Stephen Johnson Field

“ While, therefore, the courts will always endeavor to bring legislation into harmony with treaty stipulations, and not presume that it was intended by the legislative department to disregard them, yet an act of congress must be construed according to its manifest intent, and neither limited nor enlarged by ingenious reasoning or fanciful notions of a purpose not declared on its face. ”

“ A treaty is, in its nature, a contract between two or more nations, and is so considered by writers on public law; and by the constitution it is placed on the same footing and made of like obligation as a law of the United States. Both are declared in that instrument to be the supreme law of the land, and no paramount authority is given to either over the other.
Some treaties operate in whole or in part by their own force, and some require legislation to carry their stipulations into effect. ”

“ In one sense they come freely, because they come pursuant to contract, but they are not the free immigrants whose coming the treaty contemplates, and for whose protection the treaty provides. They are for the time the bond thralls of the contractor-his coolie slaves. The United States had already legislated to prevent the transportation by their citizens of coolies from China to any foreign port; but no law has ever been passed by China to prevent its subjects, thus bound, from being taken to the United States. ”

“ Thoughtful persons who were exempt from race prejudices saw, in the facilities of transportation between the two countries, the certainty, at no distant day, that from the unnumbered millions on the opposite shores of the Pacific, vast hordes would pour in upon us, overrunning our coast and controlling its institutions. ”

“ It cannot make any difference that the stipulations relate to emigrants instead of goods. So of any other mutual stipulations: when on one side they are not observed, or become incapable of enforcement, they cease to be binding on the other; and surely it could never have been contemplated that an unlimited emigration of Chinese, with all the privileges of subjects of the most favored nation, should be continued without our receiving corresponding benefits for which the treaty stipulated. ”

“ If the treaty relates to a subject within the powers of congress, and operates by its own force, it can only be regarded by the courts as equivalent to a legislative act. Congress may, as with an ordinary statute, modify its provisions, or supersede them altogether. The immigration of foreigners to this country, and the conditions upon which they shall be permitted to come or remain, are proper subjects both of legislation and of treaty stipulation. The power of congress, however, over the subject can neither be taken away nor impaired by any treaty. ”

“ All the bitterness which has heretofore existed on the Pacific coast on the subject of the immigration of Chinese laborers will be renewed and intensified, and our courts there will be crowded with applicants to land, who never before saw our shores, and yet will produce a multitude of witnesses to establish their former residence, whose testimony cannot be refuted and yet cannot be rejected. ”

“ I think there are no opportunities of residence or of enterprise from which the Chinese among us are debarred. They can go where they will and do what they will in all our broad domain. But it is not so here. Our countrymen may reside in a few cities only, and they may engage in no enterprise outside of the ordinary interchange of commodities, and their transportation between defined points. ”

“ Upon the acquisition of California and the discovery of gold, people from all parts of the world came to the country in great numbers, and among them Chinese laborers. They found ready employment. They were industrious and docile, and generally peaceable. They proved to be valuable domestic servants, and were useful in constructing roads, draining marshes, cultivating fields, and, generally, wherever out-door labor was required. For some time they excited little opposition, except when seeking to work in the mines. ”

“ The petitioner, a native of China, and a laborer, though here when the treaty of 1880 was concluded, left the country in June, 1881, and was in the Hawaiian islands over three years before he desired to return. Chinese laborers do not travel for pleasure, and during that time he had acquired a residence in those islands as fully as he ever had in the United States. ”

“ Reciprocity in benefits between the two countries in that respect has never existed. There is not and never has been any 'mutual advantage' in the migration or emigration of the citizens or subjects, respectively, from one country to the other which the treaty, in 'cordially recognizing,' assumes to exist. Suggestions of any such mutuality were deceptive and false from the outset. The want of it was called to the attention of our government in 1878 by a communication to the state department from our minister in China. ”

“ Successful competition with them was, therefore, impossible, for our laborers are not content, and never should be, with a bare livelihood for their work. They demand something more, which will give them the comforts of a home, and enable them to support and educate their children. But this is not possible of attainment if they are obliged to compete with Chinese laborers and artisans under the conditions mentioned ”

“ The majority of the court, by their construction, add the words: 'If those here September 17, 1880, have previously left the United States, but shall apply to those subsequently leaving;' that is to say, in their view the sections do not apply to those who may have been here at the date of the treaty, if they had left the country before the passage of the act, but do apply if they afterwards left. Those who have left, says the court, may come at any time in the indefinite future without regard to the act. ”

“ Neither does the second article prevent the United States from prescribing regulations for the identification of the Chinese laborer here at the date mentioned, and insisting upon a compliance with them as a condition of his right to re-enter the country after once leaving it. A European nation requiring passports of foreigners seeking to enter its territory, and a certificate of identification if residing therein, was never held to violate stipulations for free intercourse or free residence. ”

“ Opportunities exist to develop mines, to establish furnaces and factories, to construct roads, canals, railroads, and telegraphs, to operate these, and steam and other vessels, on many routes now not open to them ”

“ Our institutions have made no impression on them during the more than 30 years they have been in the country. They have their own tribunals to which they voluntarily submit, and seek to live in a manner similar to that of China. ”

“ But as their numbers increased they began to engage in various trades and mechanical pursuits, and soon came into competition, not only with white laborers in the field, but with white artisans and mechanics. ”

“ Very few of them had families, not 1 in 500, and they had a wonderful capacity to live in narrow quarters without injury to their health, and were generally content with small gains and the simplest fare. ”