Progress and Reform
for at that time the volume of immigration from various European lands was great and was increasing, and nearly all of the immigrants purposed to become naturalized.
It was of course desirable to have that principle recognized by the nations which had theretofore denied it, by means of treaties or otherwise. In 1868 several such treaties were made with various German States and with Belgium, and in 1869 with Sweden and Norway. The German treaties were of little significance, however, since the German Empire in 1871 practically repudiated them with respect to all male immigrants who could by any jugglery be charged with having evaded or failed to perform their full quota of compulsory military service. The really important establishment of the principle occurred in 1870 when there was promulgated a treaty, which had been made in 1869, between the United States and Great Britain, in which the British government unequivocally recognized the right of its subjects or citizens to renounce their allegiance and become Americans, and to enjoy thereafter the same protection from the American government and the same consideration and respect from the British government that native American citizens enjoyed. After that it was only a question of time when every nation in the world was compelled to give the same recognition to that great Republican doctrine of the right of the individual man to self-determination.
It was in Grant's first year, too, on May 10, 1869, that another great work was achieved through the wisdom of Republican statesmanship and the energy of Republican enterprise. This was the completion of
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