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written the Constitution of the United States. And, lastly, the duty of admission, and the attendant examinations, should be confided only to men whose weight and dignity of character, and high official trust, prove them capable of appreciating the importance of the duty, and of performing it honestly. No official of lower grade than the judge of a State court of record, should be allowed to determine upon the qualifications or admissibility of aliens, applying for the important trust of citizenship of the United States.

UNITED STATES AND IMMIGRATION.

"In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass." JEFFERSON.

FOR three-quarters of a century, a great, steady, and increasing stream of Europeans has flowed westward, across the Atlantic Ocean, into the United States. Commencing at the rate of one or two thousand a year, it now averages four hundred thousand annually.

The causes of this great modern exodus are easily understood. They have always been moderate circumstances, poverty, misfortune, crime, or political offences in Europe; and the hopes of better days, more wealth, peace, ease, freedom, and happiness here.

Of late, special causes have given a great stimulus to the movement. The barbarous evictions of poor cotters in Ireland; political reactions, and consequent oppressive government measures, on the Continent; the unsettled horizon of the European future, which is cloudy with the shadows of continued wars; the organized operations of governments and private individuals to send hither the paupers and criminals who accumulate in their almshouses and jails,-have, for the last few years, powerfully co-operated with the universal instinctive desire after profit, peace, and freedom.

Of European emigrants to the United States, the great majority are from what are there termed "the humbler classes." They are usually agricultural laborers or mechanics, and include only a very small proportion of persons educated, or of easy fortune. There is also among them an entirely disproportionate excess of absolute paupers, hospital patients, and criminals—a fact due to the organized expatriation of such persons, above alluded to.

The statements which follow will furnish a competent general view of the number, character, source, distribution, and moral and educational condition of the foreign immigration into our Union.

There are now in this country about three millions of persons born without the territories of the United States; and of foreigners and their descendants born within the United States, about four millions. Of these three millions, more than four-fifths have come since 1830, and considerably more than half since 1840. The annual addition to the number-which was, in 1790, about two thousand-was, in 1820, nearly five thousand, and after that time rapidly increased, until it ranged at twenty-seven thousand in 1830, eighty-four thousand in 1840, one hundred and forty thousand in 1845, two hundred and eighty thousand in 1850, and rose to its greatest number thus far, during the year 1854-about four hundred and sixty thousandwithout any indications having as yet appeared that the maximum has been reached.

Of the four millions of foreigners and their descendants, Ireland has usually sent a larger portion than any other one country, and Germany the next greatest. For the last year or two, however, the German contingent has been fast increasing, and, in 1854, was more than double the Irish, and nearly half of the whole.

These four millions belong, by birth or immediate descent, to the undermentioned countries, in the following round numbers, which are, however, nearly correct: To Ireland, about one million; to England, Scotland, and Wales, more than half a million (making a total from the British islands of about one million five hundred and seventy thousand); to Germany, nine hundred thousand; to the remainder of North America-namely, Mexico, West Indies, and Canadas-about two hundred thousand; to France (including Belgium), seventy-five thousand; to Switzerland, twenty-five thousand; to Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), twenty-four thousand; to Asia, Africa, and East Indies (about three-fourths of all being Chinese), twenty thousand; to the south of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sardinia, Greece, and Turkey) twelve thousand; to South America, fifteen hun

dred; to Russia and the Sclavonic races, fourteen hundred. Probably seventy-five thousand have entered the country besides, whose birthplaces are not recorded.

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Of the immigration during 1854-the largest for any one year thus far-we furnish the following analysis, on the same principle of classification with that just given. It will be observed that, of some nationalities-the Chinese, Scandinavian, and Swiss particularly-a very large proportion has arrived during the year. From Ireland, one hundred thousand; England, Scotland, and Wales, fifty-four thousand (British islands, therefore, one hundred and fifty-four thousand); Germany, two hundred thousand; remaining parts of North America, and West Indies, nine thousand; France and Belgium, thirteen thousand five hundred; Switzerland, eight thousand; Scandinavia, four thousand; thirteen thousand Chinamen; south of Europe, two thousand eight hundred.

The port of New York receives about two-thirds of the entire number of immigrants; New Orleans and Boston half of the remainder; and Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other Atlantic ports, and, for the last few years, California, the rest. Landing in large. cities, a great proportion of the whole remain there, to fill almshouses and hospitals-to beg, sicken, and die. Of the immigration in 1850, there remained in our forty largest towns, forty in the hundred of the whole number of Irish, and thirty-six in the hundred of the immigrant Germans. The remainder distributed themselves throughout the country, the Irish especially gathering along the lines of the newer internal improvements, for work, and living a vagrant, rowdy life, which keeps their children from being educated, and themselves from being civilized; while the Germans, and in particular the Hollanders and Scandinavians, devote themselves to trade or farming. The foreign population gather principally into the northern range of States-the Eastern, Middle, and Northwestern; there being about thirteen foreigners in every hundred inhabitants in the first and last sections while in the Middle States-where the vast congregation in and about New York, however, is the principal cause of the

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