ts, I
am by no means an indifferent one, and I may say to you in the
frankness of private friendship, that I have for a long time
looked with dread and apprehension at the corrupting influence
which the contest for the foreign vote is exerting upon our
elections. This seems to result from its being banded together,
and subject to the control of a few interested and selfish
leaders. Hence it has been a subject of bargain and sale, and
each of the great political parties of the country have been
bidding to obtain it, and, as usual in all such contests, the
party which is most corrupt is most successful. The consequence
is, that it is fast demoralizing the whole country; corrupting
the very fountains of political power; and converting the
ballot-box--that great palladium of our liberty--into an
unmeaning mockery, where the rights of native-born citizens are
voted away by those who blindly follow their mercenary and
selfish leaders. The evidence of this is found not merely in
the shameless chaffering for the foreign vote at every
election, but in the large disproportion of offices which are
now held by foreigners at home and abroad, as compared with our
native citizens. Where is the true-hearted American whose cheek
does not tingle with shame and mortification to see our highest
and most coveted foreign missions filled by men of foreign
birth to the exclusion of native-born? Such appointments are a
humiliating confession to the crowned heads of Europe that a
Republican soil does not produce sufficient talent to represent
a Republican nation at a monarchical court. I confess that it
seems to me--with all due respect to others--that, as a general
rule, our country should be governed by American-born citizens.
Let us give to the oppressed of every country an asylum and a
home in our happy land, give to all the benefits of equal laws,
and equal protection; but let us at the same time cherish, as
the apple of our eye, the great principles of constitutional
liberty, which few who have not had the good fortune to be
reared in a free country know how to appreciate and still less
how to preserve.

"Washington, in that inestimable legacy which he left to his
country--his farewell address--has wisely warned us to beware
of foreign influence as th