Foreign Affairs Burlingame Treaty of 1868
Anson Burlingame was the U.S. minister to China in the Lincoln and Johnson administrations. His fairness was respected by the Chinese, who selected him to represent their interests in improving relations with Britain and the United States. In a treaty concluded in Washington, the U.S. and China agreed on the following:
- That either nation would be open to unlimited immigration from the other
- That citizens of one nation would be able to travel, study and reside freely in the other nation
- That the United States would not interfere with internal Chinese affairs.
The United States was actively encouraging the influx of Chinese workers as a source of inexpensive labor. This effort would later be reversed in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, setting a pattern of discrimination for the next 60 years.
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