Was He Saying the U.S. had the Right to Forbid the LDS from Coming?

     Did once an honorable senator from Pennsylvania suggest people should not be expected to have to live in the same society as the Latter-day Saints?
     Did he suggest that when there are different races, different religions, and different traditions, the people already in possession of the land have the right to forbid entrance into their territory of those who are so different from them as are the LDS?
   Mind you, he was talking about immigration when he was talking. This Sen. Edgar Cowan is better remembered for his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, warning it would allow women to enter contracts without the consent of their husbands.
  But, perhaps he left just as big a mark on the world with what he said on this related, but separate issue, immigration.
  Were his words echoes of attitudes already out there? Or, did some of the things he said plant seeds for what we as a nation became in regards to immigration? And, did all that was going on with the LDS people back then play a part as immigration attitudes were molded that remain in place to this day.
   The LDS had moved into such places as Missouri, where an existing populace, feeling they were there first, rejected them. The Missourians felt they were being invaded by a people more numerous, who would thus take over politically.
    Now, Cowan didn't speak to the LDS pouring into Missouri. That had come decades earlier. But, the situation he did speak to had likeness to what had happened in Missouri. Cowan spoke of California, and of the Chinese moving in there, and of them, "pouring in such an immigration as in a short time will double or treble the population of California."
  Then, Cowan unloaded the question that should ring in our souls as we consider what  the Missourians should have had the right to do when the LDS flooded their state. "I ask," Cowan said, "are the people of California powerless? . . . California has the right, if she deems it proper, to forbid the entrance into her territory of any person she chooses who is not a citizen of someone of the United States. She cannot forbid his entrance; but if she was likely to be invaded by a flood of Australians or people from Borneo -- man-eaters or cannibals, if you please -- she would have the right to say that those people should not come there. It depends on the inherent character of men. Why, sir, there are nations of people with whom theft is a virtue and falsehood a merit. There are people to whom polygamy is as natural as monogamy is with us."
   People who were as natural with polygamy as others were with monogamy? Could Sen. Cowan have been speaking of the LDS people? Many of them were pouring into America from foreign countries at the time. Should our nation have rightfully locked them out?
    Possession is nine-tenths of the law, they say. He who is here first has the right to exclude he who might come after, especially if the person coming isn't willing to homogenize with the people already in possession of the land.
   I think today of how we demand that they should speak English, among other things. The thought that they should adopt our ways if they want to live here echoes in the words of Sen. Cowan: "And, if another people of a different race, of different religion, of different manners, of different traditions, different tastes and sympathies are to come there and have the right to locate there and settle among them, and if they have opportunity of pouring in such an immigration as in a short period of time will double or treble the population of California, I ask, are the people of California powerless to protect themselves? . . . California has the right . . . to forbid the entrance . . ."
   I think of our day, of how Muslims have swept into Detroit in such numbers as to overtake the city. I think of places in Europe where we hear of similar situations. I hear the talk of how that isn't right. And, I hear the words of Sen. Cowan, echoing in my mind. "I ask, are the people of California powerless to protect themselves?"
   And, I think of the LDS people pouring into Missouri, and of the Missourians seeing the LDS as being an invasion of people who were, in the words of Sen. Cowan, "of different religion, of different manners, of different traditions, different tastes and sympathies."
   Do we, today, have the right to deny people entry into our country? Perhaps most everyone reading this would say, "Certainly -- certainly and without question."
   But, then, by the same token, should the Missourians have been allowed to lock out the LDS? For surely if they could have, they would have. You might argue that those moving into Missouri were already citizens. But I will tell you that somewhere back in the timeline of the LDS people migrating, many of them came from foreign countries.
    And, they weren't welcome. They believed differently. For one thing, they believed in polygamy.
   I am not so sure but what I believe the LDS had an inalienable right to come. And, if we believe that, then what of the preposterous thought that those coming from Mexico and from Central and South America have the inalienable right to come?
   That is a preposterous thought to some, but not to me.
    I will close with one more thought. We didn't have laws restricting immigration until along about that time. But, following a large wave of migration -- which included so much of the early LDS migration -- our nation said, enough is enough, and began to enact laws against immigration. That was the starting point.
   The backlash against immigration leading to the laws we have today was, in at least a little part, a backlash against the LDS people. Smoke this in that pipe you're not allowed to smoke: Our is a heritage of having helped to foster the immigration attitudes and laws that we have today.