"I am therefore constrained," he said, "to return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law." The President stated that by the first section the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as black,--people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood,--"are made citizens of the United States." The President did not believe that this class possessed "the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States." He sought to raise prejudice against the bill because it proposed "to discriminate against large number of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, in favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have now suddenly been opened." "It is proposed," he said, "by a single legislative enactment to confer the rights of citizens upon all persons of African descent born within the extended limits of the United States, while persons of foreign birth who make our land their home must undergo a probation of five years, and can then only become citizens of the United States upon the proof that they are of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed towards the good order and happiness of the same." The President sought to impress upon Congress, in strong language, the injustice of advancing four millions of colored persons to citizenship "while the States in which most of them reside are debarred from any participancy in the legislation." He found many provisions of the bill in conflict with the Constitution of the United States as it had been hitherto construed, and argued elaborately against its expediency or necessity in any form.

"The white man and the black race," said the President, "have hitherto lived in the South in the relation of master and slave,--capital owning labor.

Now suddenly the relation is changed and as to the ownership, capital and labor are divorced.

In this new relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious.

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