The opposition to this emigration first manifested itself in individual acts of hostility, personal abuse of Chinamen, and injury to their property. To this succeeded state laws restricting their rights and seeking to limit the immigration. But when tested in the courts this state legislation was declared to be in violation of the treaty or of the federal Constitution. The element opposed to the coming of the Chinese, which had now grown so strong in California as to dominate state politics, appealed to Congress for an abrogation or modification of the Burlingame treaty of 1868. This appeal was so effective as to procure the appointment, in 1876, of a joint committee of the two houses to visit the Pacific coast and to investigate the character, extent, and effect of Chinese immigration.
The committee, at the head of which was Senator Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana, one of the ablest and most influential members of Congress, held a number of sessions at San Francisco, examined a large number of witnesses, received a mass of documentary evidence, and made a thorough investigation. The report which the committee submitted to Congress at its next session constitutes, with the testimony, a volume of over twelve hundred pages. The chairman, Senator Morton, attended the sessions of the committee in San Francisco, but having fallen ill on his return journey to the East and died before Congress convened, the report was presented by Senator Sargent, of California. As the majority and minority reports of this committee set forth the arguments advanced during the discussion, in the United States through twenty-five years, of the much
