The Geary Act and America's Broken Promises
An 1892 editorial confronts the xenophobic legislative push to abrogate treaties with China, highlighting the hypocrisy of American foreign policy.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There are, according to Mr. Porter's census, only 130,000 Chinese in the whole United States. And yet, the House of Representatives the other day passed a bill with only forty-two dissenting votes which proposes to abrogate the existing treaty between China and the United States and to prohibit absolutely the coming into the United States of Chinamen, as well as those who are now here and may hereafter leave, except those who may come as diplomatic representatives or agents of the Chinese government. Vigorous speeches against the measure were made by Mr. Hitt, an Illinois Republican, and Mr. Hooker, a Mississippi Democrat. Messrs. Hitt and Hooker do not question the wisdom of the policy of exclusion, but object to the bill as an act of bad faith on the part of the United States, in conflict with the treaties existing between the empire of China and the United States, and to which the faith of the United States is pledged. The Supreme Court has settled the question of the power of Congress under the Constitution to violate treaties at its will, and there is no legal obstacle in the way of the passage of the Geary bill. And yet Congress would not violate a treaty with one of the great powers of Europe by passing a law in conflict with it. We hold foreign powers to the letter of their treaty agreements with us, but we do as we please about fulfilling treaty obligations with China, though we do not release China from its treaty obligations to receive and protect all American citizens who may enter its territory. The pending Geary bill, while it repeals all acts and the provisions of all treaties now in force between the United States and China which conflict with its purpose, contains no words releasing China from her treaty obligations to us. We should either cease all treaty relations with China, or else keep our national faith as sacredly as we do with the great powers of Europe.
“We hold foreign powers to the letter of their treaty agreements with us, but we do as we please about fulfilling treaty obligations with China.”
This editorial highlights a century-old tension in U.S. immigration policy: the use of legislative power to override international treaties. The debate over the Geary Act mirrors modern discussions regarding the sanctity of international agreements and the treatment of immigrants as political pawns in Seattle and across the nation.
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