opinion of the country favored a faithful adherence to treaty obligations.
From the foregoing narrative it is seen that a radical change in public opinion respecting Chinese immigration has taken place in the United States since the Burlingame treaty was proclaimed with so much pride and satisfaction in 1868. Even the lofty and noble sentiments embodied in the minority report of Senator Morton in 1877 have given place to a more perfect realization of the economic conditions as shown by experience. While the principle of expatriation is still adhered to and insisted upon by the government of the United States, it holds that citizenship is a privilege to be conferred and not a right which can be claimed by every foreigner who enters the country. It maintains, further, the right to exclude from its territory any class of people whose coming it may judge to be harmful or undesirable. A majority of the people of the United States have reached the conviction that it is not wise to allow the free and unrestricted immigration of people of the Asiatic races, and that it is especially desirable to exclude Chinese laborers from its territory.
On the other hand, it has been seen that the government of the United States is unwilling to allow the reproach to attach to it of a disregard of treaty obligations. When in time of political excitement the popular branch of the government has temporarily yielded to public clamor, the executive head of the government has not failed to interpose, and in every instance Congress has listened to the voice of reason and the appeal to national honor, and has corrected its legislation to
