against hand laundries were framed.  The new California constitution of 1879 endowed the legislature and the cities with large powers in regulating the conditions under which Chinese would be tolerated.  In 1880 a state law declared that all corporations operating under a state charter should be prohibited from employing Chinese under penalty of forfeiting their charter.  Chinese were also excluded from employment in all public works.  Nearly all these laws and ordinances, however, were ultimately declared to be unconstitutional on account of their discriminatory character or because they were illegal regulations of commerce.

The States having failed to exclude the Chinese, the only hope left was in the action of the Federal Government.  The earliest treaties and trade conventions with China (1844 and 1858) had been silent upon the rights and privileges of Chinese residing or trading in the United States.  In 1868, Anson Burlingame, who had served for six years as American Minister to China, but who had now entered the employ of the Chinese Imperial Government, arrived at the head of a Chinese mission sent for the purpose of negotiating a new treaty which should insure reciprocal rights to the Chinese.  The journey from San Francisco to Washington was a sort of triumphal progress and everywhere the Chinese mission was received with acclaim.  The treaty drawn by Secretary Seward was ratified on July 28, 1868, and was hailed even on the Pacific coast as the beginning of more fortunate relations between the two countries.  The treaty acknowledged the “inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively, from the one country to the other, for purposes of curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents.”  It stated positively that “citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel and residence as may be enjoyed by the citizens of the most favored nation.  And, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence.”  The right to naturalization was by express statement not conferred by the treaty upon the subjects of either nation dwelling in the territory of the other.  But it was not in any way prohibited.

The applause which greeted this international agreement had hardly subsided before the anti-Chinese agitators discovered that the treaty was in their way and they thereupon demanded its modification or abrogation.  They now raised the cry that the Chinese were a threat to the morals and health of the country, that the majority of Chinese immigrants were either coolies under contract, criminals, diseased persons, or prostitutes.  As a result, in 1879 a representative from Nevada, one of the States particularly interested, introduced