i don't think holocaust as a top topic, a cultural field of study or as a phenomena is particularly significant until the late 1960s. there were survivors. they had practical problems. but there was nothing like what we have today with special holidays and holocaust study programs. and it was shunned by the american jewish community as well. the culture wasn't there. there was a war. a lot of people got killed. there was particularly nasty stuff going on in this sector, in that sector, and we're moving on. holocaust as a cultural category really doesn't emerge, in my opinion, until the mid to late 1960s. that's one of the things that makes celler special. he was sensitive to the plight of the refugee, of the survivor. and without the context of

holocaust as a cultural category, nevertheless was a soldier on behalf of the distressed. we're bringing mikes, so, and if you'll let me know what my time frame is. >> this may be too narrow a question, but i'll ask it anyway. so, i saw on c-span a while back interviews with bernard ferrenz, who was with the army and worked with holocaust survivors getting restitution. i wondered if you were familiar with his work and if that was connected at all with the congressman? >> no, i didn't see that. >> it's fascinating. fascinating. >> i know the harrison report alone. >> okay. >> maybe you could tell me what -- >> fascinating. he has his own story, jewish background, and very unhappy being a private in the army when

he was an attorney and all those and really single-handedly, there was one other individual in the army who when they went into the camps tried to maintain all of the documentation so that they could pursue. and he followed up at nuremberg. very, very interesting interviews. >> documentation was key. i should have mentioned that with respect to eisenhower. already in '43, the pentagon was working on postwar planning, including the prosecution of nazi leadership. in particular, they had a lawyer on staff who was a jew from central europe, a man by the name of lemkin, who creates, defines the concept of genocide, both as a historical concept and as a legal tool. but it wasn't ready for

nuremberg. in any event, the american military was very much aware that they would need to have materials, evidence ready for trials after the war. and part of what happened in the camp was the collection of evidence for the prosecution of surviving nazis. in that respect, i would say the americans and the british, they were quite effective. that did not, however, carry over to some kind of sustained humanitarian program. the collection of evidence to prosecute the nazis, who killed a lot of american soldiers, that's one task. helping the actual survivors was a different task and not attended to with the same vigor. thank you. it's an important difference. thanks. yeah. >> your talk was brilliant. i have a question why you omitted mention in 1944 of the house and senate concurrent

resolutions speaking about the destruction of jewish life in euro europe? and what role was -- did manny celler play a role with the house concurrent resolution? what was the role of the u.s. government in the swedish mission in budapest? >> those are big questions. there were a number of resolutions that went through the house, and i skipped over them only because of the time in trying to do this with a broad brush. in general, celler was either the leader or a signatory to every single resolution that went through congress during this period. he was absolutely active in every dimension of it. and the only reason i picked it is because, i didn't say it, is because there is too much detail. i don't believe the question of

the bombing of auschwitz came up before the house. that was internal to the military and the white house. so that's the one thing i didn't see him weigh in on. but in other areas, he absolutely was there, and it's all very neatly catalogued. either, you can either look in wyman's study of the american jewish response to the holocaust or this new double-authored book on fdr and the holocaust, which has an unusually balanced view of it. but celler will come up on page after page after page after page. he was the warrior on this particular issue, despite repeated failure. every once in a while they could get something through, but nothing significant and absolutely nothing structural. this side. >> i want to ask you one quick question. is there a modern biography or any biography of celler?

>> somebody told me last night at dinner that they think somebody is working on it. there is almost no literature directly on celler. where he appears in the secondary literature, he's part of a different narrative. there are biographies, short biographies of congressmen, but the work hasn't been done. one of the things -- his papers are in pretty good shape. they're in brooklyn, so that can be found. one of the tough parts, going to your question, is getting the material from the house itself. not everything is digital, even at this late day. and one has to work very hard to get transcripts of speeches from the house and all that. so, i personally am not planning on writing a biography of celler. i think it is very, very doable

if there's somebody still out there interested in writing biographies. >> two brief questions. wonderful talk, by the way. in theory, there might have been a contradiction, at least from our viewpoint, between the ability of holocaust survivors to reach the united states and the wish to support the establishment of a jewish state. was this problem -- this possible conflict of mission recognized at the time? and my second question is, what were the effects of jewish life in america as a result of the 1965 immigration act? did jews essentially become less exotic and more mainstream as a result of the '65 immigration act? >> let me take the second one and then you'll help me remember the first one.

by 1965, jewish immigration post holocaust had pretty much run its course, and you had about 600,000 jews that came to the united states. i think for other reasons, jews begin to go more into the mainstream of american culture. you have a writer like a will herberg, who talks about america as protestant, catholic and jewish. it's quite a claim for a group of people who are less than 2% of the population. they get one-third of the cultural bags of the country. it's just remarkable. so, there is a significant shift of jews into the mainstream because of, i would say, from the cutoff in '24 in the processes of americanization, services in world war ii, life in the suburbs, education in the

jewish community, there is an extreme americanization and the civil rights movement in a way also helps lower the exoticness of jews. and jews become increasingly white and they identify with white culture. what was unforeseen about the jewish immigration that comes here from 1945 to 1965 is that it was a very different jewish population that had been here prior, and they will, if there is a word, re-exotify the american jewish community. up to 1924, ultraorthodox jews generally chose not to come to the united states. there were even ribinick rulings in europe discouraging jewish immigration to america. it was very simple -- if you

come to america, it will be better for your body, it will be worse for your soul, and your grandchildren will be gentiles. and they said, don't come to america. and as a result, the ultra communities did not. after world war ii, though, the surviving ultra communities did. in part, they came here because they were either nonzionist or any zionist and didn't want to go to israel, so they come here. and that population today is what is changing the american jewish community more than anything else because of their extreme birth rate. i would invite anybody to take a tour of borough park or flat bush in brooklyn by zip code. they have the highest birth rates of anyplace in the united states. and if there is retention over generations, the prediction is somewhere around half of the american jewish community will be ultra orthodox by the year

2050, that the suburban-assimilated jew is going to die out and the jewish population in the united states is going to become much more orthodox and larger. in teaching classes on modern jewish history, i always end by asking, what will follow the modern period in jewish history? and my answer is the medieval, you know, so. now, remind me of the first question, because i knew that was going to happen. >> we're out of time. >> we're out of time? can i just answer that question or we're done? >> sure. >> real short, i promise. >> in theory, at least from my perspective today, there might have been a potential contradiction between the aim of establishing a jewish state -- >> yes, okay, got it. very short, i promise, because the boss says we're done. it was not fully understood as a contradiction then. statehood was more important than rescue. end of story. and even after the war, getting refugees to palestine was

considered more important than bringing them here. where that became a problem was in the '80s, when a soviet jewery movement begins here in the united states, and the american jewish community found itself in direct defiance of the wishes of the israeli government that wanted the russians to go there, and the american jewish community argued freedom of choice on immigration. of course, once the russian jews arrive here in large numbers, they really don't want a lot to do with them. and i'll just end with an anecdote. i had mentioned to my own synagogue board, maybe we should have an outreach program to russian jews in northeast philadelphia. and one member said out loud, why do we need to do that? i already have somebody to do my nails.

all right. [ applause ] coming up this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday night at 8:00 eastern, a look at the confederate civil war prison andersonville. state university of new york at buffalo professor talks about the prison, the soldiers who died and the post war trial of its commander, henry wuertz. >> by the early fall of 1864, 5,000 men died between august and october 1864, i believe. all in total, nearly 13,000 union soldiers died in andersonville in its entire existence. that's a death rate of about 45% of the total population. it's extremely high. >> at 9:00, brent glass, director emeritus of the smithsonian national museum of american history, talks about

his book "50 great american places: essential historic sites across the u.s." and his process in selecting the various sites. and at 11:00, u.s. supreme court justice stephen breyer on the influence of foreign relations on american national security and civil liberties. >> for many, many years, i think the general view of judges here as well as judges abroad were when you have, first you have security needs, like a war, or a real security problem. and you look at the document. the document says this power is primarily the president's. it's congress. it's not the court. ah, but what about the civil liberties? well, there the courts do have something to say. and sometimes there's a clash. and so, why is there so little? i think the answer is cicero. he was not one of the founders. but they did, in fact, know about cicero. >> and sunday at 10:00 on "road to the white house rewind," the

1960 democratic and republican national conventions, with the democratic party nominating massachusetts senator john f. kennedy, and vice president richard nixon accepting the republican nomination. >> in this campaign, i make a prediction. i say that just as in 1952 and 1956, millions of democrats will join us not because they are deserting their party, but because their party deserted them at los angeles two weeks ago. >> all over the world, particularly in the newer nations, young men are coming to power, men who are not bound by the traditions of the past, men who are not blinded by the old fears and hate and rivalries, young men who can cast off the old slogans and the old delusions. the republican nominee is a young man, but his approach is as old as mckinley's.

>> for a complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. coming up next, albany law school professor emeritus paul finkelman delivering the keynote address at a symposium focused on the history of immigration in america. mr. finkelman compares the roles of congress, states and the president in developing immigration policy from the colonial period to modern day. this event is part of a two-day u.s. capitol historical society symposium. it's about an hour and 15 minutes. >> keynote opening this particular symposium, we have paul finkelman. again, those of you who come on a routine basis know paul well. he's been our fearless leader for the past several years in helping to direct the symposium. because of that, i feel like no introduction is need ed.

but really, in paul's case, it's really true. i'll just say that he comes to us from the university of saskatchewan, to give you a sense of how far he's come to be with us today. he's there on a visiting professorship on human rights. and he'll be speaking on "a nation of immigrants." the keynote, of course, is an opportunity to look at the theme in a broader sense. and so, he's going to be laying the groundwork for everything we're going to be discussing tomorrow. and i hope you'll all come back tomorrow as well. one more thing before paul comes up to the podium. we have a special lunch program, something we don't typically do. we'll have a speaker talk during lunch tomorrow, so we can keep people in the room. we'll have box lunches to make that easy for you. and i think you'll really enjoy it. if you're suspicious about what a living history interpreter does, it's a good chance for you to find out what kind of

historians deal with people, the public directly. these are people who speak to classroom groups, tour groups, specific historic sites and so on. i think you'll be really impressed by ron duquette interpreting the immigrant. so, without further ado, paul finkelman. >> thank you very much, chuck. it's delightful to be here. i think it's marvelous that we're doing this on cinco de mayo. and of course, when, as chuck pointed out, when we planned this conference about a year ago, we had no idea that it would be as much in the news and as important a topic as it has become. i would like to say we're prophets and that we could envision the last year of american politics, but then that

would not be true and it would also be impossible. so, here we are. we are a nation of immigrants. it's a theme that runs throughout our history, throughout our public school books. i did a quick search of something called world cat, which tells you where all the books are located in libraries around the world. i find dozens of entries with the title "a nation of immigrants," including, perhaps, the most interesting one, a book written by senator john f. kennedy in 1958, republished in 1964 posthumously with an introduction by his brother, robert kennedy, and then republished again in 2008 with an introduction by his other brother, senator edward kennedy. the phrase appears, of course, in scholarly articles and popular journals, in popular media all the time. most americans take pride in the notion that we are a nation of immigrants. the story of immigrant success,

the story of america as a safe haven for immigrants is woven in much of our history. more than one scholar is indeed noted that the history of immigration is the history of america itself. this would even be true, of course, if you were focusing on native americans, because they would be seeing the history of america from the other side of immigration. but in a sense, immigration runs throughout our history. when i was growing up, the school books focused on the famous successful immigrants, andrew carnegie, alexander graham bell, whose name, of course, became synonymous with the telephone he invented. john erickson, the great engineer. and occasionally, jack warner and his brothers who helped create the movie industry. every book would have a mention of the great immigrant scientists who helped us win the war -- albert einstein, edward

keller -- while, of course, skipping over the post-war nazi immigrant, verner von brown. today, immigrant heroes are more likely to be found in high-tech, andy grove, co-founder of intel from hungary, and vinad adam, who invented the pentium chip, without which life itself would not be possible, and sarah b. gin of russia, who is the founder of google, which is, in fact, life itself. alternatively, of course, we learned of the great entertainers, peter laurie, sophia loren, zsa zsa gabor, and the most recent entertainers, natalie portman, arnold schwarzenegger, dan aykroyd, and most importantly of all, eddie van halen from the netherlands.

there are sports figures, the first generation children of immigrants, lou gehrig, joe dimaggio, hank greenberg, and of course, today we have the immigrants themselves, yao ming, fedorov, wayne gretzkysky, hideki matsui, and arguably the single best athlete of our generation, mariano rivera. [ laughter ] who? the people from boston have spoken. when we consider the role of congress and the executive branch in immigration, it is, of course, important to understand that immigrants and their children -- and when we speak about immigrants, it's almost always important to talk about the first generation, because they are almost always raised in immigrant communities. and indeed, there is a phenomenally wonderful map that the census produced for the 1910 census, which shows county by

county the percentage of immigrants and their children across the united states. bright red meant that they were 50% or more immigrant. and of course, not surprisingly, all of new york city, most of new jersey are bright red. but so is virtually all of idaho, all of montana, the dakotas, wisconsin, minnesota. we forget how incredibly important immigration was with their children across the settlement of the united states. and today, of course, popular culture. and so, when we talk about politics, we talk about both the immigrants and the children of immigrants more in politics. popular culture, of course, today celebrates the west indian kid who came to new york looking for a college education, and instead ended up as the secretary of the treasury. meanwhile, while he's unlikely to have a broadway play after him, there is also the son of the west indian immigrants who went to public schools in new york, went to city college and

ended up being chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of state. colin powell, of course, followed in the recent footsteps of many immigrants and their children who have ended up in presidential cabinets and their equivalent. indeed, in the last half century, there have been at least 20 immigrants and their children who have served at that level of american government. we have had two secretaries of state, one secretary of the treasury, one secretary of interior, two national security advisers, one of whom was also secretary of state, and one ambassador to the united nations, all of whom were naturalized american citizens. when we think about the role of the immigrant in american history, we have to wonder, what would it be if we cut off this stream of immigration that has provided us with so much leadership. there are, of course, many children of immigrants in congress today and presidential

cabinets, and the numbers of grandchildren of immigrants who were raised in families where immigration matters is simply too big to count. this has always been the case. in the 1790s, there was senator pierce butler from ireland. and as we will learn tomorrow, senator albert gallatin from switzerland. in the mid-19th century, in the senate there was benjamin, peter soulet, david uviyuli and karl sirs, all immigrants. in the 20th century, we saw robert wagner, rudy bosh wits and mel martinez serving in the senate. and this is only the skimming the easy names off the top. it would be too difficult to list all the house members. i would simply run out of time. in 1790, 10% of congress was foreign born. in the mid-1880s, 8% of congress

was foreign born. today it's down to 2%. central to the notion of the nation of immigrants has been that america has been a refuge of the oppressed. and americans, of course, have been proud of this, and this is in part reflected by the nickname of the two great entrees to the united states, both ellis island and angel island were known as the golden door at the time that they were active and in subsequent history since. there is a good reason for this. whatever else we may say in criticizing some aspects of american culture and american society, the golden door has provided an enormous amount of economic opportunity as well as a safe haven for political and religious refugees from around the world. emma lazarus's poem on base of the statue of liberty

encapsulates the ideals and ideology of both a nation of immigrants and a golden door. "keep ancient lands your story pomp, she cries, with silent lips, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuge of your teeming shore, send these to me, i lift my limp beside the golden door." for many newcomers, historically, the sight of lady liberty was something they never forg forgot. my own grandparents and great aunts and uncles recalled the thrill of seeing the statue as their ship came into new york harbor after a less-than-pleasant voyage in steerage from europe. from my own grandfather on my father's side, the statue had greater meaning. he came to america at a time when federal law banned immigrants with various kinds of

loathsome or dangerous diseases, as the federal statute put it. my grandfather wasn't sure what loathsome or dangerous diseases was, but he knew that he had bad eyes. and he knew that if you had bad eyes, you didn't get into the united states. he didn't know what traucoma was, and he didn't know he didn't have it. so, instead of going through ellis island, which is how his siblings and parents went, he went from southern poland to hamburg to manchester, to halifax, to montreal, and he took the train from montreal to plattsburgh, new york. one can hardly imagine a more dismal way to enter the united states. and he crossed in as a tourist, and he took the train to new york city, and he stayed in new york city until he discovered that his bad eyes were not what

they would stop you for at ellis island, and so, he took the boat out to ellis island. he's one of the few immigrants to go reverse trip to ellis island so that he could come into the united states. he came into the country, in a sense, through the back door, and only later re-entered through the golden door. my other grandfather came through the golden door in 1913 when he was about 13 years old. but you had to be 16 to work, so he lied on his immigration papers, said he was 16 so he could go to work. and then when he was only about 17, uncle sam sent a little letter greetings -- world war i is now here. and so, my grandfather got drafted before he was eligible, but he couldn't very well say, oh, no, no, i'm too young. and then on august 8th, 1918, he became a citizen under the amendedatory act of may 1918 while stationed at camp gordon in georgia.

so, we are a nation of immigrants, but not everybody came in according to the rules. thus, i am the face of the illegal alien. my father and mother both born in new york city were what some people would call anchor babies. they were anchoring their illegal fathers who today, of course, would be expelled from the united states for the way they came into the country. they snuck in through the golden door and lied about it to stay here. now, despite the easy praise for immigrants who made good and the easy case to be made for immigrant contributions to american society, there has always been, of course, the counternarrative. often, immigrants are seen as a threat to society or the cause of social and political problems. immigrants have been condemned for undermining the moral climate of america and have been singled out for criminal misbehavior when, of course,

american citizens who did the same thing don't make headlines. religion, ethnicity and race have been a constant theme of anti-immigration rhetoric in the united states. at various times, the nation and even some states in many cities have encouraged immigration for economic reasons while at the same time opponents of immigration have vigorously argued immigrants depress wages and threaten the incomes of native-born citizens. by the way, this is going on right now today. there are a number of cities that are seeking out immigrants to revitalize depressed neighborhoods, depressed cities, even as other people complain about the flood of immigrants that keep coming to the united states. thus, historically, and certainly today, there have been loud calls for immigration reform and severe immigration restrictions. immigration is, of course, a central issue in the

presidential campaign this year. this is, of course, the elephant or the donkey in the room. i'm not sure which it might be. ironically, four of the major presidential candidates this year are the children of immigrants. this has never happened before. two of the major presidential candidates are married to immigrants, and one was born outside the united states and is arguably not a natural-born citizen, and therefore, was never eligible to be president in the first place. at no other time in u.s. history have so many children of immigrants been viable candidates for a presidential nomination. should donald trump become president, he will be the first child of an immigrant to become president of the united states while simultaneously being a serial spouse of immigrants. this, of course, is a new world

for us. as this conference will demonstrate, the rules for immigration and citizenship have been constantly changing. what i'd like to talk about for the rest of the evening is opposition to immigration and the way it has affected the rules for immigration. obviously, they're interconnected. when opponents of immigration are ascendant, the rules have changed, making it more difficult for the huddled masses who are yearning to be free, to in fact become free. and if they get here at all, to become citizens. opposition to immigration, as i've noted, has been based on religion, ethnicity, race and sometimes unabashed bigotry. sometimes these sentiments, known in u.s. history as nativism, have been quite open. sometimes they are couched in terms about economics, competition or respect for the law.

often, immigration has been based on narrow political considerations, most famously, of course, in 1798. the federalist party tried to stop immigration, made it far more difficult for immigrants to become citizens. why? because they understood that most of the new immigrants were voting for the party of thomas jefferson. similarly in the 1840s and 1850s, the nativist movement culminating in the no nothing party with its presidential campaign of 1856 again did not want catholic immigration in part because a number of the no nothings, including their 1856 presidential candidate, millard fillmore, had previously lost elections because they lost the catholic vote. now, fillmore could never understand why the catholics didn't vote for him after he campaigned in favor of mandatory protestant bible reading in the new york public schools, but

perhaps that was his own limitation. the earliest example that i can find of anti-immigration sentiment comes from an outburst in governor william bradford's diary in 1642. bradford was the governor of the plymouth colony. and bradford complained that the population was being corrupted by recent immigrants who were "wicked persons and per faine people who had so quickly come over into this land and mixed amongst us, the religious men who began the community had come for religion's sake, and now they had these wicked people. bradford was referring to the recent execution for bestiality of a young man named thomas granger, who at age 17 had been caught in the barnyard doing things which were illegal. when asked where he learned this immoral behavior, granger said he was taught by another who had heard of such things from some

in england when he was there, and they kept cattle together. thus, bradford blamed granger's fatal deviant behavior on recent immigrants who had corrupted this young man living in plymouth. bradford also noted that another young man had been recently executed for sodomy, having confessed that he long ago used it in old england. bradford concluded that this illustrated how one wicked person may affect many, and he urged residents to be careful of what servants they bring into their family. bradford recorded the case in his diary, including various details about granger's behavior, which i will not go into. suffice to say, granger confessed to having sex with various barnyard creatures as well as a wild turkey. he was subsequently hanged, and all of the barnyard creatures were also killed and thrown into a big pit. by the way, the massachusetts

magistrates were truly befuddled about what to do about the turkey, and so they went in and shot three wild turkeys and threw them in the pit to symbolically cleanse the society from this immorality. after granger's execution, bradford tried to understand why "wickedness did break forth in a land where so much was so witnessed against and so narrowly looked unto." and he concluded that granger's behavi behavior, plus adultery and nonmarital sex and "even sodomy and buggery," things too fearful to name, having just named them, "have broke forth in this land oftener than once." and what bradford focused on was the fact that most of the offenders were either immigrants or people who had been corrupted by immigrants. and he tried to explain this by looking at the labor shortage in

plymouth. and he note that many of the settlers, desperate for laborers that when they could not have such as they would were glad to take such as they could. and so, of course, settlers of plymouth were willing to take irreligious people, people of questionable morals, recent immigrants, because they were desperate for labor. and then he concluded, "another and more main reason here was that men finding so many godly persons disposed to come to these parts, some began to make a trade of it, to transport passengers and their goods and hired ships for that end. and then to make up their freight and advance their profit, they cared not who the persons were, if they had the money to pay." and so, by this means, the country became pestered with many unworthy persons who came

over, crept into one place or another. in other words, plymouth in the 1640s was being overrun by the wrong kind of immigrant brought by greedy capitalists who were willing to fill their ships with anybody who could pay their passage. this, of course, in some ways reflects the problems that opponents of immigrants often talk about, not only bad people coming, but local citizens beginning to look the other way and hire anybody they could hire without regard for whether they were the right kind of immigrants. bradford's analysis, by the way, somewhat dovetails with that of president theodore roosevelt 250 years later. his annual message to congress in 1905, roosevelt declared that the nation could never have too much immigration of the right

sort, and we should have none whatever of the wrong sort. and the debate from the time of bradford to roosevelt to our own time is how do we figure out what the right sort of immigrant is and how do we figure out what the wrong sort of immigrant is? bradford, of course, was not the only colonial official to do this. and in the interest of time, i will not go into too many details, but it is worth noting that just a few years after bradford's outburst, the governor of the dutch colony of the new neithererland, petra stuyvesants faced the problem of quakers and lutherans and jews creeping into new amsterdam and corrupting the society. when 23 jews arrived in 1654, stuyvesant tried to expel these homeless, stateless people. they had no place to return to, no nation to protect them, and

thus, they had no plans to go anywhere. stuyvesant immediately wrote to his bosses in amsterdam and asked for permission to expel them, because they were "very repugnant" to the colony's magistrates. although impoverished and desperately needing charities to survive, stuyvesant absurdly claimed that they would soon be up to their old used customary usury and deceitful trading with christians. the only problem was they had no money to lend and no money to buy anything and nothing to sell. but that didn't worry him. he referred to these 23 immigrants as "the deceitful race, such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of christ." the religious leader of the community similarly wrote authorities in holland and asked that the godless rascals be

expelled. the religious leaders noted, "we have here papists, mennonites and lutherans among, also many puritans and independents and atheists and servants of boll under the english under this government who conceal themselves under the name of christians. it would create us still further confusion if the obstanant and immovable jews came to settle here." this fascinating outburst, of course, seems to be more aimed at more non-jews than jews, but the general issue is that the authorities in the new neithererland colony wanted to make sure that they got the right kind of immigrant and not the wrong sort of immigrant that had troubled and would trouble americans. officials of the dutch west indies company sympathized with stuyvasant, saying we would like to agree with your wishes and request that the new territory shall not be invaded further by

people of the jewish race. but they concluded that this would be unfair to these immigrant jews who, in fact, had escaped from a dutch colony in brazil where a number of jews had died fighting the portuguese invaders and that they had, in fact, been pretty good colonists in brazil. and furthermore, the authorities in holland noted that dutch merchants living in amsterdam also wanted to come trade in the new world, and they were going to get permission to do so. the dutch authorities referred to a petition of the portuguese merchants, as the jews in amsterdam were called. and in that petition, the merchants had said that the american colony was a land that needs people for its increase. and that becomes the counter theme to anti-immigration sentiments. that is, we don't want any of these people, but we really need people. and as bradford noted, people took what they could get, rather than what they would want.

between the british acquisition of the new neithererland county and the eve of the revolution, there was substantial immigration into the colonies that would make up the united states. most came from great britain, england, wales, scotland and ireland. of course, the irish were never really quite considered english, so they were among the wrong kind of immigrant. but since they were coming from the realm of the king, it was hard to keep them out. and of course, there were also a significant number of people of dutch ancestry. but the largest non-british immigration came from germany. and immigrants flooded into the colonies. and in 1740, england made it easier for immigrants to become citizens, but they didn't make it easy enough in the eyes of most of the american colonists. and so, in the declaration of independence, one of the complaints against king george is he has endeavored to prevent

the population of these states for that purpose obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither. in other words, the american revolutionaries understood that they needed immigrants and that one of king george's faults was that he was not doing enough to encourage immigration. after the war, america opened its arms to immigration and gave citizenship to many who had come to fight in the war, including the marquis de lafayette, who was granted citizenship, even though he had no plans to stay in the united states. i suppose it's worth noting in passing, and as a historian, i'm trying not to get too involved in the present debate, that one might make the argument, if one believed in the intentions of the framers, that the intentions

of the framers of both the declaration of independence and the constitution was that we should have open immigration, because immigration is what makes america grow and what makes america strong. that would have been the ideology of those people who participated in america's first political tea party in 1773 in boston harbor. after the revolution, the nation initially was receptive to immigration. the constitution adopted in 1 9 1789, allowed for a uniform rule of naturalization, and furthermore, banned congress from interfering with immigration of any kind until 1808, although it did allow the states to interfere with immigration. the new constitution gave power, congress, of course, the right to control immigration once they got here and to expel people who didn't fit in, as in the 1798 series of laws known as the alien acts.

this then set a pattern that would continue on and off for most of the century. at times, the u.s. would encourage immigration. at other times, the u.s. would discourage immigration. the federalists used immigration laws to reduce the number of new citizens who might vote for the opposition, but of course, the federalists lost power after 1801, and many of those laws either were repealed or expired or fell into disuse. meanwhile, the states aggressively tried to deal with immigration. new york, for example, required that ships bringing immigrants in the 1820s and '30s register the immigrants with authorities in new york. and in mayor of new york versus milne, the supreme court upheld this, noting -- and it's worth understanding what the court says -- "this law was obviously

passed with a view to prevent citizens from being oppressed by the support of multitudes of poor persons who come from foreign countries without possessing the means of supporting themselves." in milne, the supreme court developed for the first time what we later called state police powers, which allowed the states to protect themselves from undesirables. and the arguments of lawyers and of some of the concurring judges in this case compared new york's desire to limit the number of poor immigrants -- and by the way, that translates into irish-catholic immigrants -- to limit irish-catholic immigrants precisely the way south carolina was allowed to prevent the immigration of free blacks from other parts of the united states or from the british caribbean. just as philip barber concluded, "we think it is as competent and necessary for a state to provide

precautionary measures against the moral pestilence of paupers, vagabonds, and possibly convicts, as it is to guard against the physical pestilence which may arise from unsound and infectious articles imported or from a ship or crew which may be laboring under an infectious disease." thus, irish immigrants, free blacks and other undesirable foreigners were really no different than an infectious disease. this is the supreme court of the 1830s. a decade later, there is a new wave of anti-immigration and the first nativists are elected to congress in the 1840s. more famously, they come into congress in larger numbers in the 1850s. and in the passenger cases, the supreme court overrules laws of new york and massachusetts which had a tax on new immigrants, because the courts said that

only the federal government could tax immigrants. this was the development of what is in part known as the dorman commerce clause. and it's important to notice that these major constitutional aspects, major constitutional theories, such as state police powers and dorman commerce clause come from two areas of jurisprudence. one is from immigrant jurisprudence and the other simultaneously is from jurisprudence around slavery. and of course, what we saw in milne is it is both free blacks and poor irish and immoral people and criminals and diseases all wrapped into one, and we have to fight against this. in 1844, the american party won the mayor's race in new york and philadelphia, won a few seats in congress. and as i said, hurt, actually, millard fillmore by endorsing him when he ran for governor of

new york, because the catholics all voted for the democratic candidate. in the mid-1850s, the anti-immigrant, anti-catholic american party, known as the no nothing party, had fleeting success, sending 50 members to congress, including the entire massachusetts delegation, and taking 397 out of 400 seats in the massachusetts legislature. meanwhile, the no nothings elected governors in massachusetts, maine, and pennsylvania, and mayors in boston, philadelphia and san francisco. in 1850, fillmore would run for president and carry the state of maryland. ironically, of course, maryland was first begun as a haven for catholics, and so that's why the anti-catholic party won maryland. it should be noted, by the way, when i say anti-catholic, what that meant. the no nothings, one of their party platforms was that no

catholic should ever be eligible to hold public office in the united states. another piece of their platform was that any immigrant who came had to reside for 21 consecutive years in order to become a citizen. and if the immigrant left the united states for any reason whatsoever, the 21-year clock would begin again. this was essentially an attempt to prevent immigrants from ever becoming citizens. despite hostility to immigrants, despite the fact that they spoke the wrong language, went to the wrong church, had a strange and odd appearance, most americans ultimately tolerated and welcomed immigrants. the no nothings, of course, had a brief amount of success, but they were doomed to failure. in 1855, the leader of the new republican party in illinois wrote to a friend, "i am not a know nothing, that is certain. how could i be?

how could anyone who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? our progress in dejensy appears to me pretty rapid. as a nation, we began by declaring all men are created equal. now we practically read it all men are created equal except negroes. when the know nothings get control, it will read all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and catholics. when it comes to this, i shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty. to russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." this, of course, was abraham lincoln, who five years later would be president and who would understand that his sympathy for immigrants was truly important, because in the civil war, about 500,000 immigrants would serve in the united states army or navy. at least 200,000 german

immigrants, at least 150,000 irish immigrants. there were numerous irish brigades, german brigades, but also, there were brigades and regiments of swiss immigrants, italian immigrants, the garibaldi brigade. there was a polish immigrant, a norwegian regiment. and there were numerous, important generals from overs s overseas. there were a number of german generals, most famously franz siegel and carl shurz, but reflecking the diversity of america's new immigrants. there were also a number of jewish generals in civil war, frederick nelfer, edward selig-salman and frederick c. salman. by the way, they're unrelated. they just keep using the same names to confuse generations of historians. recognizing the importance of new immigrants, the lincoln

administration changed american military law to allow for the appointment of jewish clergymen in the clergy corps for the first time in american history. and in 1864, congress passed a new statute to encourage immigration. and one of the pieces of this new statute was that immigrants who came over would not be subject to the draft if they didn't want to be. so, they were encouraging more immigrants, because with hundreds of thousands of men in the field, we needed new people to work in the factories and the fields of america. starting in the post war period, of course, we get the age of mass immigration from scandinavia, then eastern and southern europe from the ottoman empire, and these dramatically change both america's ethnic culture and the nature of the society. the new immigrants, not surprisingly, give rise to a new anti-catholic sentiment merged

with anti-semitism merged with just general anti-immigrationism. and one of the interesting things, by the way, is although this is the first large muslim immigration from the ottoman empire, i have yet to find any people worrying about muslims coming into the united states at that time. but every hatred has its moment, and so, that could wait. in the 1890, the american protection organization emerges. and throughout this heerd, there are debates as to the race of these new immigrants, because the american naturalization law after the 1870s allowed only white people and people of african ancestry to be naturalized citizens. and so, the question is, were syrians, turks, armenians, jews,

italians, people from south asia, were they white? were they not white? and who could come in and who could not? of course, the obvious, big issue was the chinese in the last half of the 19th century and japanese immigration in the first 20 years of the 20th century. but all of these issues begin to merge in a variety of ways. and of course, millions of immigrants come to the united states in this period. 22 million is the general figure between 1880 and 1914. one of the things to think about, by the way, when we think about the poor, huddled masses, is that after around 1902, they're required to have $50 in currency. it didn't have to be u.s. money, but the equivalent of $50 to come into the united states.

so, there is an enormous transfer of wealth from europe and parts of asia to the united states as immigrants are bringing their money. and i wish i could, you know, be a time traveler and go back to a bank in new york, because you could imagine there would be just this plethora of foreign currency coming into the bank from every part of europe and some parts of asia as immigrants forked over their $50, plus a $2 processing fee for going through ellis island. and then, of course, we got world war i. and after world war i, we got the 1921 and 1924 immigration acts, which essentially closed the golden door to most immigrants. and of course, the tragedy of the '24 act is that the door

will remain closed for hundreds of thousands of europeans, mostly jews, but also many others, who would have escaped nazism and fashism, had the door been opened. similarly, of course, and i will talk about this briefly in a minute, the door had already been closed to try and ease immigrants so that, again, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of chinese, who were about to face slaughter by the imperial japanese army, could also not come to the united states in the 1930s because the door was closed to them as well. until the 1950s -- 1850s, of course, almost all voluntary immigration in the united states was of european origin. and after the 1850s, of course, we begin to get large numbers of chinese coming. there are almost no chinese before this time. in 1850, the census found 758 people of chinese birth living in the united states.

since the revolution, there had been a smattering of chinese come as merchants, occasionally as students, sometimes as merchant seamen. there was ilarge trade, the china clippers, the china trade, and ships were always adding a few seamen here and there, so occasionally, you'd get some chinese immigrants coming in. but the chinese begin to pour in, in the 1850s. and initially, they're welcomed. initially, there are people saying how important the chinese are, how helpful they are, and how we need their labor, but that quickly changes. and we will hear much more about this tomorrow, so i don't want to go into any detail except simply to say that by the 1870s, the west coast of the united states has a -- is essentially making war on chinese immigrants, doing everything possible to prevent chinese immigrants from coming and from

being successful when they arrive. and ultimately, this leads in 1882 to the chinese exclusion act, which doesn't, in fact, exclude all chinese, but it excludes an awful lot of chinese. there will still be significant chinese immigration up until world war ii, but not in anything like the numbers before. meanwhile, starting in the mid-1890, we begin to get japanese immigration to the united states. japanese had not been part of the chinese exclusion act for a number of reasons, one of which was, at the time, it was illegal for the japanese to leave their country, so you didn't have to worry about excluding them. the emperor did that for you. however, when the japanese come, they are immediately met with hostility. they are essentially seen as like the chinese, only, perhaps, worse. and the failure to include japanese in the final exclusion act of 1902, which was only directed at the chinese,

infuriated people in california. there is, however, an important difference, and this is a where i will begin to bring all of this to a close. by 1900, japan was a formidable country.