nations the general promise of permanent peace and good offices on
our part seems to be the only equivalent. For this the first article
undertakes as follows:

There shall be, as there have always been, peace and friendship
between the United States of America and the Ta Tsing Empire, and
between their people respectively. They shall not insult or oppress
each other for any trifling cause, so as to produce an estrangement
between them; and if any other nation should act unjustly or
oppressively, the United States will exert their good offices, on
being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement
of the question, thus showing their friendly feelings.


At the date of the negotiation of this treaty our Pacific possessions
had attracted a considerable Chinese emigration, and the advantages
and the inconveniences felt or feared therefrom had become more or
less manifest; but they dictated no stipulations on the subject to be
incorporated in the treaty. The year 1868 was marked by the striking
event of a spontaneous embassy from the Chinese Empire, headed by
an American citizen, Anson Burlingame, who had relinquished his
diplomatic representation of his own country in China to assume that
of the Chinese Empire to the United States and the European nations.
By this time the facts of the Chinese immigration and its nature and
influences, present and prospective, had become more noticeable and
were more observed by the population immediately affected and by this
Government. The principal feature of the Burlingame treaty was its
attention to and its treatment of the Chinese immigration and the
Chinese as forming, or as they should form, a part of our population.
Up to this time our uncovenanted hospitality to immigration, our