A. D. D. R. E. SS
TO THE
PUBLIC AUTHORITIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
By
ºr H E LOUIS I.A. N.A
NATIVE AIMERICANſ A$$@@IATION's
Adopted JANUARy 4, 1836.
Neºn (ºricans,
PRINTED At THE TRUE AMERICAN office.
1836.



A DDR. E. S.S.
SIR-The Corresponding Secretary of the Native American
Association of Louisiana, having been instructed by that body to
confer with you, relative to the present naturalization laws of the
United States; in conformity with that instruction, I take the
liberty of addressing you :
The facility with which foreigners attain citizenship, in our
country, is calculated, in the opinion of many citizens, to tarnish
the lustre of American institutions, and to deteriorate the purity of
the elective franchise; and thus, possibly, at some future period,
to annihilate our Republic; for, if any political circumstance be
permitted to exist in this land, which is calculated to diminish our
respect for, or to render the heretofore sacred right of suffrage
odious or contemptible in the estimation of its inhabitants, that
circumstance, whatever it may be, is calculated to subvert or over-
throw our present admirable form of government; and thus, the
most sacred prerogative of freemen, should we permit its prosti-
tution, instead of constituting the paladium of our liberties and
perpetuity of our institutions, may become the engine of our po-
litical dissolution.
This subject has been brought so fairly before the inhabitants
of our common country, not only by the prints which have advo-
cated the modification of our naturalization laws, but by those
also which have opposed it, that your attention has, doubtless,
been awakened; and you have probably, ere this, determined on
the course which you intend to pursue in relation to this important
subject. The Louisiana Native American Association do not,
therefore, entertain any idea, by this address, of enlightening your
mind, should you have already directed your attention to the sub-
ject; but, it is within the compass of possibility, amid the many
other engrossing duties of your high station, that you may not
have considered the subject of as much importance as it is con-
ceived, by many citizens, to be ; and you may, therefore, be
possibly induced, by this communication, to afford it your attention
during the present session of congress. -
Whether you agree with us, sir, in those views of the subject
which we hereby take the liberty of presenting, or not, no possible
harm can arise from the free intercommunion of the citizens of
one portion of our beloved country with another, no matter how
remote. Our object is the same—the general good; and whether

4
we agree in opinion as to the best method of promoting this or
not, still we cannot, as Americans, confer too often, or too freely, on
the best means of preserving and perpetuating our admirable
institutions, in their original purity, to the latest posterity.
Patriotism, love of country, therefore, will dictate the course
you, sir, will pursue, as it does ours; and whether we differ or
agree as to the best mode of exercising and rendering it useful,
still, our object and end are the same-our country’s good—her
nappiness and prosperity.
The first question which naturally addresses itself to the mind
of every American, when reflecting on this subject, is the follow-
ing:—Will such a modification of our naturalization laws now, as
will diminish the facility by which foreigners attain all the rights,
immunities and privileges of citizenship, reflect a shadow of
ingratitude upon the hitherto stainless memories of our venerated
forefathers, by their descendants, at this period, ceasing to fulfil the
obligations which they incurred when they made this land an
asylum for the oppressed of every nation, guaranteeing to them,
under certain conditions, and after a certain probation, equal
rights, immunities and privileges, with the native born children of
the soil.
Can foreigners justly say, hereafter, “the patriarchs of the
American revolution,” in order to gain foreign aid and assistance
to fight their battles and build up their present great and flourish-
ing nation, entered into obligations with all foreigners who should
come among them, and submit to their probationary provisions;
but they have deceived us; for their ungrateful and degenerate
posterity have proved recreant to the engagements of their ances-
tors, by basely refusing to fulfil the obligations which their fathers
voluntarily incurred. -
If such a charge can be justly made against us, and by implica-
tion against the memories of our revered forefathers, then, the
undertaking which this communication is intended to promote,
should perish still-born, and be consigned to everlasting oblivion!
But we respectfully conceive that no such charge can ever be
justly raised against us, or reflectively against the sacred memories
of our fathers, as we will endeavor to demonstrate.
At the time the sages of the American revolution projected the
wise, happy and indulgent government under which we live, they
did so under circumstances of great and unprecedented peril; and
every foreigner, who was willing to cast in his lot with them, had
to jeopardize, in common with our fathers, his life, his fortune and
his sacred honor. This extraordinary hazard justly entitled
every foreigner, who incurred it, to every right, privilege and
immunity which our country could bestow upon them; and they
have received them in fruition, and their descendants are now no
longer adopted citizens, but the native children of the soil, and the
legitimate inheritors of every blessing secured to our happy land,
º . struggles, perils and privations of our revolutionary fore-
athers.

5
Even after the revolutionary war had terminated, the perpetuity
and practicability of our republic on so gigantic a scale as was
necessarily contemplated in prospective, was considered in a great
degree problematical. It was, indeed, an experiment; and all
foreigners who came amongst us, hazarded all their future hopes
and prospects upon its success; and, inasmuch as they had periled
their all upon the successful result of the experiment, they also
were entitled to all the rights, immunities and privileges of the
native born inhabitants of the soil. These they have possessed,
and their children, and children's children will continue to enjoy
them to the latest posterity. -
Not only have foreigners, who aided our fathers in their revo-
lutionary exertions, and those who contributed to build up the
incipient greatness of our country, but all other foreigners, without
distinction, who, during the last half century have fled for refuge
from transatlantic despotism to this happy land, have enjoyed the
same rights, immunities and privileges also ; and almost every
office in our country, from the highest to the lowest, has been
filled by naturalized foreigners, indiscriminately, as by native
born citizens.
The engagements of our fathers with foreigners, have, there-
fore, been fulfilled by them and their descendants, to the letter,
with a large balance of favor extended to them gratuitously. The
pledges which our fathers gave to foreigners have, therefore, been
amply redeemed, and they stand as ever, spotless and immaculate,
and no reflection can ever be justly cast upon their memories, if
we, their descendants, deeming it advisable, think it our duty, for
the safety of our country and her institutions, at this period of
time, to change the naturalization laws for future genera-
tions. -
Now, when the permanency of our republican institutions is
established upon a firm and immutable basis; when our country’s
magnificent destinies are beginning to be fulfilled; when our
power is acknowledged throughout the universe; when we have
nothing to apprehend from a comparison with any nation in the
world; when, even, our national debt is extinct, and surplus
revenue to an immense amount is hourly accumulating in our
national treasury, and we (unlike European nations) require the
aid of no foreign Rothschilds to enable us to resent the aggressions
or humble the arrogance of any external enemy who may incur
our resentment, by unwarrantable acts—when so abiding is the
attachment to our institutions throughout this hemisphere, that
every internal enemy which has arisen to agitate the elements of
our holy union, has been laughed to scorn by the united voices of
the whole nation. -
Can foreigners, then, who emigrate to this land, under these
propitious circumstances, not to encounter perils, but to reap the
rich reward of revolutionary sufferings—can those who now come
but to bask in the bright beams of national contentment, happiness
and prosperity—who are permitted to reap in peace and security,

6
the rich harvest which our fathers sowed in anguish, toil and blood
—to enjoy the fruits of our indulgent institutions, and to “sit
under their own vine and fig tree, with none to make them afraid.”
—Can such as these be permitted to demand equal rights, immu-
nities and privileges, or to accuse America, if she refuse to grant,
to fºre emigrants, the same easy terms of citizenship which were
permitted to those who hurried from other lands to water with
their blood, the tree of American liberty; or, who periled their
all in the defence or support of our country, when beset with every
danger and surrounded and encumbered by external and internal
enemies No, it cannot be Justice forbids it—patriotism forbids
it!—It is, indeed, setting too low an estimate upon the blessings
which the inexpressible sufferings and privations of our revolu-
tionary fathers have achieved for us, to render them accessible on
such easy conditions, to every foreigner who will condescend to
accept them. -
Depend upon it, sir, the sacredness with which we surround
our political privileges, and the greater difficulties foreigners
experience in obtaining access to them, the higher estimate they
will set upon them, and the more deeply they will reverence, and
the more devotedly they will protect them, whenever they do
succed in attaining them.
Your high position in our country, sir, with the enlarged expe-
rience which it presupposes, forbids our offering any illustrative de-
monstrations of the universality of that principle in the human mind,
that, “what costs no exertion to obtain, is considered of no value.”
If then, we have been sufficiently fortunate to establish the
justice of a change of our naturalization laws, at this period, both
as regards ourselves and the obligations of our revolutionary an-
cestors, the next duty which devolves upon us is, to endeavor to
demonstrate the necessity of such a proceeding for the future
security of our institutions.
It cannot be denied, that almost all foreigners in the United
States, whether they have undergone the forms of our present
maturalization laws or not; are, nevertheless, influenced, in all
their political acts by a species of esprit dº corps, by which an
uniformity of action is established amongst them all. This might
not be considered an objectionable circumstance, if it arose from
patriotic motives, or from an universal love, on their part, for our
institutions; but, unfortunately, it is bound up too much with
transatlantic predilections and reminiscences. For let but a foreigner
be named as a candidate for any office, and he is secure of the
entire foreign vote. This has long been well known ; or let any
American be shrewd enough to work upon the prejudices of the
leaders of the foreign party throughout the United States, and
obtain their support, and so sure as a herd of sheep will follow its
belwether, just so sure is he of obtaining almost the entire foreign
Vote.
Assuredly, if naturalized citizens generally reasoned on the na-
ture of our electoral privileges, and the same lights and shadows of

7
political action impelled them, by which the native born citizens
ºf the United States are influenced, they could not all think alike
on any one subject. The same dissimilarity of opinions must ne:
cessarily arise amongst them, as amongst us, native born; and they
could not as they do, act “en masse” on every political subject.
The legitimate inference from this fact is, that naturalized citi-
zens do not, as we do, reason on the probable result of any politi-
cal operation. They (with few exceptions) follow, blindly, the
mandates of their leaders, without reference to the consequences,
good or bad, of any political movement in which they may partici-
ate.
If the truth of this position be admitted, it is anti-American, and
strikes deeply at the purity and permanency of our present popular
form of government. For if three millions of foreigners uniformly
actin concert, and as we have reason to believe at the instigation of
their leaders, what would be requisite in order to overthrow our
government, but to corrupt those leaders, and thus place the
entire naturalized party at the feet of some future demagogue.
These remarks are by no means intended to give offence—they
are not retrospective, but prospective. We do not pretend to inti-
mate that naturalized citizens have ever yet violated their oaths
of allegiance, or been guilty of treasonable practices or feelings
towards the United States; but we maintain, that if one of the
avowed leading foreign presses in the United States, say the
Truth Teller or Irishman, of New York, were to advocate any
man for office, be he who he may, or any measure or principle,
however heterodox or anti-American, that the opinion or principle
advocated by such a paper, would be endorsed by nine out of every
ten foreign born citizens throughout the United States. Acting
thus in concert, they present a foreign party, of three millions of
individuals, affiliated and disciplined, and ready to follow their
leaders, either to build up or hew down the sacred ramparts of the
constitution. Moving thus, in solid phalanx, they present to the
dissentient and deliberative mass of the American community,
influenced as it is by diversified interests, opinions and preposses-
sions, the attitude of a solid column of well appointed and dis-
ciplined veteran troops, ready at a moments warning for action,
when arrayed against unarmed, undisciplined and unsuspecting
citizens. And when the facilities for emigration. from Europe to
America, which are now contemplated, clail have been completed,
God only knows, unless our naturalization laws be amended,
where this perilous power in the hands of naturalized citizens will
terminate, or how long they will permit our sacred—our blood
bought institutions to endure.
If then, sir, it be admitted that under the present naturalization
laws, naturalized citizens possess a power which may hereafter
become dangerous to our institutions, what remedy can be de-
vised to prevent the evil? We conceive that an extension or
elongation of the period at which foreigners can obtain the rights

8
of citizenship will be effectual; dating the period of their admission
as American citizens, twenty-one years from the time of their giving
notice of their intention so to do; and rendering them inadmissible,
without going through the same formalities again, should they
spend more than twelve months of the twenty-one years out of the
United States.
Such a law might, at first view, appear harsh and severe, but we
conceive that it would be just, should it pass this session of congress,
and take effect on the 1st of January, 1837, so as to afford an
opportunity for all the world to become acquainted with the ex-
istence of such a law, that no foreigner might be enabled to say,
hereafter, I left my country hoodwinked; believing from their
promulgated laws, that I should have to expend but five years in
obtaining the rights of an American citizen, but I have been en-
trapped and imposed upon by the American government.
The principles upon which we have taken the liberty of specify-
ing the number of years, twenty-one, are simply the following:
The laws of the land require that twenty-one years of a native
American’s life shall have been expended ere he is entitled to the
electoral prerogatives of citizenship, and we respectfully conceive
that it requires quite as long a time for a foreigner born, to divest
himself of all his foreign prejudices, predilections and predisposi-
tions, and become perfectly assimilated with usin political feelings,
sympathies and antipathies, as it does to rear up an American
born citizen from birth to manhood; indeed, we conscientiously
believe that the allotted life of man, three score and ten years resi-
dence of a foreigner born, who arrives after maturity in the United
States, are inadequate to render him thoroughly, in American
principles, one of us. He will still retain his lingering foreign
reminiscences, he will still grasp a foreigner by the hand with
more enthusiastic warmth, and he will open his purse with more
cordiality to relieve the wants and necessities of a suffering
foreigner, than of a native American citizen. These assertions can
not be controverted; a glance at the only individuals employed in
all the commercial, mechanical or agricultural establishments
throughout the United States, which are owned by naturalized
citizens, is sufficient to establish their truth.
Again, in relation to the necessity of an alteration and extension
of the period of naturalization, a striking inconsistency may occur,
where a foreigner born, who has been in the United States but
nine years, may be elected United States Senator, while a native
born American citizen, who has been twenty-nine years a resident,
would be ineligible to the office.
The very fact of a more advanced age being necessary to render
a man eligible to certain offices in the United States, is proof
positive that mere maturity was not considered a guarantee of
thorough acquaintance with our institutions, but that additional
pre-requisites, additional intimacy with the nature of our govern-
ment, and additional wisdom were necessary to qualify a man for
such important and responsible offices.

9
can a foreigner then abandon all his prejudices of education, and
acquire such a knowledge of our country, and such a veneration
for her principles and institutions, as to become worthy to hold
a seat in the senate of the United States, in nine years; and if a
solitary doubt of his ability to do so exist, let it not be urged in
answer to this remonstrance, that no foreigner could obtain suffi-
cient influence in nine years to be elected to the senate of the
United States. Is it wise, is it consistent in our rulers to create
or permit the continuance of legislative provisions under the mere
casual hope or vague anticipation that they may never be acted
upon
Another striking inconsistency may arise under the present
naturalization laws, where a foreigner may arrive in the United
States, remain there a single hour, return to Europe and continue
there seven years, when he may return to the United States, become
in an hour a citizen, and the next day be elected to congress;
while a native born citizen of the United States, who has been
cradled in the very lap of loyalty, and reared up and imbued with
devotion to our country, and with every fibre of whose heart has
been entwined the sacred principles of patriotism; and, yet, this
native American who has been twenty-four years a resident of the
United States, is ineligible to an office, which may be filled by a
foreigner who has not spent three consecutive hours on our soil.
Is it any wonder, with these partialities staring foreigners in
the face, that they are opposed to any change in our naturalization
laws, and that they have menaced with personal violence—tar and
feathers, those native American citizens who have united together
for the purpose of awakening the attention of the American com-
munity, in order that this glaring injustice towards native Ameri-
cans may be expunged from the statutes of the land 1
The Americans are naturally a benevolent and unsuspecting
people. Indulgently, and without giving a thought to the matter,
they have permitted foreigners not only to enjoy all the rights and
privileges of our land, as citizens, but they have indiscreetly
allowed them to affiliate and form secret societies, (for their
societies are inaccessible to all but foreigners or their descendants,
whom they suppose to be imbued with the same sentiments and
predilections by which their ancestors are influenced) and not
only have foreigners been permitted to form secret societies, the
acts and proceedings of which are unknown to native Americans,
by which societies and the foreignized prints growing out of them,
they are enabled to pass the signal for united action, and to move
simultaneously in any political operation, from one end of the
United States to the other; but they (foreigners) have been per-
mitted to proceed so far as to organize bands of foreign soldiery,
armed and equipped, and bearing a foreign name, and commanded
in a foreign language, to mingle on equal terms with the native
American troops of the United States. The existence of these
foreign societies and foreign volunteer companies, keeps up a
foreign tone of feeling in our land, and prevents identity and

|(}
homogenity of character among the population of the United
States, and they should be prohibited. -
When an Hibernian, or French, or German society, (on the
day of its foreign patron saint) celebrates its annual fete, are
the hallowed objects of American love and reverence the subjects
ºf their adoration 7 No! All their reminiscences emanate from
“the fader land”—and all their aspirations are directed by love
for the people, and “the land they come from.”
It is the opinion of many honest politicians that a change in our
naturalization laws would prevent emigration to this country.—
We, sir, respectfully conceive that this is an erroneous opinion.
It is not to benefit our country that foreigners come amongst us,
but to accommodate themselve; and our rulers are bound to
legislate, not for the convenience and gratification of foreigners,
but for the safety, happiness, and prosperity of the United States.
Under the existing naturalization laws, foreigners are on their
arrival, induced to congregate in cities, and to support and sustain
one another in order that they may form a party sufficiently im-
posing to give, if possible, a foreign tone to the community, and to
fill every office to which their aggregate power can succeed in
elevating them,-their greater flexibility of character enables
them to stoop to solicit for office and support where an American
cannot and will not condescend; and thus by mutual support,
they are thrust into almost all our subordinate offices, to the exclu-
sion of native born American citizens, and better men. And from
their never expending a single dollar with an American, when
they can possibly throw it into the hands of a foreigner, which
exclusion an American never thinks of wealth is thus heaped
upon them, and they acquire the power which wealth gives; and
a species of foreign monied aristocracy exists, and has acquired
high and dangerous powers throughout our land.
Were the naturalization laws changed, in the manner we have
respectfully suggested, no temptation would exist to retain them
in the neighborhood of large cities, for political purposes; but
they would be permitted, by their foreign master spirits, to dis-
seminate themselves throughout our wide spread country, there to
level the forest and make the wilderness to blossom as the rose—
to become the pioneers in improvement, and to rear up a race of
native American yeomanry to add to the strength and glory of our
common country.
If it could even be substantiated that a change of the present
naturalization laws would prevent emigration to this country, we
respectfully conceive that such a circumstance should not prevent
it. It is better for our country's population to increase firmly,
soundly and radically, although slowly, than by a too rapid, badly
digested, and excrescent growth, to become prematurely infirm
and unsubstantial.
To compare small things with great—communities with indi-
viduals (and the comparison is logical and just)—the youth who
attains, by a too rapid growth, the stature of a man prematurely,

| 1
grows up slender, infirm, feeble, diseased and rickety-verbum
sat. Let not such be the condition of our country from her rapid
accumulation of an incongruous, incompatible population, with
premature powers to interfere with her government and institu-
tions. Better that our country should be ten thousand years
acquiring her promised stature of collossal manhood, than that by
a morbidly rapid growth, she acquire premature old age—and
decay and dissolve without fulfilling her high and important des-
tinies. We owe to our posterity, an exemption from the evils
with which they are threatened by foreign influence, and every
succeeding generation which permits the naturalization laws to
continue as they exist at present, is setting one more precedent,
which aided by the daily increasing powers of foreigners, will
render the struggle more severe, and the accomplishment more
difficult when it shall be (for it eventually must be) attempted.
The probability is, from the spirit which we see abroad in our land,
that when, hereafter, a change in the naturalization laws shall be
attempted by our descendants, that revolution and civil war may
be the result, and possibly the overthrow of our government. Let
us not then leave such a root of bitterness in our laws and institu-
tions as may grow up into a moral and political Bohon Upas, quali-
fied to poison and annihilate the whole. - -
We might add on this part of the subject, the remark, that native
born Americans, who have been twenty-one years in the United
States, are certainly better qualified to judge as to the proper
persons who are to represent them in office, than foreigners who
have been but five years in the United States. And can Americans
not be permitted to differ conscientiously on political subjects,
without apprehending that a trained band of foreigners will step in
between them, (as is frequently the case in our large cities) and
by dint of discipline and physical exertion, defeat both parties and
carry of the prize -
If America is always capable of furnishing a suitable person for
president, surely she is capable of furnishing men adequate to fill
every inferior station in our country. And it really appears as if
the election and employment of foreign born citizens to the various
offices of our country, to the exclusion of native Americans, is a
tacit but bitter reflection upon the native born children of the soil,
and should be discountenanced. -
If we have (as recent circumstances seem to indicate) reason to
feel anxiety for the security of our country from anarchy and mob
law amongst ourselves; what have we not to apprehend from
masses of turbulent foreigners, whose whole life has been a series of
resistance to the laws which governed them, and in whom the spirit
of sedition and insubordination is so confirmed, that they cannot
submit to the sacred obligations of law, or be content with the
degree of rational freedom, comprised in the word American
liberty. Indeed, is there not reason to believe that the frequency
of Lynch or mob law, recently in the United States, is the result of
a foreign, tumultuary spirit growing up and acquiring strength
throughout our country.

ſº
12
If there be a subject on which all native Americans ought to
unite in one opinion, (and you will find, sir, that ALL foreigners,
whether naturalized or not, have long since united to oppose it) it
is this one, viz: a change of the naturalization law, in which all
are equally interested, the perpetuity of our institutions and the
happiness of our posterity, possibly depending upon its accom-
plishment.
So far from diminishing the happiness or prosperity of foreigners,
a change of the naturalization laws would secure them from being
made the instruments of wily demagogues before they understood
the nature and spirit of our institutions,—it would not curtail the
enjoyments of those who were already naturalized, nor prohibit
those who were not from any actual benefit or real enjoyment. It
would establish an identity of American character which does not
In OW exist.
It would amalgamate native Americans and naturalized citizens
more closely, and establish a firmer bond of union between them,
by isolating them from the rest of the world, and the name of
foreigner (as a term of reproach) would be done away forever in
this land. It is the rapidity with which foreigners acquire a right
to interfere with our institutions and government, that is the sole
and only cause of strife between them and native Americans;
remove that stumbling block, that rock of offence, and unkindness
will cease. And a single generation will make the descendants of
all foreigners, native American citizens.
We will now terminate our long communication; nothing but
our sincere conviction of the importance of the subject would have
induced us to dictate it. In closing, we beg leave to call your
attention to one dreadful commentary on the premature admission
of foreigners into the rights and privileges of the American people,
and the occupation of American offices, and their lingering attach:
ments to a foreign land. General Bernard, who has long filled
the distinguished office of chief-engineer of the Uuited States, is
no sooner beckoned to by a royal finger, than he hastens to throw
up his commission and fly to foreign service. He is now aid de
camp to the king of the French, Louis Philippe; with probably the
original draughts, of the principal part of our fortifications, and a
perfect and familiar knowledge of every vulnerable point in the
United States; and should he be commanded by his royal master,
to aid or accompany an invading army to the United States, he
must either prove disloyal to his king and country, or initiate them
into those state secrets of our country, with which his indiscreet
and unwarrantable appointment has invested him.
With the sincere hope, sir, that the imperfect suggestions con-
tained above may prove beneficial to my country, and with the
most ardent wishes for your health and happiness.
I remain, sir, respectfully, -
Your obedient humble servant,
J. S. M'FARLANE,
Corresponding Secretary of the Louisiana
Native American Association.
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