civil affairs to remain, in city, state, and nation, in the
hands of those who were born and educated under republican
institutions, and not to fall altogether under control of those who were
alien in blood and religion, and who were inclined to look upon
politics, not in the light of the citizen's duty to the common weal, but
as an easy and profitable calling where the least scrupulous scoundrel
could gather the largest share of spoils. It may be that the authors of
those laws were so determined to forestall the apprehended evils of such
a dispensation because use had not accustomed them, as it has later
generations of American citizens, to live under it in humility if not
content. Or, perhaps, they wanted that profound faith of our time that
the longer this subversion of government is submitted to, the easier it
will be to get back to the rule of the honest and wise.

But, at any rate, whatever their reasons, they meant by these laws
relating to aliens to put the acquirement of citizenship under more
stringent regulations, and to check the growth and promulgation of
seditious doctrines. If it be true, as is sometimes maintained with some
plausibility, that citizens, to be intrusted with self-government,
should be endowed with a certain degree of intelligence and virtue, then
the aim of the framers of the laws, in the first case, was a good one;
and, in the second case, the country has had some experience in later
times which tends to show that they were not altogether wrong in
believing that doctrines and practices which may lead to insurrection
and civil war might best be met, so far as is possible, at the outset.
Nevertheless, the laws, under the circumstances of the time, were
ill-considered and injudicious. For one reason, they put an efficient
weapon into the hands of the opposition at a moment when it was at a
loss where to turn for one. "Anglicism" and "British gold" were
blunderbusses which, in the present popular irritation against France,
had for a time lost their usefulness, and were apt to miss fire. But an
appeal to a generous and impulsive people on behalf of the unfortunate
refugees, who had fled from the tyranny of the Old World to find liberty
and a home in the New, was sure to be listened to. A good many, besides
those who assumed that republicanism and the rights of man were in their
special keeping, believed that an unfortunate class had been dealt with
hastily, and even cruelly. The clamor, once b