My attention has been called by the Blessed with an exceptional climate, en Chinese minister to the fact that the bill as it stands makes no provision for the transit across the United States of Chinese subjects now residing in foreign countries. I think that this point may well claim the attention of Congress in legislating on this subject. I have said that good faith requires us to suspend the immigration of Chinese laborers for a less period than twenty years. I now add that good policy points in the same direction. joying an unrivalled harbor, with the riches of a great agricultural and mining State in its rear, and the wealth of the whole Union pouring into it over its lines of railroad, San Francisco has before it an incalculable future if our friendly and amicable relations with Asia remain undisturbed. It needs no argument to show that the policy which we now propose to adopt must have a direct tendency to repel Oriental nations from us, and to drive their trade and commerce into more friendly hands. It may be that the great and labor from Asiatic competition may justify us in a permanent adoption of this policy; but it is wiser in the first place to make a shorter experiment with a view hereafter of maintaining permanently only such features as time and experience may commend. I transmit herewith copies of the papers relating to the recent treaty with China which accompanied the confidential message of President Hayes to the Senate of Jan. 10, 1881, and also a copy of the memorandum respecting the act herewith returned, which was handed to the Secretary of State by the Chinese minister in Washington. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 4, 1882. Our intercourse with China is of recent date. Our first treaty with that power paramount interest of protecting our is not yet forty years old. It is only since we acquired California and established a great seat of commerce on the Pacific that we may be said to have broken down the barriers which fenced in that ancient monarchy. The Burlingame treaty naturally followed. Under the spirit which inspired it, many thousand Chinese laborers came to the United States. No one can say that the country has not profited by their work. They were largely instrumental in constructing the railroads which connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. The States of the Pacific slope are full of evidences of their industry. Enterprises profitable alike to the capitalist and the laborer of Caucasian origin would have been dormant but for them. A time has now come when it is supposed they are not needed, and when it is thought by Congress, and by those most acquainted with the subject, that it is best to try to get along without them. There may, however, be other sections of the country where this species of labor may be advantageously employed without interfering with the laborers of our own race. In making the proposed experiment it may be the part of wisdom, as well as of good faith, to fix the length of the experimental period with reference to this fact. Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence. The opening of China to the commerce of the whole world has benefited no section of it more than the States of our own Pacific slope. The State of California and its great maritime ports especially have reaped enoradvantages from this mous THE MEMORANDUM. 1. The time fixed in the bill, namely, twenty years, is unreasonable. The language of Article I. that "laborers" shall not be absolutely prohibited from coming to the United States and that the pension shall be reasonable," as well as the negotiations, indicate that a brief period was intended. 66 sus The total prohibition of the immigra tion of Chinese laborers into the United States for twenty years would, in my opinion, be unreasonable, and a violation of the meaning and intent of the treaty. 2. The inclusion of "skilled labor" in the bill is an addition to the words and intent of the treaty. It will operate with harshness upon a class of Chinese merchants entitled to admission to the United States under the terms of the treaty. The shoe merchants and cigar merchants source. of China manufacture the goods they sell at their places of business, and to shut out the skilled labor" they need would practically shut them out as well, since it would prevent them from carrying on their business in this country. The laundryman, who keeps his shop and has a small capital with which to prosecute his trade, cannot in any sense be included in the class of " laborers," and the merchant tailor comes in the same category. 3. The clauses of the bill relating to registration and passports are a vexatious discrimination against Chinese residents and immigrants, when Article II. provides explicitly that they shall be entitled to all the privileges conceded to the subjects of the most favored nation. The execution of these provisions of the bill will cause irritation, and in case of the loss of the passport or certificate of registration, Chihese residents entitled to remain may be forcibly expelled from the country. 4. If the bill becomes a law it will leave the impression in China that its government strangely misunderstood the character of the treaty, or that the Congress has violated some of its provisions, and this will tend to prejudice the intelligent classes against the United States government and people, whom they now greatly admire and respect. 5. There is no provision in the bill for the transit across the United States of Chinese subjects now residing in foreign countries. Large numbers of Chinese live in Cuba, Peru, and other countries, who cannot return home without crossing the territory of the United States or touching at San Francisco. To deny this privilege, it seems to me, is in violation of international law and the comity of nations, and if the bill becomes a law it will in this respect result in great hardship to many thousands of innocent Chinese in foreign countries. 30, 1775, and extended March 20, 1776: enacted again, with little alteration, April 10, 1806. Some additions were made from 1861-65, and in 1874 they were codified as section 1,342 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. Artillery. See EXPLOSIVES FOR LARGE GUNS; ORDNANCE. Arts. See FINE ARTS; MECHANIC ARTS; TECHNOLOGY, INSTITUTES OF. Asboth, ALEXANDER SANDOR, military officer; born in Hungary, Dec. 18, 1811. He had served in the Austrian army, and at the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he entered the insurgent army of Hungary. He accompanied Kossuth in exile in Turkey. In the autumn of 1851 he came to the United States in the frigate Missis sippi, and became a citizen. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 he offered his services to the government, and in July he went as chief of Frémont's staff to Missouri, where he was soon promoted to brigadier-general. He performed faithful services until wounded in the face and one arm, in Florida, in a battle on Sept. 27, 1864. For his services there he was brevetted a major-general in the spring of 1865, and in August following he resigned, and was appointed minister to the Argentine Republic. The wound in his face caused his death in Buenos Ayres, Jan. 21, 1868. Asbury, FRANCIS, first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America; born at Handsworth, Staffordshire, England, Aug. 26, 1745. In his twenty-third year he became an itinerant preacher under the guidance of John Wesley, and came to the United States in 1771. The next year Wesley appointed him general superintendent of the Methodist churches in America, and he held that office until the close of the Revolution, when the Methodists here organized as a body separate from the Church in England. Mr. Asbury was consecrated bishop by Dr. Coke in 1784. After that, for thirty-two years, he travelled yearly through the United Arthur, PETER M., labor leader; born in Scotland about 1831; emigrated as a boy to America; elected chief of the locomotive engineers in 1876. Articles of Confederation. See Cox- States, ordaining not less than 3,000 minFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF. Articles of War. In the United States, Congress only can make articles of war. These have been based on the English articles and mutiny act. They were first adopted by the Continental Congress, July isters, and preaching not less than 17,000 sermons. He died in Spottsylvania, Va., March 31, 1816. Asgill, SIR CHARLES, British military officer; born in England, April 7, 1762. He was among the troops under Corn wallis surrendered at Yorktown, where he fer. He was demanded of Sir Henry Clin held the position of captain. Late in 1781, Capt. Joseph Huddy, serving in the New Jersey line, was in charge of a block-house on Toms River, Monmouth co., N. J. There he and his little garrison were captured in March, 1782, by a band of refugee loyalists sent by the "Board of Associated Loyalists" of New York, of which ex-Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, was president, and taken to that city. On April 8, these prisoners were put in charge of Capt. Richard Lippincott, a New Jersey loyalist, who took them in a sloop to the British guard-ship at Sandy Hook. There Huddy was falsely charged with being concerned in the death of Philip CAPT. CHARLES ASGILL, White, a desperate Tory, who was killed while trying to escape from his guard. While a prisoner, Huddy was taken by Lippincott to a point at the foot of the Navesink Hills, near the present lighthouses, and there hanged. Lippincott affixed a label to the breast of the murdered Huddy, on which retaliation was threatened, and ending with the words, "Up goes Huddy for Philip White!" This murder created intense excitement at Freehold, N. J., where Huddy was buried, and the leading citizens petitioned Washington to retaliate. A council of his officers decided in favor of retaliation, and that Lippincott, the leader, ought to suf ton. Congress authorized retaliation, and from among several British officers, prisoners of war, Capt. Charles Asgill was chosen by lot, to be executed immediately. Washington postponed the execution until he should hear from Clinton about the surrender of Lippincott. Clinton at once condemned the action of Lippincott, and ordered (April 26) the Board of Associated Loyalists not to remove or exchange any prisoners of war without the authority of the commander-in-chief. He caused the arrest of Lippincott for trial, who claimed that he acted under orders of the Board of Associated Loyalists. Franklin tried to get him to sign a paper that he had acted without their orders or approbation, but he stoutly refused, and was acquitted. Sir Guy Carleton succeeded Clinton, and he promised that further inquiry in the matter should be had. Meanwhile months elapsed and the execution was postponed. Lady Asgill appealed to the king in behalf of her only son. She also wrote to the King and Queen of France asking them to intercede with Washington. She also wrote a touching letter to Washington, who was disposed to save the young officer, if possible. The King and Queen of France did intercede, and on Nov. 5, 1782, Congress resolved, "That the commander-in-chief be, and hereby is, directed to set Captain Asgill at liberty." It was done. The case of young Asgill had created an intense interest in Europe, and, on the arrival of every ship from America at any European port. the first inquiry was about the fate of Asgill. In 1836, Congress granted to Martha Piatt, only surviving child of Captain Huddy, then seventy years of age, $1,200 in money and 600 acres of land, the "amount due Captain Huddy for seven years' service as captain of artillery." Asgill succeeded to the title and estate of his father, and rose to the rank of general in the British army. He died in London, July 23, 1823. Madame de Sevingé made the story of Captain Asgill the groundwork of a tragic drama. Ashburton, ALEXANDER BARING, LORD, English diplomatist; born in England, Oct. 27, 1774; son of Sir Francis Baring, an eminent merchant; was employed, in his youth, in mercantile affairs, in the Ashmun, GEORGE, statesman: born in Blandford, Mass., Dec. 25, 1804; graduated at Yale in 1823; elected member of the State legislature 1833 to 1841; member of Congress 1845 to 1851; president of the Chicago convention which nominated Lincoln for President in 1860. He died in Springfield, Mass., July 17, 1870. United States, and married an American pox, which he had contracted in prison, wife. In 1810 he became the head of his in Sampson county, N. C., Oct. 24, 1781. father's business house; in 1812-35 sat in Parliament, and in 1835 was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Ashburton. The unsettled condition of the Northeastern boundary question led Sir Robert Peel to send Baron Ashburton to the United States, as being widely acquainted with American affairs. Here he concluded, Aug. 9, 1842, with Daniel Web- Ashmun, JEHUDI, missionary; born in ster, the "Webster-Ashburton Treaty," Champlain, N. Y., in April, 1794; gradwhich settled the northeastern boundary uated at Bowdoin College in 1816. He between the United States and the Brit- was sent with a reinforcement to Liish dominions. For this achievement he beria in 1822, where he acted as legislator, was accorded, in both Houses of Parlia- soldier, and engineer in constructing forment, a complimentary vote of thanks, tifications. He died in Boston, Mass., and an earldom was offered him, which Aug. 25, 1828. he declined. He was privy councillor, a trustee of the British Museum, and received the D.C.L. degree from Oxford. He died in Longleat, England, May 13, 1848. See WEBSTER, DANIEL. Ashby, TURNER, military officer; born in Rose Hill, Fauquier co., Va., in 1824. When the Civil War began he raised a regiment of Confederate cavalry, which soon became celebrated. He covered the retreat of "Stonewall" Jackson from attacks by General Banks and General Frémont, skirmishing with the vanguard of each; and he was made a brigadier-general in the Confederate army in 1862. He was killed in an encounter preceding the battle of Cross Keys, June 6, 1862. Ashe, JOHN, military officer; born in Grovely, Brunswick co., N. C., in 1720; was in the North Carolina legislature for several years, and was speaker in 176265. He warmly opposed the Stamp Act; assisted Governor Tryon in suppressing the Regulator movement in 1771, but soon afterwards became a zealous Whig. He was an active patriot, and because he led 500 men to destroy Fort Johnson he was denounced as a rebel. Raising and equip. ping a regiment at his own expense, he was appointed brigadier-general of the Wilmington District in April, 1776. He joined Lincoln in South Carolina in 1778; and after he was defeated at Brier Creek, in March, 1779, he returned home. General Ashe suffered much at the hands of the British at Wilmington after the battle at Guilford, and died of small Asia, THE, the name of the British man-of-war which brought Governor Tryon to New York (June, 1775), and anchored off the Battery, foot of Broadway. A party led by John Lamb, a captain of artillery, proceeded, on the evening of Aug. 23, to remove the cannons from that battery and the fort (for war seemed inevi table) and take them to a place of safety. There was, also, an independent corps, under Colonel Lasher, and a body of citizens, guided by Isaac Sears. The captain of the Asia, informed of the intended movement, sent a barge filled with armed men to watch the patriots. The latter, indiscreetly, sent a musket-ball among the men in the barge, killing and wounding several. It was answered by a volley. The Asia hurled three round shot ashore in quick succession. Lamb ordered the drums to beat to arms; the church-bells in the city were rung, and, while all was confusion and alarm, the war-ship fired a broadside. Others rapidly followed. Several houses were injured by the grape and round shot, and three of Sears's party were killed. Terror seized the inhabitants as the rumor spread that the city was to be sacked and burned. Hundreds of men, women, and children were seen, at midnight, hurrying from the town to places of safety. The exasperation of the citi zens was intense; and Tryon, taking counsel of his fears, took refuge on another vessel of war in the harbor, whence, like Dunmore, he attempted to exercise authority as governor. Among the citizens led by Sears was Alexander Hamilton, then a student in King's College, eighteen years of age. The cannon were removed from the battery and fort, and did good service in the patriot cause afterwards. Assay Offices in the United States are government establishments where the precious metals are officially tested to determine their purity. In 1901 these offices were located in New York City; Boisé City, Idaho; Helena, Mont.; Denver, Col.; Seattle, Wash.; San Francisco, Cal.; Charlotte, N. C.; and St. Louis, Mo. See COINAGE. Assessment of Taxes. See GEORGE, HENRY; SINGLE TAX. Assignment. See BANKRUPTCY LAW. Assiniboine Indians, a branch of the Dakota family, inhabiting each side of the boundary-line between the United States and British America in Montana and Manitoba. In 1871 their number in the United States was estimated at 4,850, and in 1900 there were 1,316, nearly equally divided at the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap agencies in Montana. Assumption. In 1790 Hamilton proposed that the general government as- Sept. 19, 1792; educated at the universities sume the debts of the thirteen colonies. of Heidelberg and Göttingen. He added to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, the endowment of the Astor Library, and New Jersey, and South Carolina opposed gave largely to public charities. He died the plan, while New Hampshire, Pennsyl- Nov. 24, 1875. vania, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and North Carolina favored it. Southern support was secured by agreeing to fix the national capital on the Potomac. By the act passed Aug. 4, 1790 the State debts, amounting to $21,500,000, were assumed by the general government. Astor Family. John Jacob, the founder, was born in Waldorf, Germany, July 17, 1763. He remained in London until he was twenty, when he began the fur business in New York. He built up a vast fur-trade with the Indians, extending his business to the mouth of Columbia River, on the Pacific coast, where he founded the trading station of Astoria in 1811. By this and other operations in trade, and by investments in real estate, he accumulated vast wealth. He bequeathed $400,000 for establishing a library in the city of New York, which for many years was known by his name, and now forms a part of the New York Public Library. He died in New York City, March 29, 1848. His son WILLIAM BACKHOUSE; born JOHN JACOB, son of William B.; born June 10, 1822; served on the staff of General McClellan during the Civil War; promoted brigadier-general for meritorious services during the Peninsular campaign, 1865; declined the post of United States minister to England, 1876; added largely to the Astor Library and other public purposes. He died Feb. 22, 1890. WILLIAM, son of William B.; born July 12, 1830; bequeathed $50,000 to the Astor Library, and $150,000 to other public institutions. He died April 25, 1892. WILLIAM WALDORF, grandson of William B.; born March 31, 1848; United States minister to Italy, 1882-85; removed to England in 1891, and became a British subject. JOHN JACOB, son of William; born July 13, 1864; served on the staff of General Shafter during the war with Spain. Astoria, a city in Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River, founded in 1810 by JOHN JACOB ASTOR (q. v.). In 1900 the population was 8,381. See OREGON. |