The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 07, July, 1879Various
History
The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 07, July, 1879
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
That the spirit and intent of this instrument are intensely
hostile to the Chinese is well understood. To find it providing
as skilfully and malignantly as possible for forcing them out of
the State will create no surprise. It stands alone, I apprehend,
among all our State Constitutions in singling out one class among
those upon whose industries the State lives, and by whose taxes its
treasury is replenished, and making it the object of restrictive
and oppressive legislation. One whole Section (XIX.) is devoted
to this, and bears as its title “Chinese.” Stigmatizing them as
“aliens who are or may become vagrants, paupers, mendicants,
criminals or invalids, * * * or otherwise dangerous or detrimental
to the State,” it directs the Legislature “to discourage their
immigration by all the means within its power;” “to impose
conditions upon which such persons may reside in the State, and to
provide for their removal from the State” if the conditions are not
fulfilled. It forbids any corporation from employing them “directly
or indirectly in any capacity;” and requires that cities and towns
be empowered by the Legislature to “remove the Chinese beyond their
limits, or to locate them within prescribed limits;” and to “make
and enforce all such local, police, sanitary and other regulations
as are not in conflict with general laws.” These provisions are
broad enough to admit any and every cruelty conceivable to be
practised under the forms of law, and the Chinese cannot, as
heretofore, appeal to our State Supreme Court with any hope of
relief from oppressive enactments. The question is, what will the
result be, and what can we do about it?
If a man values highly his reputation for sagacity, he does well
to be careful how he prophesies; and if anywhere such caution
is needed, surely it is here in California; but as I have no
reputation to be anxious about, I will tell how the prospect looks
to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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