Although nearly all Republicans favored suffrage protections for Blacks in the South, many of them were less inclined to grant similar protections to immigrants in their own states: Irish Catholic immigrants in the case of northeastern Republicans; Chinese immigrants for western Republicans. Senator Henry W. Corbett of Oregon argued that extending the right to vote to Black men was “blessed” by the “Great Ruler of the universe,” but that the same did not apply to Chinese immigrants. In short, the coalition for a genuinely multiracial democracy was fragile.
