The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1868-02-28
MR.. CLARKE's SPEECH.

MR.. CLARKE'S SPEECH.
We copy form the Congressional
Globe of February 18th, the following
extracts from Hon. Sidney Clarke's late
speech OH the question of Citizenship.
We have not room for the entire speech: :
Mr.. Speaker, IL is strange indeed ut
this day, in the high noon of the nine
teenth century, and especially in the
Halls of an American Congress, that
the representatives of the people should
be enga red in discussing the protection
due to an American citizen when so
iourning beyond the domains of the Re-
public. Yet we are engaged in cOnsid-
ering a measure ostensibly framed TO
secure those rights. Though i'll the
ninety-second year of our existence as
a nation we have not, with all our pro-
gress and all our strength, secured from
foreign Governments full recognition
of n principle fundamental TO our sys-
TEN. Sir we have fought three wars,
two of them of considerable magnitude
and the third-the reverberations of
whose guns have hardly ceased-con-
fessedly on scale unparalleled before
in the history of human strife; yet we
have not won that proud respect for our
citizenship, that sacred regard for its
rights. without which, at the hands of
all other governmental forms, democracy
is mockery and rcpublicanism the
scorn of nations. There must be some
thing rotten i'll this. Weakness is too
plainly confessed when everywhere
American citizenship fails of inot""t
recognition.
Sir. at the present moment American
citizens are confined in English prisons.
Some arc in the first dreary years OF
long term of penal servitude, some arc
languishing in prison, detained without
stated charges, though trial has often
been demanded. Hundreds of our fell
low citizens, many of them-prObab
maiority-men who served the Republic
| in its hour of supreme peril, have been
summarily seized, imprisoned, held I'M
der arrest for periods of greater or less
/ length, and have then been arbitrarily
sent out of the land where they were
| temporarily sojourning at great loss and
Inconvenience to themselves. Some of
| these men were "native and to the man
or born" so far as this Republic is con-
cerned others were their fellow coun-
trymen, though not birthright but natu-
rallied citizens. All recognition Ofthelr
claims in this respect has been denied
them. Their American citizenship has
been contemporary spurned. 1t has
been treated with visible contumely,
Their so-called crimes have been proven
only by the oaths of hired informers.
Most of the acts charged have been
done in our own borders, and not with
in the jurisdiction of Great Britain.
Some of the most fragrant cases of out
RACES have been defended only by char
gcs ofwords uttered at public meetings
| in this land.
| 1t is time Mr.. Speaker, that this thing
ceased. 1t was never time for 1T to have
begun. The fact that the question OF
the rights of naturalization is yet I'M
settled is but another of the many proofs
we have had during recent years of the
want of positive opinions among us as
to what constitutes citizenship, and what
are its rights and duties when it is as
sumed. Courts have failed to settle
this question. Our vapid imitators of
the old world diplomacy have succeed
cd only in confusing what to common
sense men has seemed Il plain duty,
right and privilege.
Here at home our laws know no dis
tinction between the rights of native
born and naturaliZcd citizen, except Ill
two particulars, that the President and
Vice President must both be native born
The Irishman, Englishman, German, OIL
of Whatsoever nation the self-eXpatria-
ted man may be, obtains here the same
rights and has to perform the same duty
as the lineal desccndent of the Mayfiow
{, er Pilgrims, the Huguenots of the Caro-
linas, or the Knickerbockers of New
York. lie pays, according TO his ablll
r ty, his proportion of taxes. HI
: goes to battle alongside the proud
est son of the soil. His blood has rul
on every field and helped to gain victo
ry in ali our wars. He sits here in thes
Halls equal and honored. He helps t.
govern our States and to frame thci
laws. lie has helped and continues t.
make our Republic rich and develop it
vast resources. For all this, while w
demand of the new-made citizen tn
best service he can render by brain an
= hand, VIC also clothc him with right
3 which should everywhere protect hiI
as with an armOr of mail.
WHY. sir. the American Republic
If founded on self-impOsed repatriation
le 1t has been maintained largely by tn
y same law. 1t is greatly strengthene
is and enriched year by year by the COZ
: tined acccssions its operations bring
our midst. Every line of our histor
is an epitomizcd protest against doui
Id on the duty of protecting all citizen
p and of the right of any or all, ACCORD
=. ing to the words of Thomas Jefferso
OF written in 1893, ''divest themselves I
~ the character of citizens by emigratiC
of for other acts manifesting their intel
ton"
-
Two millions of Irishmen have settle
here since the Republic was founde
T. Two millions of Germans have con
, into our midst. bringing large share
industry, intelligence, and skill. Tv
IA million more persons of other nations
tiles have also taken up their abO,
among us. During the last two yea
nearly seven hundred thousand en-
ND grants have landed on our shores. L
,ha gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr.. X,
lao ley, lin Il recent speech on this floor ha
md ing relation to another subject, spo
all of the rapid growth of a town in II
nois where fourteen different Europe
LAS. tongues and dialects arc spoken. II
illustrates our discussion.
But, sir. the right of cXpatriatiou v
on not even denied in feudal times. It "
acknowledged in periods that preced
ia. them BY the Roman law every m
-ons was at liberty to remove where he pie
5 Of cd. Grotius, Tryphoneus, Vattel, Q
other writers on the law ofnations az
y that ''every man has right to cho
Ill, the State" of which he desires to beco
a member; that single Dersons If