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Anti-Immigration Readings
Nativism
By Michael F. Holt, Ph.D.
In the nineteenth century, the term "nativism" referred to white, native-born, Protestant
Americans' hostility to European immigrants. Since many of those immigrants prior to the Civil
War were Roman Catholics, ethnic prejudice against immigrants was usually accompanied by
visceral hatred of Catholics as well. Indeed, because Americans had overtly identified
themselves as a Protestant, anti-Catholic nation since the seventeenth century and because
prominent Protestant clergymen had warned since the early nineteenth century of a Papal plot to
subvert American liberty and seize control of the United States politically through the use of
slavish Catholic immigrant minions, waves of new European immigration which spawned
outbursts of nativist sentiment also provoked anti-Catholicism. Immigration from England,
Ireland, and Germany — as well as Canada and other European nations — was constant
throughout the nineteenth century, but it especially swelled between 1845 and 1855 as
immigrants fled famine, poverty, and political turmoil in Ireland and Germany.
Nativism took a variety of forms. Middle-class and elitist gentlemen, who sniffed that socially
inferior immigrants lacked the intelligence and experience to be good republican citizens,
occasionally gathered in exclusive nativist fraternities such as the Order of United Americans or
the United Sons of America. But when immigration coincided with hard times, as it did in the
late 1830s and early 1840s and especially in the mid-1850s, and/or with periods of political
discontent, then the charges advanced against immigrants multiplied and nativist groups formed
independent political parties. In certain cities like Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia, for
example, anti-immigrant American Republican and Native American parties appeared in the
1830s and 1840s. They attracted working class and middle class voters angered by the job
competition from immigrants, the increase in crime, public drunkenness, and pauperism that
accompanied immigration, the supposed pollution of the body politic by ignorant immigrant
voters, and an assertiveness by Catholic clergymen that supposedly threatened the nation's
Protestant values and institutions.
By far the most massive and powerful political backlash against immigrants and Catholics before
the Civil War, however, came with the Know Nothing movement of the mid-1850s. Not only did
Know Nothings blame immigrants for economic, social, and political ills, but they focused on
particular political actions by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, especially its attempt to secure
public tax support for Catholic parochial schools, and the huge increase in the immigrant vote
since 1848 as evidence that the long-warned of Papal plot to subvert America's republican
institutions was reaching fruition. Demanding that immigrants be prevented from voting until
they had resided in the United States for twenty-one years and that all foreigners and all
Catholics be proscribed from public office, the Know Nothings, who began as another secret
fraternity called the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, enlisted over a million members across
the country in 1854 and 1855. In those years, moreover, their candidates won a string of
astonishing political victories that smashed Lincoln's beloved Whig party while also contributing
to massive Democratic defeats. During and after 1856, however, most northern Know Nothings
were absorbed into the Republican party, and they would help elect Lincoln president in 1860,
even though Lincoln himself had nothing but disdain for Know Nothings' anti-immigrant and
anti-Catholic bigotry.
© 2002 Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project
American Protective Association
Henry Francis Bowers says:
The condition of the affairs in this country in 1887, and up to that time, was such that the
institutions of our Government were controlled and the patronage was doled out by an
ecclesiastical element under the direction and heavy hand of a foreign ecclesiastical potentate.
This power became so influential that it stood as a unit in many places against the institutions of
the country. Through the legislature of Maryland at one time it destroyed the public school
system of that State. Seeing these things, I felt that it was necessary that something be done.
Gathering around me six men who had the courage of their convictions, we met in my office in
Clinton on March 13, 1887, and laid the foundations of the order. That same day we formulated
the ritualistic work and adopted a constitution. The chief idea we had in view in the constitution
was this, that we had not the right under the Constitution of this country to oppose any religious
body on account of its dogmatic views, faith, etc,. but we did believe we had a right to oppose it
when it became a great political factor. We believed then, and we believe now, that every man in
this country has a right to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, but we did
not believe that the Constitution intended to convey the right to any set of men to control and
manipulate the political affairs of this country to the aggrandizement of any ecclesiastical power.
APA Statement of Principles, 1894
First: Loyalty to true Americanism, which knows neither birthplace, race, creed, or party, is the
first requisite for membership in the American Protective Association.
Second: The American Protective Association is not a political party and does not control the
political affiliations of its members.
Third: While tolerant of all creeds, it holds that the subjection to and support of any ecclesiastical
power, not created and controlled by American citizens, and which claims equal, if not greater,
sovereignty than the government of the United States of America, is irreconciliable with
American citizenship. It is therefore opposed to the holding of offices in National, State, or
Municipal government by any subject or supporter of such ecclesiastical power.
Fourth: We uphold the constitution of the United States of America, and no portion of it more
than its guaranty of religious liberty, but we hold this religious liberty to be guaranteed to the
individual and not to mean that under its protection an un-American ecclesiastical power can
claim absolute control over the education of children growing up under the Stars and Stripes.
Fifth: We consider the non-sectarian free public schools, the bulwark of American institutions,
the best place for the education of American children. To keep them as such we protest against
the employment of subjects of any un-American ecclesiastical power as officers or teachers of
our public schools.
Sixth: We condemn the support out of the public treasury by direct appropriations or by contract
with any sectarian school, reformatory, or other institution now owned or controlled by the
public authority.
Seventh: Believing that an exemption from taxation is equivalent to a grant of public funds, we
demand that no real or personal property be exempt from taxation, the title to which is not vested
in the National or State governments, or in any of their subdivisions.
Eighth: We protest against the enlistment in the United States army, navy, or the militia of any
State, of any persons not an actual citizen of the United States.
Ninth: We demand for the protection of our citizen laborers, the prohibition of the importation of
pauper labor, and the restriction of immigration to persons who can show their ability and honest
intention to become self-supporting American citizens.
Tenth: We demand the change of the national naturalization laws by the repeal of the act
authorizing the naturalization of minors without a previous declaration of intention, and by
providing that no alien who cannot speak the language of the land, and who cannot prove seven
years continuous residence in this country from the date of his declaration of intention.
Eleventh: We protest against the gross negligence and laxity with which the Judiciary of our land
administer the present naturalization laws, and against the practice of naturalizing aliens at the
expense of committees of candidates, as the most prolific source of the present prostitution of
American citizenship to the basest uses.
Twelfth: We demand that all hospitals, asylums, reformatories, or other institutions in which
people are under restraint, be at all times subject to public inspection, whether they are
maintained by the public or private corporations or individuals.
Thirteenth: We demand that all National or State legislation affecting financial, commercial, or
industrial interests be general in character and in no instance in favor of any one section of the
country, or of any class of people.
Immigration Restriction League
Founded in 1894 by three young Harvard College graduates, Charles Warren, Robert DeCourcy
Ward, and Prescott Farnsworth Hall, the Immigration Restriction League (IRL) advocated a
literacy requirement as a means to limit immigration into the United States. Watching with
anxiety as immigration increased sharply in the 1880s and 1890s, League members had lost faith
in the nation's ability to assimilate newcomers into its political, social, and cultural fabric. They
associated immigration with the socio-economic problems of their increasingly urban and
industrialized society—crowded tenements, poverty, crime and delinquency, labor unrest, and
violence. In particular, League members made a distinction between the "old immigrants" of
English, Irish, and German stock and the "new immigrants" from Italy and Eastern Europe. They
claimed that these recently arrived "undesirables" were inherently unable to participate in selfgovernment or to adopt American values. Many League spokesmen came to identify with the
eugenics movement, which found a pseudo-scientific basis for the classification and ranking of
ethnic and racial groups.
From its Boston origins, the Immigration Restriction League spread to other large cities,
including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and it recruited new members, many of them
prominent scholars and philanthropists. The local leagues affiliated into the national Association
of Immigration Restriction Leagues, and founder Prescott F. Hall served as its General Secretary
from 1896 to 1921. League members wrote books, pamphlets, and numerous newspaper and
journal articles to alert the public to the dangers of the immigrant flood tide, and they also hired
political lobbyists to pressure members of Congress to support the literacy test.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, an early supporter of the League, served as a
powerful political ally for over 20 years. In 1896, Congress passed his literacy bill, which
specified the ability to read at least 40 words in any language as a requirement for admission to
the country, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it as contrary to traditional American policy
and values. Although re-introduced repeatedly, the proposal failed to become law until 1917,
when Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's third veto. After World War I, the number
of immigrants, including those from Eastern and Southern Europe, remained high despite the
literacy test, and the influence of the Immigration Restriction League declined. Nonetheless,
sentiment for restriction remained strong, and, in the 1920s, Congress passed a series of even
more stringent measures that limited total immigration and established quotas for specific
national groups, with preference for the "old immigrants" from Northern and Western Europe.
Chinese Exclusion Act
Period: 1880-1920
From 1882 until 1943, most Chinese immigrants were barred from entering the
United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the nation's first law to ban
immigration by race or nationality. All Chinese people--except travelers,
merchants, teachers, students, and those born in the United States--were barred
from entering the country. Federal law prohibited Chinese residents, no matter
how long they had legally worked in the United States, from becoming
naturalized citizens.
From 1850 to 1865, political and religious rebellions within China left 30
million dead and the country's economy in a state of collapse. Meanwhile, the
canning, timber, mining, and railroad industries on the United States's West
Coast needed workers. Chinese business owners also wanted immigrants to staff
their laundries, restaurants, and small factories.
Smugglers transported people from southern China to Hong Kong, where they
were transferred onto passenger steamers bound for Victoria, British Columbia.
From Victoria, many immigrants crossed into the United States in small boats at
night. Others crossed by land.
The Geary Act, passed in 1892, required Chinese aliens to carry a residence
certificate with them at all times upon penalty of deportation. Immigration
officials and police officers conducted spot checks in canneries, mines, and
lodging houses and demanded that every Chinese person show these residence
certificates.
Due to intense anti-Chinese discrimination, many merchants' families remained
in China while husbands and fathers worked in the United States. Since Federal
law allowed merchants who returned to China to register two children to come
to the United States, men who were legally in the United States might sell their
testimony so that an unrelated child could be sponsored for entry. To pass
official interrogations, immigrants were forced to memorize coaching books
which contained very specific pieces of information, such as how many water
buffalo there were in a particular village. So intense was the fear of being
deported that many "paper sons" kept their false names all their lives. The U.S.
government only gave amnesty to these "paper families" in the 1950s.
"Gentleman's Agreement"
"The Gentleman's Agreement between the United States and Japan in
1907-1908 represented an effort by President Theodore Roosevelt to
calm growing tension between the two countries over the immigration of
Japanese workers. A treaty with Japan in 1894 had assured free
immigration, but as the number of Japanese workers in California
increased, they were met with growing hostility. In August 1900, Japan
agreed to deny passports to laborers seeking to enter the United States;
this, however, did not stop the many workers who obtained passports to
Canada, Mexico, or Hawaii and then moved on to the United States.
Copyright
2006 Digital
History
Racial antagonism intensified, fed by inflammatory articles in the press.
On May 7, 1906, the San Francisco school board arranged for all Asian
children to be placed in a segregated school.
Japan was prepared to limit immigration to the United States, but was
deeply wounded by San Francisco's discriminatory law aimed
specifically at its people. President Roosevelt, wishing to preserve good
relations with Japan as a counter to Russian expansion in the Far East,
intervened. While the American ambassador reassured the Japanese
government, Roosevelt summoned the San Francisco mayor and school
board to the White House in February 1907 and persuaded them to
rescind the segregation order, promising that the federal government
would itself address the question of immigration. On February 24, the
Gentleman's Agreement with Japan was concluded in the form of a
Japanese note agreeing to deny passports to laborers intending to enter
the United States and recognizing the U.S. right to exclude Japanese
immigrants holding passports originally issued for other countries. This
was followed by the formal withdrawal of the San Francisco school
board order on March 13, 1907. A final Japanese note dated February
18, 1908, made the Gentleman's Agreement fully effective. The
agreement was superseded by the exclusionary Immigration Act of
1924."
(Source: The Reader's Companion to American History, edited by E. Foner and J.A.
Garraty. Published in Boston by Houghton Mifflin. ©1991.)