ress to establish "a system for the encouragement of immigration."
In conformity with this suggestion, Congress passed a law designed to
aid the importation of labor under contract. But the measure was soon
repealed, so that it remains the only instance in American history in
which the Federal Government attempted the direct encouragement of
general immigration.[50]

It was in 1819 that the first Federal law pertaining to immigration
was passed. It was not prompted by any desire to regulate or restrict
immigration, but aimed rather to correct the terrible abuses to which
immigrants were subject on shipboard. So crowded and unwholesome were
these quarters that a substantial percentage of all the immigrants who
embarked for America perished during the voyage. The law provided that
ships could carry only two passengers for every five tons burden; it
enjoined a sufficient supply of water and food for crew and
passengers; and it required the captains of vessels to prepare lists
of their passengers giving age, sex, occupation, and the country
whence they came. The law, however good its intention, was loosely
drawn and indifferently enforced. Terrible abuses of steerage
passengers crowded into miserable quarters were constantly brought to
the public notice. From time to time the law was amended, and the
advent of steam navigation brought improved conditions without,
however, adequate provision for Federal inspection.

Indeed such supervision and care as immigrants received was provided
by the various States. Boston, New York, Baltimore, and other ports of
entry, found helpless hordes left at their doors. They were the prey
of loan sharks and land sharks, of fake employment agencies, and every
conceivable form of swindler. Private relief was organized, but it
could reach only a small portion of the needy. About three-fourths of
the immigrants disembarked at the port of New York, and upon the State
of New York was imposed the obligation of looking after the thousands
of strangers who landed weekly at the Battery. To cope with these
conditions the State devised a comprehensive system and entrusted its
enforcement to a Board of Commissioners of Immigration, erected
hospitals on Ward's Island for sick and needy immigrants, and in 1855
leased for a landing place Castle Garden, which at once became the
popular synonym for the nation's gateway. Here the Commissioners
examined and registered the immigrants, placed at their disposal
p