For by the third
article of the treaty of November 17, 1880, between the United States
and China it is provided that--
ART. III. If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either
permanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United
States, meet with ill treatment at the hands of any other persons, the
Government of the United States will exert all its power to devise
measures for their protection and to secure to them the same rights,
privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the citizens
or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled
by treaty.
This article may be held to constitute a special privilege for Chinese
subjects in the United States, as compared with other aliens; not that
it creates any peculiar rights which others do not share, but because,
in case, of ill treatment of the Chinese in the United States, this
Government is bound to "exert all its power to devise measures for their
protection," by securing to them the rights to which equally with any
and all other foreigners they are entitled.
Whether it is now incumbent upon the United States to amend their
general laws or devise new measures in this regard I do not consider in
the present communication, but confine myself to the particular point
raised by the outrage and massacre at Rock Springs.
The note of the Chinese minister and the documents which accompany
it give, as I believe, an unexaggerated statement of the lamentable
incident, and present impressively the regrettable circumstance that
the proceedings, in the name of justice, for the ascertainment of the
crime and fixing the responsibility therefor were a ghastly mockery
of justice.
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