Legislation taken in regard to Chinese laborers will be
of such a character only as is necessary to enforce the regulation,
limitation, or suspension of immigration.
The first section of the act provides that--
From and after the expiration of sixty days next after the passage
of this act, and until the expiration of twenty years next after the
passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers be, and the same
is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be
lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or, having so come after the
expiration of said sixty days, to remain within the United States.
The examination which I have made of the treaty and of the declarations
which its negotiators have left on record of the meaning of its language
leaves no doubt in my mind that neither contracting party in concluding
the treaty of 1880 contemplated the passage of an act prohibiting
immigration for twenty years, which is nearly a generation, or thought
that such a period would be a reasonable suspension or limitation, or
intended to change the provisions of the Burlingame treaty to that
extent.
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