Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader

3. Colorblindness in a Color-Conscious Era (1877–1920)

77 Colorblindness in a Color-Conscious Era 1877–1920 3 A FT ER FEDER A L T ROOPS LEFT the U.S. South, Reconstruction ended and the nation focused on new concerns (the tariff, currency debates, foreign wars). Yet racial issues did not go away. In the South, the Democratic Party disfranchised blacks through the use of poll taxes, constitutional literacy tests, election fraud, and voter intimidation. Southern states passed laws forcing the separation of races in schools, on streetcars, and elsewhere in society. White mobs repeatedly lynched blacks, thus sending a harrowing message to an entire race: “Stay in your place.” Meanwhile, American shores received record numbers of immigrants from southeastern Europe and Asia. “Progressives” and nativist conservatives advocated immigration restriction in a nation known for its open borders, ultimately succeeding with the National Origins Quota Act of 1924. Classical liberals found themselves on the defensive: battling immigration restriction, fighting white racism in the South, defending nonwhites in overseas territories, and offering individual property rights as a solution to the “Indian problem.” By the end of this period, Progressives dubbed classical liberals “conservative ” for trying to prohibit state action not only in the economy but in preserving racial freedom and open borders. 78 | Race and Liberty in America Immigration Chinese Exclusion Act: Right of Migration “God-Given” (1877, 1882) Only fifteen senators, all Republican, voted against the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)—a law that ended the era of free immigration and stigmatized an entire race. This was not the first anti-immigration campaign in America: the 1850s witnessed a massive reaction of native-born Protestants against Irish and German Catholic immigrants until the Civil War subsumed that concern in the blood and gore of battle. After the war, Chinese immigration increased in the West, where the immigrants worked for railroads, mining companies, and other businesses. The campaign to drive the Chinese out was intensely vicious. Native-born workers set fire to the settlements of the Chinese and voted for politicians who pledged to rid the West Coast of the Chinese. The governor of California characterized the Chinese as an inferior race and asked the state legislature for laws discriminating against the immigrants. Businessmen sided with their Chinese employees against the workers who claimed that foreigners took “their” jobs. The Chinese did not suffer silently: they fought deportation in the courts and spoke out publicly. In a published newspaper letter, Norman Asing, a Chinese American citizen, responded to critics, “The declaration of your independence, and all the acts of your government, your people, and your history, are against you.”1 As the congressional debate heated up, Senator Oliver P. Morton (R-IN) led the pro-immigration forces. After his death in 1877, the Senate published Morton’s eloquent report defending the right of all races to immigrate. Opponents of exclusion repeatedly drew upon his report in the debate that culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act. Senators George Hoar (R-MA), Joseph Hawley (R-CT) and Representative Charles Joyce (R-VT) argued for immigration as a fundamental right of free men and women. Excluding entire races was counter to the principles of the Constitution, Christianity, and capitalism. Proponents of the Chinese Exclusion Act, led by organized labor, countered that the Chinese were “different”: they would not assimilate and also undercut “white” wages. Colorblindness in a Color-Conscious Era | 79 Opponents judged, correctly, that this act would be remembered as a blot on American history. 2 Oliver P. Morton, R-IN (1877) The foundation-stone in our political edifice is the declaration that all men are equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to obtain these, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. We profess to believe that God has given to all men the same rights, without regard to race or color. . . . A cardinal principle in our government, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, in the Articles of Confederation, and recognized by our Constitution , is, that our country is open to immigrants from all parts of the world; that it was to be the asylum of the oppressed and unfortunate. It is true, that when the government was formed, and for nearly three–quarters of a century, no immigration was contemplated except from nations composed of white people; but the principles upon which we professed...