
society as a whole. It is both a sign and a result of civilization.
A knowledge of the character, resources and proceedings of other
nations, affords us the means of comparison and criticism, without which
progress would be feeble, tardy, and perhaps, impossible. It is by compar-
ing one nation with another, and one learning from another, each compet-
ing with all, and all competing with each, that hurtful errors are exposed,
great social truths discovered, and the wheels of civilization whirled
onward.
I am especially to speak to you of the character and mission of the
United States, with special reference to the question whether we are the
better or the worse for being composed of different races of men. I propose
to consider first, what we are, second, what we are likely to be, and,
thirdly, what we ought to be.
Without undue vanity or unjust depreciation of others, we may claim to
be, in many respects, the most fortunate of nations. We stand in relation to
all others, as youth to age. Other nations have had their day of greatness
and glory; we are yet to have our day, and that day is coming. The dawn is
already upon us. It is bright and full of promise. Other nations have reached
their culminating point. We are at the beginning of our ascent. They have
apparently exhausted the conditions essential to their further growth and
extension, while we are abundant in all the material essential to further
national growth and greatness.
The resources of European statesmanship are now sorely taxed to
maintain their nationalities at their ancient height of greatness and power.
American statesmanship, worthy of the name, is now taxing its ener-
gies to frame measures to meet the demands of constantly increasing
expansion of power, responsibility and duty.
Without fault or merit on either side, theirs or ours, the balance is
largely in our favor. Like the grand old forests, renewed and enriched from
decaying trunks once full of life and beauty, but now moss-covered, oozy
and crumbling, we are destined to grow and flourish while they decline and
fade.
This is one view of American position and destiny. It is proper to notice
that it is not the only view. Different opinions and conflicting judgments
meet us here, as elsewhere.
It is thought by many, and said by some, that this Republic has already
seen its best days; that the historian may now write the story of its decline
and fall.1Allusion to Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Two classes of men are just now especially afflicted with such forebod-
ings. The first are those who are croakers by nature—the men who have a
taste for funerals, and especially national funerals. They never see the
bright side of anything, and probably never will. Like the raven in the lines
of Edgar A. Poe, they have learned two words, and those are, “never
more.”2American poet, literary critic, and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) first published "The Raven," his most popular poem, in the New York Evening Mirror on 29 January 1845. DAB, 15: 19-28. They usually begin by telling us what we never shall see. Their
little speeches are about as follows: You will never see such statesmen in
the councils of the Nation as Clay, Calhoun and Webster.3Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. You will never
see the South morally reconstructed and our once happy people again
united. You will never see this Government harmonious and successful
while in the hands of different races. You will never make the negro work
without a master, or make him an intelligent voter, or a good and useful
citizen. This last never is generally the parent of all the other little nevers
that follow.
During the late contest for the Union, the air was full of nevers, every
one of which was contradicted and put to shame by the result, and I doubt
not that most of those we now hear in our troubled air will meet the same
fate.
It is probably well for us that some of our gloomy prophets are limited
in their powers to prediction. Could they commend [command] the de-
structive bolt, as readily as they commend [command] the destructive
word, it is hard to say what might happen to the country. They might fulfill
their own gloomy prophecies. Of course it is easy to see why certain other
classes of men speak hopelessly concerning us.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights
of all men; claiming no higher authority for its existence, or sanction for its
laws, than nature, reason and the regularly ascertained will of the people;
steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious
creed or family, is a standing offense to most of the governments of the
world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
To those who doubt and deny the preponderance of good over evil in
human nature; who think the few are made to rule, and the many to serve;
who put rank above brotherhood, and race above humanity; who attach
more importance to ancient forms than to the living realities of the present;
who worship power in whatever hands it may be lodged and by whatever
means it may have been obtained; our Government is a mountain of sin,
and, what is worse, it seems confirmed in its transgressions.
One of the latest and most potent European prophets, one who felt
himself called upon for a special deliverance concerning us and our destiny
as a nation, was the late Thomas Carlyle. He described us as rushing to
ruin, and when we may expect to reach the terrible end, our gloomy
prophet, enveloped in the fogs of London, has not been pleased to tell us.
Warning and advice from any quarter are not to be despised, and
especially not from one so eminent as Mr. Carlyle; and yet Americans will
find it hard to heed even men like him, while the animus is so apparent,
bitter and perverse.
A man to whom despotism is the saviour and liberty the destroyer of
society, who, during the last twenty years, in every contest between liberty
and oppression, uniformally and promptly took sides with the oppressor;
who regarded every extension of the right of suffrage, even to white men in
his own country, as shooting Niagara;4To Thomas Carlyle, who consistently repudiated democracy in his writings, the extension of voting privileges contained in Britain's Second Reform Bill (1867) constituted the “Niagara leap of completed democracy." However, after “shooting Niagara" and having no lower depths to which to descend, the possibility existed for Englishmen to move to higher ground. Carlyle urged the English aristocracy to stop pandering to the clamorous. dirty, and lawless mobs and recover their true nobility of spirit and work, thus demonstrating by force of example that something better than “penny newspaper parliaments" could rule England. Thomas Carlyle, “Shooting Niagara: And After?" Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished, 6 vols. (London, 1869), 4: 339-92; Benjamin Evans Lippincott, Victorian Critics of Democracy: Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold, Stephen, Maine, Lecky (Minneapolis, 1938), 6-53. who gloated over deeds of cruelty,
and talked of applying to the backs of men the beneficent whip, to the great
delight of many of the slaveholders of America in particular, could have but
little sympathy with our emancipated and progressive Republic, or with the
triumph of liberty any where.
But the American people can easily stand the utterances of such a man.
They however have a right to be impatient and indignant at those among
ourselves who turn the most hopeful portents into omens of disaster, and
make themselves the ministers of despair, when they should be those of
hope, and help cheer on the country in the new and grand career of justice
upon which it has now so nobly and bravely entered.
Of errors and defects we certainly have not less than our full share,
enough to keep the reformer awake, the statesman busy, and the country in
a pretty lively state of agitation for some time to come.
Perfection is an object to be aimed at by all, but it is not an attribute of
any form of government. Mutability is the law for all. Something different,
something better, or something worse may come, but so far as respects our
present system and form of government, and the altitude we occupy, we
need not shrink from comparison with any nation of our times. We are
to day the best fed, the best clothed, the best sheltered and the best in-
structed people in the world.
There was a time when even brave men might look fearfully upon the
destiny of the Republic; when our country was involved in a tangled
network of contradictions; when vast and irreconcilable social forces
fiercely disputed for ascendency and control; when a heavy curse rested
upon our very soil, defying alike the wisdom and the virtue of the people to
remove it; when our professions were loudly mocked by our practice, and
our name was a reproach and a byword to a mocking;5Douglass perhaps misquotes Mic. 6: 16. when our good ship
of state, freighted with the best hopes of the oppressed of all nations, was
furiously hurled against the hard and flinty rocks of derision, and every
cord, bolt, beam and bend in her body quivered beneath the shock, there
was some apology for doubt and despair. But that day has happily passed
away. The storm has been weathered, and the portents are nearly all in our
favor.
There are clouds, wind, smoke and dust and noise, over head and
around, and there always will be; but no genuine thunder, with destructive
bolt, menaces from any quarter of the sky.
The real trouble with us was never our system or form of government,
or the principles underlying it, but the peculiar composition of our people;
the relations existing between them and the compromising spirit which
controlled the ruling power of the country.
We have for a long time hesitated to adopt and carry out the only
principle which can solve that difficulty and give peace, strength and
security to the Republic, and that is the principle of absolute equality.
We are a country of all extremes, ends and opposites; the most conspic-
uous example of composite nationality in the world. Our people defy all the
ethnological and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from
black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic
vision, no man can name or number.6An allusion to Rev. 7: 9.
In regard to creeds and faiths, the condition is no better, and no worse.
Differences both as to race and to religion are evidently more likely to
increase than to diminish.
We stand between the populous shores of two great oceans. Our land is
capable of supporting one-fifth of all the globe. Here, labor is abundant and
better renumerated than any where else. All moral, social and geographical
causes conspire to bring to us the peoples of all other over populated
countries.
Europe and Africa are already here, and the Indian was here before
either. He stands today between the two extremes of black and white, too
proud to claim fraternity with either, and yet too weak to withstand the
power of either. Heretofore, the policy of our government has been gov—
erned by race pride, rather than by wisdom.
Until recently, neither the Indian nor the negro has been treated as a
part of the body politic. No attempt has been made to inspire either with a
sentiment of patriotism, but the hearts of both races have been diligently
sown with the dangerous seeds of discontent and hatred.
The policy of keeping the Indians to themselves, has kept the toma-
hawk and scalping knife busy upon our borders, and has cost us largely in
blood and treasure.7During the 1860s the U.S. Army conducted several costly campaigns against western tribes, including the Santee Sioux, Navajos, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Lakotas, Kiowas, and Comanches. Treaties in 1867 and 1868 with the Plains tribes and Navajos delineated reservation boundaries and formed the basis for the “peace policy” of the Grant administration, a combined effort of the government and humanitarian-primarily religious-groups to reform the Indian Office bureaucracy, “civilize" the Indians on their reduced lands, and avoid further bloodshed. Like many other former abolitionists, Douglass publicly supported these reforms. Paradoxically, the Grant years were marked by almost continual warfare in the West. NASS, 16 April 1870; New York Times, 14 April 1873; Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians, abridged ed. (1984; Lincoln, Neb., 1986), 136-80; Robert Winston Mardock, The Reformers and the American Indians (Columbia, Mo., 1971), 19-106.
Our treatment of the negro has lacked humanity and filled the country
with agitation and ill-feeling, and brought the Nation to the verge of ruin.
Before the relations of those two races are satisfactorily settled, and in
despite of all opposition, a new race is making its appearance within our
borders, and claiming attention.
It is estimated that not less than one hundred thousand Chinamen are
now within the limits of the United States.8Although the U.S. Census Bureau reported the resident Chinese-born population as 34,933 in 1860 and as 63,199 in 1870, total immigration from China numbered 105 ,698 in the two decades before 1870. A large number of Chinese immigrants apparently remained in the United States only a few years. Stephan Thernstrom, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 218-19, 223. Several years ago every vessel,
large or small, of steam or of sail, bound to our Pacific coast and hailing
from the Flowery kingdom, added to the number and strength of this new
element of our population.
Men differ widely as to the magnitude of this potential Chinese immi-
gration. The fact that by the late treaty with China we bind ourselves to
receive immigrants from that country only as the subjects of the Emperor,
and by the construction at least are bound not to naturalize them,9In 1868 the United States and the Empire of China negotiated an accord governing commerce, travel, and migration between the two nations. Actually an addition to the Sino-American Treaty of 18 June 1858, the agreement was popularly known as the Burlingame Treaty, after Anson Burlingame, the former U.S. ambassador to China who represented the Chinese in the negotiations. The accord recognized the “inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiances" and granted Chinese and American nationals residing in each country “the same privileges, immunities and exemptions as citizens." However, a proviso added that “nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization" upon the immigrants in either country. William L. Tung, The Chinese in America, 1820-1973: A Chronology and Fact Book (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1974), 11-12, 87-90; Jack Chen, The Chinese of America (New York, 1980), 128-29. and the
further fact that Chinamen themselves have a superstitious devotion to their
country and an aversion to permanent location in any other, contracting
even to have their bones carried back, should they die abroad, and from the
fact that many have returned to China, and the still more stubborn fact that
resistance to their coming has increased rather than diminished, it is in-
ferred that we shall never have a large Chinese population in America.
This, however, is not my opinion.
It may be admitted that these reasons, and others, may check and
moderate the tide of immigration; but it is absurd to think that they will do
more than this. Counting their number now by the thousands, the time is
not remote when they will count them by the millions. The Emperor’[s]
hold upon the Chinamen may be strong, but the Chinaman’s hold upon
himself is stronger.
Treaties against naturalization, like all other treaties, are limited by
circumstances. As to the superstitious attachment of the Chinese to China,
that, like all other superstitions, will dissolve in the light and heat of truth
and experience. The Chinaman may be a bigot, but it does not follow that
he will continue to be one to morrow. He is a man, and will be very likely to
act like a man. He will not be long in finding out that a country that is good
enough to live in is good enough to die in, and that a soil that was good
enough to hold his body while alive, will be good enough to hold his bones
when he is dead.
Those who doubt a large immigration should remember that the past
furnishes no criterion as a basis of calculation. We live under new and
improved conditions of migration, and these conditions are constantly
improving.
America is no longer an obscure and inaccessible country. Our ships
are in every sea, our commerce is in every port, our language is heard all
around the globe, steam and lightning have revolutionized the whole do-
main of human thought, changed all geographical relations, make a day of
the present seem equal to a thousand years of the past, and the continent
that Columbus only conjectured four centuries ago is now the center of the
world.
I believe Chinese immigration on a large scale will ye[t] be an irre-
pressible fact. The spirit of race pride will not always prevail.
The reasons for this opinion are obvious; China is a vastly over-
crowded country. Her people press against each other like cattle in a rail
car. Many live upon the water and have laid out streets upon the waves.
Men, like bees, want room. When the hive is overflowing, the bees
will swarm, and will be likely to take up their abode where they find the
best prospect for honey. In matters of this sort, men are very much like
bees. Hunger will not be quietly endured, even in the Celestial Empire,
when it is once generally known that there is bread enough and to spare in
America. What Satan said of Job is true of the Chinaman, as well as of
other men, “All that a man hath will he give for his life.”10Douglass quotes Job 2: 4. They will come
here to live, where they know the means of living are in abundance.
The same mighty forces which have swept to our shores the overflow-
ing population of Europe; which have reduced the people of Ireland three
millions below its normal standard; will operate in a similar manner upon
the hungry population of China and other parts of Asia. Home has its
charms, and native land has its charms, but hunger, oppression and destitution
will dissolve these charms and send men in search of new countries and
new homes.
Not only is there a Chinese motive behind this probable immigration,
but there is also an American motive which will play its part, and which
will be all the more active and energetic because there is in it an element of
pride, of bitterness and revenge.
Southern gentlemen who led in the late rebellion have not parted with
their convictions at this point, any more than at any other. They want to be
independent of the negro. They believed in slavery and they believe in it
still. They believed in an aristocratic class, and they believe in it still, and
though they have lost slavery, one element essential to such a class, they
still have two important conditions to the reconstruction of that class. They
have intelligence, and they have land. Of these, the land is the more
important. They cling to it with all the tenacity of a cherished superstition.
They will neither sell to the negro, nor let the carpet-bagger have it in
peace, but are determined to hold it for themselves and their children
forever.
They have not yet learned that when a principle is gone, the incident
must go also; that what was wise and proper under slavery is foolish and
mischievous in a state of general liberty; that the old bottles are worthless
when the new wine has come;11Douglass paraphrases Matt. 9: 17, Mark 2: 22, and Luke 5: 37, 38. but they have found that land is a doubtful
benefit, where there [are] no hands to till it.
Hence these gentlemen have turned their attention to the Celestial
Empire. They would rather have laborers who would work for nothing; but
as they cannot get the negro on these terms, they want Chinamen, who,
they hope, will work for next to nothing.
Companies and associations may yet be formed to promote this
Mongolian invasion. The loss of the negro is to gain them the Chinese, and
if the thing works well, abolition, in their opinion, will have proved itself to
be another blessing in disguise.12Hervey, Reflections on a Flower-Garden, 76. To the statesman it will mean Southern
independence. To the pulpit, it will be the hand of Providence, and bring
about the time of the universal dominion of the Christian religion. To all but
the Chinaman and the negro it will mean wealth, ease and luxury.
But alas, for all the selfish invention and dreams of men! The China-
man will not long be willing to wear the cast off shoes of the negro, and, if
he refuses, there will be trouble again. The negro worked and took his pay
in religion and the lash. The Chinaman is a different article and will want
the cash. He may, like the negro, accept Christianity, but, unlike the negro,
he will not care to pay for it in labor. He had the Golden Rule in substance
five hundred years before the coming of Christ,13Douglass alludes to the principle of reciprocity (shu), a central teaching of the Chinese philosopher Confucius: “Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you." The New Testament’s Golden Rule is stated in Matt. 7: 12 and Luke 6: 31. Lin Yutang, ed. and trans., The Wisdom of Confucius (1938; New York, 1943), 168-69. and has notions of justice
that are not to be confused by any of our “Cursed by Canaan” religion.14Gen. 9: 25.
Nevertheless, the experiment will be tried. So far as getting the Chi-
nese into our country is concerned. it will yet be a success. This elephant
will be drawn by our Southern brethren, though they will hardly know in
the end what to do with him.
Appreciation of the value of Chinamen as laborers will, I apprehend,
become general in this country. The North was never indifferent to South-
ern influence and example, and it will not be so in this instance.
The Chinese in themselves have first rate recommendations. They are
industrious, docile, cleanly, frugal; they are dexterous of hand, patient in
toil, marvelously gifted in the power of imitation, and have but few wants.
Those who have carefully observed their habits in California say that they
subsist upon what would be almost starvation to others.
The conclusion of the whole will be that they will want to come to us,
and, as we become more liberal, we shall want them to come, and what we
want done will naturally be done.
They will no longer halt upon the shores of California. They will
burrow no longer in her exhausted and deserted gold mines, where they
have gathered wealth from barrenness, taking what others left. They will
turn their backs not only upon the Celestial Empire but upon the golden
shores of the Pacific, and the wide waste of waters whose majestic waves
spoke to them of home and country. They will withdraw their eyes from the
glowing West and fix them upon the rising sun. They will cross the moun-
tains, cross the plains, descend our rivers, penetrate to the heart of the
country and fix their home with us forever.
Assuming then that immigration already has a foothold and will com-
bine for many years to come, we have a new element in our national
composition which is likely to exercise a large influence upon the thought
and the action of the whole nation.
The old question as to what shall be done with the negro will have to
give place to the greater question “What shall be done with the Mongo-
lian,” and perhaps we shall see raised one still greater, namely, “What will
the Mongolian do with both the negro and the white?”
Already has the matter taken this shape in California and on the Pacific
coast generally. Already has California assumed a bitterly unfriendly at-
titude toward the Chinaman. Already has she driven them from her altars of
justice. Already has she stamped them as outcasts and handed them over to
popular contempts and vulgar jest. Already are they the constant victims of
cruel harshness and brutal violence. Already have our Celtic brothers,
never slow to execute the behests of popular prejudice against the weak and
defenceless, recognized in the heads of these people, fit targets for their
shil[l]alahs. Already, too, are their associations formed in avowed hostility
to the Chinese.15Anti-Chinese prejudice surfaced in California as early as 1850, when white miners in some camps formed vigilance committees to drive out Asian workers. Begun on this local and ad hoc basis, hostility toward Chinese steadily became more organized. For example, the San Francisco-based Central Pacific Anti-Coolie Association, formed in 1867, worked closely with California's nascent labor movement and sympathetic Democratic politicians to agitate for effective bars against further Chinese immigration. By the 1880s a combination of violence, local ordinances, and state laws had succeeded in expelling Chinese labor from many occupations. State courts not only sanctioned most of these measures but upheld legislative prohibitions against Chinese, blacks, and Native Americans testifying in cases involving whites. Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movements in California (Berkeley, Calif., 1971), 72-91; Robert F. Heizer and Alan F. Almquist, The Other Californians: Prejudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico, and the United States to 1920 (Berkeley, Calif., 1971), 154-58; Chen, Chinese of America, 136-43.
In all this there is, of course, nothing strange. Repugnance to the
presence and influence of foreigners is an ancient feeling among men. It is
peculiar to no particular race or nation. It is met with, not only in the
conduct of one nation towards another, but in the conduct of the inhabitants
of the different parts of the same country, some times of the same city, and
even of the same village. “Lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each
other. Mountains interposed, make enemies of nations.”16William Cowper, The Time Piece, lines 16-18. Bailey, Poems of William Cowper, 267. To the Hindo
every man not twice born is Mieeka.17Hindus commonly referred to outsiders of whatever race or color as the Mieccha and considered them a separate class of untouchables. A[rthur] L[lewellyn] Basham, The Wonder that Was India: A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the Coming of the Muslims (London, 1954), 127, 145-46. To the Greek, every man not speaking
Greek is a barbarian. To the Jew, every one not circumcised is a gentile.18Circumcision, one of the most important biblical commandments for Jews, identified a male as a Hebrew and signified that people's special covenant with God. Gen. 17: 10-14; Exod. 12: 44-49; Vergilium Ferm, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion (1945; New York, 1981), 175. To
the Mohametan, every one not believing in the Prophet is a kaffer.19Kafir or Kaffir is the Moslem name for all unbelievers. Ferm, Encyclopedia of Religion, 413.
I need not repeat here the multitude of reproachful epithets expressive
of the same sentiment among ourselves. All who are not to the manor
born20Douglass adapts Hamlet, act 1, sc. 4, line 15. have been made to feel the lash and sting of these reproachful
names.
For this feeling there are many apologies, for there was never yet an
error, however flagrant and hurtful, for which some plausible defence
could not be framed. Chattel slavery, king craft, priest craft, pious frauds,
intolerance, persecution, suicide, assassination, repudiation, and a thou-
sand other errors and crimes have all had their defences and apologies.
Prejudice of race and color has been equally upheld.
The two best arguments in the defence are, first, the worthlessness of
the class against which it is directed; and, second, that the feeling itself is
entirely natural.
The way to overcome the first argument is to work for the elevation of
those deemed worthless, and thus make them worthy of regard, and they
will soon become worthy and not worthless. As to the natural argument, it
may be said that nature has many sides. Many things are in a certain sense
natural, which are neither wise nor best. It is natural to walk, but shall men
therefore refuse to ride? It is natural to ride on horseback, shall men
therefore refuse steam and rail? Civilization is itself a constant war upon
some forces in nature, shall we therefore abandon civilization and go back
to savage life?
Nature has two voices, the one high, the other low; one is in sweet
accord with reason and justice, and the other apparently at war with both.
The more men know of the essential nature of things, and of the true
relation of mankind, the freer they are from prejudice of every kind. The
child is afraid of the giant form of his own shadow. This is natural, but he
will part with his fears when he is older and wiser. So ignorance is full of
prejudice, but it will disappear with enlightenment. But I pass on.
I have said that the Chinese will come, and have given some reasons
why we may expect them in very large numbers in no very distant future.
Do you ask if I would favor such immigration? I answer, I would. “Would
you admit them as witnesses in our courts of law?” I would. Would you
have them naturalized, and have them invested with all the rights of Ameri-
can citizenship? I would. Would you allow them to vote? I would. Would
you allow them to hold office? I would.
But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or
principle as that of self-preservation? Does not every race owe something
to itself? Should it not attend to the dictates of common sense? Should not a
superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the
white people the owners of this continent? Have they not the right to say
what kind of people shall be allowed to come here and settle? Is there not
such a thing as being more generous than wise? In the effort to promote
civilization may we not corrupt and destroy what we have? Is it best to take
on board more passengers than the ship will carry?
To all this and more I have one among many answers, altogether
satisfactory to me, though I cannot promise it will be entirely so to you.
I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled
upon higher principles than those of a cold and selfish expediency. There
are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conven-
tional foundation, but are eternal, universal and indestructible.
Among these is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right
which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike.
It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by
coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and the
Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now
and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity,
and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it
is safe to go the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue-eyed and
light-haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle
for the good things of this world, they need have no fear, they have no need
to doubt that they will get their full share.
But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit
migratory rights, or any other essential human rights, to themselves, and
which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion
of all other races of men.
I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin
races, but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and
feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours. Right wrongs no man. If
respect is had to majorities, the fact that only one-fifth of the population of
the globe is white and the other four-fifths are colored, ought to have some
weight and influence in disposing of this and similar questions. It would be
a sad reflection upon the laws of nature and upon the idea of justice, to say
nothing of a common Creator, if four-fifths of mankind were deprived of
the rights of migration to make room for the one-fifth. If the white race may
exclude all other races from this continent, it may rightfully do the same in
respect to all other lands, islands, capes and continents, and thus have all
the world to itself, and thus what would seem to belong to the whole would
become the property of only a part. So much for what is right, now let us
see what is wise.
And here I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are
likely to come to the United States is the only wise policy which this nation
can adopt.
It has been thoughtfully observed that every nation, owing to its pecu-
liar character and composition, has a definite mission in the world. What
that mission is, and what policy is best adapted to assist in its fulfillment, is
the business of its people and its statesmen to know, and knowing, to make
a noble use of this knowledge.
I need not stop here to name or describe the missions of other and more
ancient nationalities. Ours seems plain and unmistakable. Our geograph-
ical position, our relation to the outside world, our fundamental principles
of government, world-embracing in their scope and character, our vast
resources, requiring all manner of labor to develop them, and our already
existing composite population, all conspire to one grand end, and that is, to
make us the perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the
human family that the world has ever seen.
In whatever else other nations may have been great and grand, our
greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the
principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds.
We are not only bound to this position by our organic structure and by our
revolutionary antecedents, but by the genius of our people. Gathered here
from all quarters of the globe, by a common aspiration for national liberty
as against caste, divine right government and privileged classes, it would
be unwise to be found fighting against ourselves and among ourselves, it
would be unadvised to attempt to set up any one race above another, or one
religion above another, or prescribe any on account of race, color or creed.
The apprehension that we shall be swamped or swallowed up by
Mongolian civilization; that the Caucasian race may not be able to hold
their own against that vast incoming population, does not seem entitled to
much respect. Though they come as the waves come, we shall be all the
stronger if we receive them as friends and give them a reason for loving our
country and our institutions. They will find here a deeply rooted, indige-
nous, growing civilization, augmented by an ever-increasing stream of
immigration from Europe, and possession is nine points of the law in this
case, as well as in others. They will come as strangers. We are at home.
They will come to us, not we to them. They will come in their weakness,
we shall meet them in our strength. They will come as individuals, we will
meet them in multitudes, and with all the advantages of organization.
Chinese children are in American schools in San Francisco.21In 1860 the California legislature prohibited “Mongolians” from attending the state' s public schools but six years later amended the legislation to permit such attendance where white parents did not object. Although the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 guaranteed Chinese immigrants access to public education facilities, local pressure on school boards kept all minority students in segregated and inferior institutions. Most Chinese immigrant children who received an education in California attended segregated private or missionary schools. Heizer and Almquist, The Other Californians, 133-34; Chen, Chinese of America, 129, 185; Stanford M. Lyman, Chinese Americans (New York, 1974), 83. None of our
children are in Chinese schools, and probably never will be, though in
some things they might well teach us valuable lessons. Contact with these
yellow children of the Celestial Empire would convince us that the points
of human difference, great as they, upon first sight, seem, are as nothing
compared with the points of human agreement. Such contact would re-
move mountains of prejudice.
It is said that it is not good for man to be alone. This is true, not only in
the sense in which our women’s rights’ friends so zealously and wisely
teach, but it is true as to nations.
The voice of civilization speaks an unmistakable language against the
isolation of families, nations and races, and pleads for composite na-
tionality as essential to her triumphs.
Those races of men who have maintained the most distinct and separate
existence for the longest periods of time; which have had the least inter-
course with other races of men are a standing confirmation of the folly of
isolation. The very soil of the national mind becomes in such cases barren,
and can only be resuscitated by assistance from without.
Look at England, whose mighty power is now felt, and for centuries
has been felt, all around the world. It is worthy of special remark, that
precisely those parts of that proud Island which have received the largest
and most diversified populations, are to day the parts most distinguished
for industry, enterprise, invention and general enlightenment. In Wales,
and in the Highlands of Scotland the boast is made of their pure blood, and
that they were never conquered, but no man can contemplate them without
wishing they had been conquered. They are far in the rear of every other
part of the English realm in all the comforts and conveniences of life, as
well as in mental and physical development. Neither law nor learning
descends to us from the mountains of Wales or from the Highlands of
Scotland. The ancient Briton, whom Julius Caesar would not have as a
slave, is not to be compared with the round, burly, amplitudinous Eng-
lishman in many of his qualities of desirable manhood.
The theory that each race of men has some special faculty, some
peculiar gift or quality of mind or heart, needed to the perfection and
happiness of the whole is a broad and beneficent theory, and, besides its
beneficence, has, in its support, the voice of experience. Nobody doubts
this theory when applied to animals or plants, and no one can show that it is
not equally true when applied to races.
All great qualities are never found in any one man or in any one race.
The whole of humanity, like the whole of everything else, is ever greater
than a part. Men only know themselves by knowing others, and contact is
essential to this knowledge. In one race we perceive the predominance of
imagination; in another, like the Chinese, we remark its almost total ab-
sence. In one people we have the reasoning faculty; in another the genius
for music; in another exists courage; in another great physical vigor, and so
on through the whole list of human qualities. All are needed to temper,
modify, round and complete the whole man and the whole nation.
Not the least among the arguments whose consideration should dispose
us to welcome among us the peoples of all countries, nationalities and
colors, is the fact that all races and varieties of men are improvable. This is
the grand distinguishing attribute of humanity, and separates man from all
other animals. If it could be shown that any particular race of men are
literally incapable of improvement, we might hesitate to welcome them
here. But no such men are any where to be found, and if they were, it is not
likely that they would ever trouble us with their presence. The fact that the
Chinese and other nations desire to come and do come is a proof of their
capacity for improvement and of their fitness to come.
We should take counsel of both nature and art in the consideration of
this question. When the architect intends a grand structure, he makes the
foundation broad and strong. We should imitate this prudence in laying the
foundations of the future Republic. There is a law of harmony in all
departments of nature. The oak is in the acorn. The career and destiny of
individual men are enfolded in the elements of which they are composed.
The same is true of a nation. It will be something or it will be nothing. It
will be great, or it will be small, according to its own essential qualities. As
these are rich and varied, or pure and simple, slender and feeble, broad and
strong, so will be the life and destiny of the nation itself. The stream cannot
rise higher than its source. The ship cannot sail faster than the wind. The
flight of the arrow depends upon the strength and elasticity of the bow, and
as with these, so with a nation.
If we would reach a degree of civilization higher and grander than
any yet attained, we should welcome to our ample continent all nations,
kindreds, tongues and peoples, and as fast as they learn our language and
comprehend the duties of citizenship, we should incorporate them into the
American body politic. The outspread wings of the American eagle are
broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come.
As a matter of selfish policy, leaving right and humanity out of the
question, we cannot wisely pursue any other course. Other governments
mainly depend for security upon the sword; ours depends mainly upon the
friendship of the people. In all matters, in time of peace, in time of war, and
at all times, it makes its appeal to the people, and to all classes of the
people. Its strength lies in their friendship and cheerful support in every
time of need, and that policy is a mad one which would reduce the number
of its friends by excluding those who would come, or by alienating those
who are already here.
Our Republic is itself a strong argument in favor of composite na-
tionality. It is no disparagement to Americans of English descent to affirm
that much of the wealth, leisure, culture, refinement and civilization of the
country are due to the arm of the negro and the muscle of the Irishman.
Without these, and the wealth created by their sturdy toil, English civiliza-
tion had still lingered this side of the Alleghanies, and the wolf still be
howling on their summits.
To no class of our population are we more indebted for valuable
qualities of head, heart, and hand, than to the German. Say what we will of
their lager, their smoke, and their metaphysics, they have brought to us a
fresh, vigorous and child-like nature; a boundless facility in the acquisition
of knowledge; a subtle and far-reaching intellect, and a fearless love of
truth. Though remarkable for patient and laborious thought, the true Ger-
man is a joyous child of freedom, fond of manly sports, a lover of music,
and a happy man generally. Though he never forgets that he is a German, he
never fails to remember that he is an American.
A Frenchman comes here to make money, and that is about all that need
be said of him. He is only a Frenchman. He neither learns our language nor
loves our country. His hand is on our pocket and his eye on Paris. He gets
what he wants and, like a sensible Frenchman, returns to France to spend it.
Now let us answer briefly some objections to the general scope of my
arguments. I am [told] that science is against me; that races are not all of the
same origin and that the unity theory of human origin has been exploded.22Followers of the American School of ethnology advanced the polygenist theory that the races had separate origins and constituted distinct species, a theory that Douglass had discussed and disputed frequently since first delivering his speech of 12 July 1854 on Negro ethnology.
I admit that this is a question that has two sides. It is impossible to trace the
threads of human history sufficiently near their starting point to know much
about the origin of races.
In disposing of this question whether we shall welcome or repel immi-
gration from China, Japan, or elsewhere, we may leave the differences
among the theological doctors to be settled by themselves.
Whether man originated at one time and one place; whether there was
one Adam or five, or five hundred, does not affect the question.
The great right of migration and the great wisdom of incorporating
foreign elements into our body politic, are founded not upon any genealog-
ical or ethnological theory, however learned, but upon the broad fact of a
common nature.
Man is man the world over. This fact is affirmed and admitted in any
effort to deny it. The sentiments we exhibit, whether love or hate, confi-
dence or fear, respect or contempt, will always imply a like humanity. A
smile or a tear has no nationality. Joy and sorrow speak alike in all nations,
and they above all the confusion of tongues proclaim the brotherhood
of man.
It is objected to the Chinaman that he is secretive and treacherous, and
will not tell the truth when he thinks it for his interest to tell a lie. There may
be truth in all this; it sounds very much like the account of man’s heart
given in the creeds. If he will not tell the truth, except when it is for his
interest to do so, let us make it for his interest to tell the truth. We can do it
by applying to him the same principle of justice that we apply to ourselves.
But I doubt if the Chinese are more untruthful than other people. At
this point I have one certain test.—Mankind are not held together by lies.
Trust is the foundation of society. Where there is no truth, there can be no
trust, and where there is no trust, there can be no society. Where there is
society, there is trust, and where there is trust, there is something upon
which it is supported. Now a people who have confided in each other for
five thousand years; who have extended their empire in all directions until
it embraces one-fifth of the population of the globe; who hold important
commercial relations with all nations; who are now entering into treaty
stipulations with ourselves, and with all the great European powers, can-
not be a nation of cheats and liars, but must have some respect for veracity.
The very existence of China for so long a period, and her progress
in civilization, are proofs of her truthfulness. This is the last objection
which should come from those who profess the all-conquering power of
the Christian religion. If that religion cannot stand contact with the Chi-
nese, religion or no religion, so much the worse for those who have
adopted it. It is the Chinaman, not the Christian, who should be alarmed
for his faith. He exposes that faith to great dangers by exposing it to the
freer air of America. But shall we send missionaries to the heathen, and
yet deny the heathen the right to come to us? I think a few honest be-
lievers in the teachings of Confucius23Confucius (c.551-479 B.C.), Chinese philosopher. would be well employed in ex-
pounding his doctrines among us.
The next objection to the Chinese is that he cannot be induced to swear
by the Bible. This is to me one of his best recommendations. The American
people will swear by any thing in the heaven above or the earth beneath. We
are a nation of swearers. We swear by a book whose most authoritative
command is to swear not at all.
It is not of so much importance what a man swears by, as what he
swears to, and if the Chinaman is so true to his convictions that he cannot
be tempted or even coerced into so popular a custom as swearing by the
Bible, he gives good evidence of his integrity and of his veracity.
Let the Chinaman come; he will help to augment the national wealth;
he will help to develop our boundless resources; he will help to pay off our
national debt; he will help to lighten the burden of our national taxation; he
will give us the benefit of his skill as a manufacturer and as a tiller of the
soil, in which he is unsurpassed.
Even the matter of religious liberty, which has cost the world more
tears, more blood and more agony, than any other interest, will be helped
by his presence. I know of no church, however tolerant; of no priesthood,
however enlightened, which could be safely trusted with the tremendous
power which universal conformity would confer. We should welcome all
men of every shade of religious opinion, as among the best means of
checking the arrogance and intolerance which are the almost inevitable
concomitants of general conformity. Religious liberty always flourishes
best amid the clash and competition of rival religious creeds.
To the mind of superficial men the future of different races has already
brought disaster and ruin upon the country. The poor negro has been
charged with all our woes. In the haste of these men they forget that our
trouble was not ethnological, but moral, that it was not a difference of
complexion, but a difference of conviction. It was not the Ethiopian as a
man, but the Ethiopian as a slave and a coveted article of merchandise, that
gave us trouble.
I close these remarks as I began. If our action shall be in accordance
with the principles of justice, liberty, and perfect human equality, no elo-
quence can adequately portray the greatness and grandeur of the future of
the Republic.
We shall spread the network of our science and our civilization over all
who seek their shelter, whether from Asia, Africa, or the Isles of the Sea.
We shall mould them all, each after his kind, into Americans; Indian and
Celt, negro and Saxon, Latin and Teuton, Mongolian and Caucasian, Jew
and gentile, all shall here bow to the same law, speak the same language,
support the same government, enjoy the same liberty, vibrate with the same
national enthusiasm, and seek the same national ends.