JUNE 2019 35
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the native born is a citizen, and a citizen by virtue of his birth
alone?” asked Senator Lot M. Morrill (R-Maine). Officially
recognizing that principle, however, had wider implications,
and officials worried about the bill’s reach.
Would enactment of the bill make citizens of “the children
of Chinese and Gypsies born in this country?” asked Senator
Edgar Cowan (R-Pennsylvania). “Undoubtedly,” Trumbull
replied. Cowan angrily predicted that “the day may not be
very far distant when California, instead of belonging to the
Indo-European race, may belong to the Mongolian...” The
very idea of granting non-whites citizenship outraged Sena-
tor Garrett Davis, a Unionist from Kentucky. Defining the
American nation as a “Government and a political organiza-
tion of white people,” Davis asserted that when “a negro or
Chinaman is attempted to be obtruded into it, the sufficient
cause to repel him is that he is a negro or Chinaman.” Senator
Peter G. Van Winkle, a West Virginia Unionist, feared immi-
grants “whose mixture with our race...could only tend to the
deterioration of the mass.” Van Winkle worried that the bill’s
language was broad enough to cover “a future immigration to
this country of which we have no conception.”
Representative James F. Wilson (R-Iowa) insisted the bill’s
reach was not unlimited. According to Wilson, that reach
“Paper Children”
Young Chinese often
claimed ties to rela-
tives already in the
United States.
Newcomers from the East
Angel Island, at San Francisco, was the
entry point for many Asian immigrants.