Nativism and the Chinese Exclusion Act
1. Nativism: the policy of favoring native-born people over immigrants
2. 1840s-1850s: Rise in Nativism
a. Increased immigration
b. Anti-Catholicism
c. Fear of job competition
3. 1850s: “Know-Nothing” Party formed
a. Supported white, native-born Protestants for public office
4. 1850s-1880s: Rise in Chinese immigration
a. 300,000 came for work
b. Results: racism and discrimination
5. 1880s: Nativism rose again
a. In response to “new” immigrants from Southeast Europe & Asia
b. California nativists pressure Congress
Complete the chart with the primary source below and secondary sources given in class
Chinese Exclusion Act
FOR
AGAINST
AGAINST CHINESE EXCLUSION
Chinese Immigration: Maintain the National Faith
Excerpts from the Speech of Mr. Elliot C. Cowdin, 1879
California has come to Congress with three special complaints with regard to the Chinese, and these
complaints have proved sufficient to excite, and I might almost say to frighten, a nation of well-nigh fifty
millions of people into a proceeding unprecedented in its history.
These complaints are:
1st. That the Chinese are coming to this country in overwhelming numbers, and by an unfair competition
with white labor are driving it from the field.
2d. That this enormous immigration is not voluntary, but that these Chinamen are in reality a servile
class.
3d. That their vices make them a demoralizing and destructive element in a community.
Now what are the facts? As to the enormous immigration: Are these numbers now increasing? Far
from it. On the contrary, the recently published record of arrivals and departures for the last six months
in 1878 show that during that period 4646 Chinese sailed from California, while only 1955 arrived there.
So much for the overwhelming volume of Chinese immigration!
As to the allegation that these Chinamen are creating an unfair competition especially detrimental to
white labor, let us see what they have done.
The State records of California show that the Chinese, so early as 1861, paid in taxes, licenses, water
rates for mining, the purchase of native products, and in other ways directly beneficial to the country,
upwards of $13,000,000 in a single year. Can such a sum pass into the general business of a State
without greatly benefiting its industrial classes? What sane man, who is annually relieved of some
taxation, can accuse the people who have done this of burdening the community?
With regard to the charge that the vices of the Chinese make them into a dangerous class, we have the
testimony of the Californians themselves, given at a time when politics had not entered into this
question. In 1862 a Joint Select Committee of the California Legislature made a report in which these
passages occur:
“It is charged that the Chinese demoralize the whites. We cannot find any grounds for the
allegation. We adopt none of their habits, form no social relations with them, but keep them separate
and apart, a distinct, inferior race. They work for us; they help us build up our State by contributing
largely to our taxes, to our shipping, farming and mechanical interests, without to any extent entering
these departments as competitors. They are denied privileges equal with other foreigners; they cannot
vote, nor testify in Courts of Justice, nor have any voice in making our laws, nor mingle with us in social
life. Certainly we have nothing to fear from a race so contained and restricted.”
We should not take counsel of our fears, but look steadily at facts. The evils which it is predicted will
flow from Chinese immigration are not only located in the far-off future, but they exist chiefly in the
domain of the imagination.
FOR CHINESE EXCLUSION
Excerpts from the Speech of Hon. Horace Davis, of California
House of Representatives 1878
In the city of San Francisco, my own home, Chinese opposition is most keenly felt, as the number of
Chinese is larger there than at any other point in the United States; and many thousands of unemployed
men say with great bitterness that but for their presence work and bread would be plenty.
First, the presence of so large a foreign body unable or unwilling to assimilate to your ways renders them
a dangerous element to society and a grave peril to the State; second, their presence is a menace to free
labor.
The Chinese quarter of San Francisco occupies from seven to eight small blocks in the heart of the city, in
which are densely packed about twenty thousand human beings, which form two-thirds of its Chinese
population. To pass into this quarter from the adjoining streets is like entering a foreign country The
streets are thronged with men in foreign costume; the buildings are decorated with strange and fantastic
ornaments; the signs and advertisements are in mysterious characters; the ear hears no familiar sound, but
is assailed with an incomprehensible jargon, and the very smells that pour from the cellars and open doors
are utterly foreign.
The persistent fondness with which the Chinamen cling to their nationality and separate themselves from
other men, their incapacity to change their ways and adapt themselves to their surroundings—this alone
renders them most undesirable immigrants, and it has been and is to-day, always and everywhere, their
most marked trait.
They remain only five or ten years, long enough to make a few hundred dollars, then return home to
spend the remainder of their days. They bring no wives; they have no families and no permanent
residence, and are essentially nomadic. Over against this picture I hardly need to draw that of the
European immigrant. He comes to this country to settle for life. He brings with him his wife and
children. He adopts our language, mingles with our people, and becomes an American. But with the
Chinese the so-called immigration is simply an ebb and flow from the shores of Asia of a tide of men
hopelessly foreign, without wish or intention to make this their home.
But the most serious and really dangerous phase of this question is its relation to free labor. Competition
is impossible. The Chinaman has reduced the necessities of life to an absolute minimum. Without a
family to support, they can force to the wall any other nationality and yet be rich as compared with their
own condition in China. What competition is possible to the American laborer, with his wife to support
and children to educate? Do you wonder that there is agitation and that the workingman chafes when he
sees himself crowded out of employment?