In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies a radical
departure from the traditional and long-established policy of this
country, a policy in which our people have conceived the very character
of their Government to be expressed, the very mission and spirit of the
Nation in respect of its relations to the peoples of the world outside
their borders. It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of asylum
which have always been open to those who could find nowhere else the
right and opportunity of constitutional agitation for what they
conceived to be the natural and inalienable rights of men; and it
excludes those to whom the opportunities of elementary education have
been denied, without regard to their character, their purposes, or their
natural capacity.
Restrictions like these, adopted earlier in our history as a Nation,
would very materially have altered the course and cooled the humane
ardors of our politics. The right of political asylum has brought to
this country many a man of noble character and elevated purpose who was
marked as an outlaw in his own less fortunate land, and who has yet
become an ornament to our citizenship and to our public councils.
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