to five years.  The second anti-foreign movement found expression in the Know-Nothing party, which rose in the decade preceding the Civil War.  The third movement brought about a secret order called the American Protective Association, popularly known as the A.P.A., which, like the Know-Nothing hysteria, was aimed primarily at the Catholic Church.  Its platform stated that “the conditions growing out of our immigration laws are such as to weaken our democratic institutions,” and that “the immigrant vote, under the direction of certain ecclesiastical institutions,” controlled politics.  In 1896 the organization claimed two and a half million adherents, and the air was vibrant with ominous rumors of impending events.  But nothing happened.  The A.P.A. disappeared suddenly and left no trace.

For over a century it was almost universally believed that the prosperity of the country depended largely upon a copious influx of population.  This sentiment found expression in President Lincoln’s message to Congress on December 8, 1863, in which he called immigration a “source of national wealth and strength” and urged Congress to establish “a system for the encouragement of immigration.”  In conformity with this suggestion, Congress passed a law designed to aid the importation of labor under contract.  But the measure was soon repealed, so that it remains the only instance in American history in which the Federal Government attempted the direct encouragement of general immigration.[50]

It was in 1819 that the first Federal law pertaining to immigration was passed.  It was not prompted by any desire to regulate or restrict immigration, but aimed rather to correct the terrible abuses to which immigrants were subject on shipboard.  So crowded and unwholesome were these quarters that a substantial percentage of all the immigrants who embarked for America perished during the voyage.  The law provided that ships could carry only two passengers for every five tons burden; it enjoined a sufficient supply of water and food for crew and passengers; and it required the captains of vessels to prepare lists of their passengers giving age, sex, occupation, and the country whence they came.  The law, however good its intention, was loosely drawn and indifferently enforced.  Terrible abuses of steerage passengers crowded into miserable quarters were constantly brought to the public notice.  From time to time the law was amended, and the advent of steam navigation brought improved conditions without, however, adequate provision for Federal inspection.

Indeed such supervision and care as immigrants received was provided by the various States.  Boston, New York, Baltimore, and other ports of entry, found helpless hordes left at their doors.  They were the prey of loan sharks and land sharks, of fake employment agencies, and every conceivable form of swindler.  Private relief was organized, but it could reach only a small portion of the needy.  About three-fourths