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“As you and I have both expressed friendly sentiments towards the citizens of the Flowery Kingdom, we may hope to be in high favor should we live till that time.”

In this humorous letter to Methodist minister John Philip Newman, retired Admiral and Civil War naval hero David Dixon Porter complements the pastor on his recent lecture on the Chinese and sends him a copy of Porter’s recent article from a monthly military affairs journal about the Chinese. Both men viewed the anti-Chinese hysteria in the United States as irrational and unworthy of a nation founded on the declaration that “all men are created equal.” Their lecture and article expressed admiration for Chinese accomplishments and urged public leaders not to give way to the anti-Chinese frenzy. Sadly, three years later, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first act restricting immigration into the United States.

DAVID DIXON PORTER. Autograph Letter Signed, to John Philip Newman, March 14, 1879, Washington, D.C. 3 pp., 5 x 8 in.

Inventory #22730       Price: $2,000

Complete Transcript

                                                                        1710 H. St. N.W.
                                                                        Washington D.C.

                                                                        Mch. 14, 1879

Dear Sir:
            Not long since I read in the “Herald” a very interesting report of a lecture by you on the subject of the Chinese and our treatment of them.
            Your utterances coincided so nearly with my own opinions that I was particularly pleased with the article.
            By today’s mail I send you a copy of the “United Service Quarterly Aeneid” containing an article on <2> Chinese contributed by me.
            The article was written some two months ago about the time when the Californians began to get excited on the subject of the Chinese Question.
            The article I send may serve to amuse you and perhaps make you a little uneasy about the future prospect of the establishment of a Mongolian dynasty in Washington.
            As you and I have both expressed friendly sentiments towards the citizens of the Flowery Kingdom, we may hope to be in high favor should we live till that time, but should neither of us live as long as Methuselah, we certainly may expect at least a present of a box of tea from his Excellency Chin lan <3> Pin.[1]
            With my kind regards to Mrs Newman and best wishes for yourself I remain

                                                                        Very sincerely Yours.

                                                                       David D Porter / Admiral

Reverend Dr. Newman

Historical Background
On March 4, 1879, Rev. Dr. John Philip Newman lectured at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City on “China and the Chinese” for the benefit of Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey. He praised President Rutherford B. Hayes for his recent courageous veto of a Chinese exclusion act as a violation of treaty obligations between China and the United States. Newman reviewed the geography, area, climate, and resources of the Chinese Empire, then turned to their civilization.

What shall be the standard of civilization? Shall it be organized government? This they have had for 2,000 years. Their code of laws has excited the admiration of European statesmen, who have translated the same into English, and in their methods of administration they excel us. They combine in their government the despotism of an autocracy with the freedom of a democracy. Their system of education Is compact and thorough…. It is true they do not study our Western sciences, but the classic sayings of Confucius and Mencius on moral and political economy. They are the greatest road and bridge builders in the East; their temples and palaces are magnificent; their silks and ivory works are superior. They produce all the necessaries of life and many of its luxuries.[2]

Newman continued, “In view of these great commercial advantages awaiting our fuller acceptance, it was a crime against our national commerce for Congress to pass that anti-Emigration bill. It was because Western nations forced themselves upon the Chinese that the Chinese in turn have become emigrants for trade and pleasure.... It is true that many of those in Cuba and Peru are coolie slaves, but it is not true that such is the character of the Chinese on the Pacific slope.” From these observations, Newman turned to a more somber tone: “But how have we treated these free emigrants? We ourselves have violated at least three of the articles of the Burlingame Treaty.” He summarized these observations by declaring that “California is richer and greater to-day because of the emigration of the Celestials.” Newman concluded, “Let us give them the advantages of education and religion, and the youngest and the oldest empires of the world shall be great and glorious. Above all, let our public men preserve our national honor with the nations of the earth.”[3]

As he mentions in this letter, Porter wrote an article entitled, “The Chinese in America—Present and Future, Etc.,” which was published in the April 1879 issue of The United Service, a monthly review of military and naval affairs published from 1879 to 1886. The tone of the article was a bit tongue-in-cheek and decidedly paternalistic, though not harshly racist. He used sarcasm to point out the excesses of American and European racist stereotypes of the Chinese. Porter began his article with the question, “Who of us who was then in existence has forgotten the excitement produced in the year 1849 by the announcement of the discovery of gold in California?” After several pages of describing his adventures in taking a ship around South America to the Pacific coast of Panama, Porter reflected on the mass of humanity making its way to California: “Men of the lowest and most debased character were associated with persons of the greatest refinement; gamblers, thieves, and murderers were on an equality with the best, and I rejoiced that I had not the gold fever, but was satisfied with my condition.”[4]

Porter assured his readers that “California has now established her supremacy, and San Francisco is to-day the queen city of the Pacific, although a few years ago she was but an assemblage of huts and tents. Her palaces and warehouses are filled with the products of the world, and California is attached to the Union not only by law, but by those bands of iron which have crossed the continent to contribute to her prosperity.” Turning to the origins of Chinese immigration to California, Porter wrote, “Woo Ting, the great prime minister...advised the Emperor to permit the worst of his subjects to go abroad and sow the seeds of civilization and the sublime doctrines of Confucius among all the tribes of outside barbarians tributaries to the Celestial Empire.” Many Chinese laborers who worked on the Panama Railroad migrated to California, where they were welcomed as a cheap source of labor. “The important questions,” Porter continued, “whether the Chinaman was white or ‘colored,’ whether he should be allowed a vote, in fact, whether he had any rights an Irishman or German was bound to respect, had not then agitated the public mind, but it seemed to be tacitly understood that John could work as hard as he pleased for as little as he pleased, and when he wished to return to the Flowery Kingdom there would be no objections to his taking his earnings with him.”[5]

In 1860, Porter asserted, “there were at least forty thousand Chinese in California, and there was no objection to them then among respectable people. The Californians were thinking what a fortunate circumstance it was that there were so many thousands of hard-working people available to build the contemplated railroads, and do all the other drudgery at one-third the price charged by white men.” Porter gave the Chinese laborers great credit for the Transcontinental Railroad: “When the road was finished—a result for which we are greatly indebted to Chinese labor—the fact became apparent that ere many years a great commerce from China and Japan would pass through the Golden Gate to the Eastern States and to Europe.” Porter is also frank in admitting the persecution they faced: “It were vain to tell of the persecutions the poor Chinese underwent in California after the completion of the Pacific Railroad. By that time there were at least sixty thousand Celestials in the State, the majority of the lowest class in the social scale, and they were despised and hated by the Americans and Europeans....”[6]

Porter wondered at their treatment, especially in contrast to that of African Americans: “Under all the circumstances of the case, I do not see upon what ground we can classify the Chinese as ‘uncivilized,’ especially when we admit the most ignorant negroes of the South to all the rights of citizenship.” He found much similarity in American attitudes toward Native Americans, African Americans, and the Chinese: “We Americans have adopted the theory that this continent is for our exclusive use. Nearly all of us are in favor of exterminating the Indians, some would apply the same process to the negro race, and now Mr. K—y [Denis Kearney] and his associates have decreed that ‘the Chinese must go;’ yet at least two of these classes are, if properly utilized, a vast source of wealth to this country.”[7]

Porter goes on to praise the Chinese in the areas of political philosophy, diplomacy, public works, engineering, landscape gardening, education, and literature. He compares the persistence of the writings of Confucius for twenty-four centuries, with those of Benjamin Franklin, which he hopes “will endure as long.” In the area of religion, by contrast, “judged by our standard, the Chinese do not appear to advantage. It is to be feared that the most of them care very little for any system of worship, but will take up with the one which pays the best, or, in fact, worship anything, from a grasshopper to a teapot. The fear that they may impress such loose theological notions upon our own people is perhaps the strongest argument that can be made for their exclusion.”[8]

He predicted a continued influx of Chinese immigrants: “The Chinese will keep on coming until they become a power in the land, and no one has yet pointed out an effectual means to prevent them from coming.... Suppose we forbid by legislation the immigration of Chinese, what will be the result? In the first place, we violate our solemn treaty obligations, and forfeit our character as a nation by such dishonest dealing. In the second place, the Chinese government will in retaliation lay such restrictions upon American commerce that we will suffer greatly, more particularly when we begin to build up our trade upon the ocean, supported by so small a navy as we possess.” Porter also engaged in a bit of fanciful prophecy in which he imagined a Chinese settlement of British Columbia, which would soon expand to threaten a future United States. He concluded that such a future could occur because “we go directly counter to the advice of Washington, and in time of war prepare for peace—because we endeavor to set aside our solemn treaty obligations when it no longer suits our purpose to fulfill them, and daily give the lie to the professions we have been making since the foundation of our government.”[9]

In response to heavy unemployment, Irish-born labor leader and demagogue Denis Kearney and his friends founded the Workingmen’s Party of California (WPC) in 1877 in San Francisco. The WPC was a labor organization with the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go!” The party won enough seats in the State Senate and State Assembly to rewrite the state’s constitution in 1879 to deny voting rights to Chinese citizens. Kearney’s attacks against the Chinese were virulently racist, and the anti-Chinese hysteria spread across the state.

This sentiment led to the Angell Treaty of 1880, which revised the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 between the United States and China to allow the U.S. to suspend Chinese immigration. These revisions allowed Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited the immigration of all Chinese laborers for ten years. The law made exceptions for merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplomats, but it helped shape race-based immigration policy in the twentieth century. The Geary Act of 1892 renewed and strengthened the suspension of Chinese immigration, and the ban became permanent in 1902. That “permanent” ban endured until the Magnuson Act of 1943 allowed a small number of Chinese immigrants to enter the United States each year.

David Dixon Porter (1813-1891) was born in Pennsylvania and began naval service at the age of ten as a midshipman on a ship commanded by his father, Commodore David Porter (1780-1843). He served in the Mexican Navy from 1824 to 1828, when his father was its overall commander. The younger Porter obtained a new appointment as midshipman in the US Navy in 1829, was promoted to lieutenant in 1841, and served in the Mexican War. After the war, he took a leave of absence to command civilian ships. When the Civil War began, Porter returned to active duty. He was promoted to commander and given charge of a flotilla of twenty mortar boats to be used against the forts guarding the entrance of the Mississippi River below New Orleans. They would be a part of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron commanded by Porter’s adoptive brother Captain David G. Farragut (1801-1870). In mid-1862, Porter was ordered to Hampton Roads to aid General George B. McClellan in his Peninsula Campaign. By October, he was back on the Mississippi River, now as Acting Rear Admiral in charge of the Mississippi River Squadron. He quickly became friends with General William T. Sherman and later with General Ulysses S. Grant and played a key role in the siege of Vicksburg. Late in the summer of 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles transferred Porter to command the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and tasked him with closing the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, the last major port open to blockade runners. Cooperating with General Alfred H. Terry, Porter’s fleet successfully captured Fort Fisher, the Confederate fort protecting Wilmington, in January 1865. Porter toured the captured Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, with President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. After the war, Porter served as superintendent of the US Naval Academy from 1865 to 1869, where he initiated reforms in the curriculum to increase professionalism. In 1866, he was promoted to vice admiral, and in 1870, he became the second full admiral in US history, behind his adoptive brother Farragut. He served as de facto Secretary of the Navy in the early days of the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, but his administration led some Congressional leaders to force Secretary of the Navy Adolph E. Borie to resign after only a few months on the job. The new Secretary of the Navy George Robeson curtailed Porter’s authority and eased him into semi-retirement.

John Philip Newman (1826-1899) was born in New York City to parents of German and French descent. He became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the age of sixteen and married Angeline Ensign, the daughter of a Methodist minister. He attended a seminary in Cazenovia, New York, with the intention of going on to college, but he instead entered the Methodist ministry in 1848. After pastoring several churches in upstate New York, he transferred in 1858 to New York City. After an extensive trip to Europe and the Middle East, he was assigned to Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, where he established four annual conferences of groups of churches and also established a seminary and an orphan asylum. . In 1870, he debated Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt over the Biblical sanction for polygamy, and transcripts were carried by major newspapers across the nation. In 1869, he was appointed as pastor of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., where he remained until retiring in 1872. From 1869 to 1874, he served as Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, and President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him as Inspector of U.S. Consulates in Asia, a position he held from 1874 to 1876. After returning from Asia, he again served as pastor of the Metropolitan Church in Washington until 1879. He then transferred to the Central Methodist Church in New York City, where he remained until 1882, then transferring to the Madison Avenue Congregational Church, where he served for two years. He ministered to former President Grant in Grant’s final illness and then filled the pulpit at Metropolitan Church in Washington for a third time. He was elected as a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1888.

Condition: Very good; two horizontal mailing folds, one passing through the signature; light creasing; mild separation to the bottom of central hinge; repaired complete tear through the closing sentiment.