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bids a citizen of this State from the indulgence in his widest
investigation of the evils resulting to the country from the
yearly infusion into the masses of our population of half a
million of foreigners, what interdict of law, custom, or civic
obligation there is to prevent the people of the United States
in view of such an overshadowing mischief as results from the
indiscriminate bestowal of citizenship upon those strangers,
from adopting such guards and restraints for the protection of
their own nationality, as they may think the case requires.
The very fact that the foreign emigration has already become
a visible and significant power in this State, that it out-num-
bers the native population in some districts of the country,
that it is powerful enough to dictate the policy of states in
our limit, that it is intrinsically hostile in large numbers of
its own masses to the institutions of a whole section of this
confederacy, and that it has become essential to the numer-
ical majority, and consequently political power of a party,
which would lose its control if deprived of these reinforce-
ments; such facts as these have awakened the attention of
every thoughtful citizen to the gravest reflections touching
the future, we are preparing for our posterity, and now fill
all minds with anxious care to arrest and disarm the evil in
the present day, with what sentiment of surprise would that
action of our countrymen learn that in treating this subject
as enlightened statesmen seeking to check a dangerous abuse.
They were perpetrating moral treason, trampling under foot
the constitution of the nation; "segregating and dividing
the people into clans and classes," and kindling the fires of a
civil war, "a war of races and sects," which is declared to be
the deadliest curse that can afflict a nation. No matter into
what clans and classes these strangers may enrol themselves;
what secret societies they may establish; what purposes they
may harbor for the reform of our Government, or for entan-
gling us in war abroad at the expense of treaties and na-
tional faith, what catechisms they may address to candidates
for office, and what private combinations they may form to
chastise such as do not answer to their liking—all these
things may pass unrebuked, or even with the complacent
flattery of party acquiescence, as being altogether compatible