Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/526

 618 l'IiDEilAL BEPOP.ÏEK. �tunities, are as little likely to fall into vagrancy, pauperism, and mendieity, and thereby become a public charge, as any other class, native or foreign born. Industry and economy, by which the Chinese are able to labor cheaply and still accumulate large amounts o| money to send out of the coun- try — the objection perhaps most frequently and strenuously urged against their presence — are not the legitimate parents of "vagrancy, pauperism, mendieity, and crime." There are other objections to an unlimited immigration of that people, founded on distinctions of race and differences in the charac- ter of their civilization, religion, and other habits, to my mind of a far more weighty character. But these, unfortunately for those seeking to evade treaty stipulations and constitu- tional guarantees, can by no plausible misnomer be ranged under the police powers of the state. �Holding, as we do, that the constitutional and statutory provisions in question are void, for reasons already stated, we deem it proper again to call public attention to the fact, however unpleasant it may be to the very great majority of the citizens of California, that however undesirable, or even ulti- mately dangerous to our civilization, an unlimited immigra- tion of Chinese may be, the remedy is not with the state, but with the general government. The Chinese have a perfect right, under the stipulations of the treaty, to reside in the state, and enjoy ail privileges, immunities, and exemptions that may there be enjoyed by the citizens and subjects of any other nation ; and, under the fourteenth amendment to the national constitution, the right to enjoy "life, liberty, and property," and "the equal protection of the laws," in the same degree and to the same extent as these rights are enjoyed by our own citizens; and in the language of Mr. Justice Brad- ley, in the Slaughter-house Cases, "ihe wliole poiver of the nation is pledged to sustain those rights." To persist, on the part of the state, in legislation in direct violation of these treaty stipulations, and of the constitution of the United States, and in endeavoring to enforce such void legislation, is to waste efforts in a barren field, whieh, if expended in the proper ��� �