Speech of Hon. George F. Hoar ... in the Senate of the United States, April ...

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NEOL TRANSFER

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No right under tfie Cofistltutjan to hold Subject States.

To every People belongs the right to establish its own
government in its own way.

The United States can not with honor buy the title of a
dispossessed tyrant, or crush a Republic*

SPEECH

OF

HON. GEORGE F. HOAR,

OF ]Vl^^SSA.CMLJt§K;XXS,

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

APRIL 17, 19 0.

W^ASHINGTON.
1900.

tS43

F /7f«^

M« *>

HARVARD

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

I

I

SPEECH

OF

HON. GEOEGE F. HOAR.

The Senate haying under consideration the joint resolution (S. B. 53) defin-
ing the policy of the United States relative to the Philippine Islands, as fol-
lows:

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled. That the Philippine Islands are territory
belonging to the United States; tnat it is tne intention of the United States
to retain them as such and to establish and maintain such goTermnental con-
trol throughout the archipelago as the situation may demand^

Mr. HOAR said:

Mr. President: When, on the 8th of July, 1898, less than two
years ago, the lamented Vice-President declared the session of the
Senate at an end, the people of the United States were at the high-
water mark of prosperity and glory. No other country on earth,
in all history, ever saw the like. It was an American prosperity
and an American glory.

We were approaching the end of a great century. From thir-
teen States we had become forty-five States. From 3,000,000 peo-
ple we had become near 80,000,000. An enormous foreign com-
merce, promising to grow to still vaster proi>ortions in the near
future, was thrown into insignificance by an internal commerce
almost passing the capacity of numbers to calculate. Our manu-
factures, making their way past hostile tariffs and fiscal regula-
tions, were displacing the products of the greatest manufacturing
nations in their own markets. South of us, from the Bio G-rande
to Cape Horn, our Monroe doctrine had banished from the Ameri-
can continent the powers of Eurox)e; Spain and France had retired;
monarchy had taken its leave; and the whole territory was occu-
pied by republics owing their freedom to us, forming their insti-
tutions on our example. Our flag, known and honored throughout
the earth, was welcomed everywhere in friendly ports, and floated
everywhere on friendly seas. We were the freest, richest, strong-
est nation on the face of thei earth — strong in all the elements of
material strength, stronger still in the justioe and liberty on
which the foundations of our empire were laid. We had abolished
slavery within our own borders by our constitutional mandate, and
had abolished slavery throughout the world by the influence of
our example.

Our national debt had been reduced with unexampled rapidity.
We had increased it somewhat for the necessary expenses of the
war. But if it had all been due, we could have paid it all in a
single year by a tax solely upon the luxuries of the rich, which
the rich would scarcely have felt, and which would have vexed
no manufacture and no branch of commerce. Rich in all material
wealth, we were richer still in a noble history and in those price-
less ideals by which a Republic must live or bear no Ufa-
4818 3

From all over the country came the voice of well-paid labor,
dwelling in happy homes, full of contentment with the present
and of hope for the future. Capital was seeking new investments
on all sides. Our domestic market, rescued from foreign inva-
sion, was our own. Foreign markets were opening. The balance
of trade was on our side. The product of American industry
was carried abroad on an overwhelming and increasing tide.

We had won the glory of a great liberator in both hemispheres.
The flag of Spain — emblem of tyranny and cruelty— -had been
driven rrom the Western Hemisphere, and was soon to go down
from her eastern possessions. The war had been conducted with-
out the loss of a gun or the capture of an American soldier in
battle. The glory of this great achievement was unlike any
other which history has recorded. It was not that we had beaten
Snain. It was not that 75,000,000 people had conquered 15,000,000.
Not that the spirit of the nineteenth century had been too much
for the spirit or the fifteenth century. Not that the young athlete
had felled to the ground a decrepit old man of ninety. It was not
that the American mechanic and engineer in the machine shop
could make better ships or better guns; or that the American
soldier or sailor had displayed the same quality in battle that he
had shown on every fiela— at Bunker Hill, at Yorktown, at
Lundys Lane, at New Orleans, at Buena Vista, at Gettysburg;
in every sea fi^ht on Lake Erie or on the Atlantic. Nobody
doubted the skill of the American general, the gallantry of the
American admiral, or the courage of the American soldier or
sailor. The glory of the war and of the victory was that it was
a war and a victory in the interest of liberty. The American
flag had appeared as a liberator in both hemispheres; when it
floated over Havana or Santiago or Manila, there was written on
its folds, where all nations could read it, the pledge of the resolu-
tion of Congress and the declaration of the R*esiaent.

Every true American thanked God that he had lived to behold
that day. The rarest good fortune of all was the good fortune
of President McKinley. He was, in my judgment, the best
beloved President who ever sat in the chair of Washington. His
name was inseparably connected with two periods of unexampled
prosperity, maae more impressive by the period of calamity which
came between them. The people believed that to the great
measure called by his name was due a time of happiness and
comfort never equaled in this country, and never approached by
any other. It was the high- water mark on this planet of every-
thing that could bring happiness to a people. But high as the
tide reached then, it went still higher under the ox)eration of
the policies which came in with his Administration.

He had won golden honors by his patriotic hesitation in bring-
ing on the war, and by his interpretation of the purpose with
which the i)eoplet at last entered upon it.

When I say that President McKinley was the best beloved
President that ever sat in the chair of Washington, I do not mean,
of course, to compare the reverence in which any living man is
held with that which attends the memory of Washington or Lin-
coln. But Washington and Lincoln encountered while they were
alive a storm of pohtical hostility, which President McE^inley has
fortunately been spared. I repeat that it seems to me that Presi-
dent McKinley holds a place in the affection of the people at
large which no one of his predecessors ever attained in his life-
time.

4348

The promise which the President and the Senate made as to
Cuba we have, so far, done our best to redeem. When the Spanish
fleet was snnk and the Spanish flag went down from over Havana,
peace and order and contentment and reviving industry and lib-
erty followed the American flag. Some of us had hoped for the
same thing in the East. We had hoped that a like policy would
have brought a like result in the Philippine Islands. No man
contemplated for a moment the return of those islands to Spain.
One of the apostles would as soon have thought of giving back a
redeemed soul to the dominion of Satan.

The American people, so far as I know, were all agreed that
their victory brought with it the responsibility of protecting the
liberated peoples from the cupidity of any other power until they
could establish their own independence in freedom and in honor.

I stand here to-day to plead with you not to abandon the prin-
ciples that have brought thes6 things to pass. I implore you to
keep to the policy that has made the country great, that has
made the Republican party great, that has made the President
great. I have nothing new to say. But I ask you to keep in the
old channels, and to keep off the old rocks laid down in the old
charts, and to follow the old sailing orders that all the old captains
of other days have obeyed, to take your bearings, as of old, from
the north star,

Of whose trne fixed and resting qnality
There is no fellow in the firmament,

and not from this meteoric light of empire.

Especially, if I could, would I persuade the great Republican
party to come back a^ainto its old faith, to its old religion, before
it is too late. There is yet time. The President has said again
and again that his is only an ad interim policy until Congress
shall act. It is not yet too late. Congress has rejected, unwisely,
as 1 think, some declarations for freedom. But the two Houses
have not as yet committed themselves to desx)otism. The old,
safe path, the path alike of justice and of freedom, is still easy.
It is a path familiar, of old, to the Republican party. If we
have diverged from it for the first time, everything in our history,
everything in our own nature calls us back. The great preacher
of the English church tells you how easy is the return of a great
and noble nature from the first departure from rectitude:

" For so a tai)er, when its crown of flame is newly blown off,
retains a nature so symbolical to light, that it will with greedi-
ness reenkindle and snatch a ray from the neighbor fire."

I, for one, believed, and still believe that the pathway to pros-
perity and glory for the country was also the pathway to success
and glory for the Republican party. I thought the two things
inseparable. If, when we made the treaty of peace, we had ad-
hered to the purpose we declared when we declared war ; if we
had dealt with the Philippine Islands as we promised to deal, have
dealt, and expect to deal with Cuba, the country would have es-
caped the loss of 6,000 brave soldiers, other thousands of wrecked
and shattered lives, the sickness of many more, the expenditure
of hundreds of millions, and, what is far worse than all, the tramp-
ling under foot of its cherished ideals. There would have been
to-day a noble republic in the East, sitting docile at our feet, re-
ceiving from us civilization, laws, manners, and giving in turn
everything the gratitude of a free people could give — love, obedi-
ence , trade. The Philippine youth would throng our universities ;
our Constitution, our Declaration, the lives of Washington and
4348

6

Lincoln, the sayings of Jefferson and Franklin would have been
the text-books of their schools. How our orators and poets would
have delighted to contrast America liberating and raising up the
republic of Asia, with England subduing and trampling under
foot the republic of Africa. Nothing at home could have with-
stood the great party and the great President who had done these
things. We should have come from the next election with a solid
North and have carried half the South. You would at least have
been spared the spectacle of ^eat Republican States rising in re-
volt against Bepuolican jwlicies.

I do not expect to accomplish anything for liberty in the Phil-
ippine Island but through the Republican party. Upon it the
fate of these islands for years to come is to depend. If that party
can not be persuaded, the case is in my judgment for the present .
hox)eless. That party will be in power for the next twelve
months. It will oe continued in power for at least four years
thereafter. If it were otherwise, what we do within the next
twelve months could not be undone without the consent of a Re-
publican Senate. Our majority in the Senate for at least four
years is assured; and if that were doubtful there are Democrats
enough committed to this expansion policy to make it sure if the
bulk of the Republican party determine to continue it.

I can not look with any favor upon Mr. Bryan as an alterna-
tive. I can not believe that there is anything to hope for from
his election. Upon all other questions than imperialism he an-
nounces no single doctrine, principle, or purpose which has in it
anything either of prosperity or safety to the Republic. And I
can not forget that when it was attempted to defeat the Paris
treaty, or at least to compel an amendment which, if it had been
done, would have put the Philippine Islands upon the same foot-
ing with Cuba, would have prevented the war, and would have
preserved our national doctrines of liberty and our ancient i)olicy,
it was due to Mr. Bryan, more than to any other man after the
treaty left the hands of the President, that that attempt was
frustrated. Unless he is much misrepresented he used all his
power and influence with those of his friends who were ready to
Usten to his counsel to secure the ratification of the treaty. That
ratification involved the continuance of the war, which had then
proceeded no further than an unauthorized outbreak of hostili-
ties and an assumption of sovereignty over an unwilling people —
to be purchased by the United States— the cause of a year's war
and all the disasters and melancholy history of the last twelve
months.

I do not underrate the importance of this issue. It is greater
than parties, greater than administrations, greater than the hap-
piness or prosperity of a single generation. But in pleading for
justice to these dusky millions of distant Asiatics, I can not for-
get 10,000,000 American citizens here at home, to whom neither
citizenship nor manhood is hereafter to be worth having unless
the Republican party stand by them. Who can fail to read the
signs of the times? The Senator from Alabama, finding himself
hard beset, made his bid for the favor of the Democrats of Ala-
bama by proclaiming in his si)eech made in his place here, but
meant for his campaign at home, the unfitness of the negro for
self-government, and demanding the repeal of the Constitutional
amendments. And Alabama, even if she dislike his imperialism,
will take him on those terms. Three States have adopted con-
stitutions contrived with masterly ingenuity to exclude negroes
4848

Bpi

thj

from the right to vote. Others are getting ready to follow in
their footsteps. The Senator from South Carolina, in an utter-
ance whose terrible meaning is almost forgotten in our admira-
tion for the manly frankness of the avowal, said, the other day,
in the Senate:

We took the goyernment away. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them.
We are n(*t ashamed of it. The Senator £rom Wisconsin would have done the
same thing. I see it in his eye right now. He would have done it. With that
system— force, tissue ballots, etc.— we got tired ourselves. So we called a consti-
tutional convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored people whom
we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.

I want to call your attention to the remarkable change that has come over the

drit of the dream of the Bepublicans ; to remind you gentlemen from the North
._iat your slogans of the past— brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God-
have gone glimmering down the ases. The brotherhood of man exists no longer,
because you shoot negroes in Illinois, when they come in competition with your
labor, as we shoot tbem in South Carolina when they come in competition with us
inthematter of elections. You do not love them any better than we do. You
used to pretend that yon did, but you no longer pretend it except to get their
votes.

You deal with the Filipinos ^ust as we deal with the negroes, only you treat
them a heap worse.- Con^reMtonaJ Record, Fifty-sixth Congress, first session,
pages 2347, 2349.

In England an issue can be made up on one question. Men

fo from party to party in Parliament; if the Government be
efeated, the ministry resign, the question is settled, and the
new ministry is displaced again when it is beaten on some, other
i mpo rtant issue.

With us, we have a system of periodicity. The President is
put in power for four years, the majoiity in the House for two
years, and the majority in the Senate can never be changed in
less than two years, and ordinarily the process takes at least six.
So you have to determine not whether the President, or the Sena-
tors, or the Representatives be right on a single question; you
must choose between the forces arrayed on one side or the other,
and determine which you will trust with government on all ques-
tions for an indefinite or at least a long future.

Now, I do not wish to speak unkindly of our Democratic antago-
nists. Toleration comes with age ana experience. I am glad to
recognize cheerfully the patriotic purpose and the manly quali-
ties of so many of the leaders the Democratic States of the South
have contributed of late to the public service.

But I can not forget that the main i)ower in the Democratic
party still abides with the combinations of men who govern the
cities of New York and of Chicago; with the men who are believ-
ers in what seems to me a dishonest currency, and in a policy
that would bring distress and poverty into the homes of millions
of American workmen: the men who would undermine the
Supreme Court, and the men who would destroy the safeguards
of property.

I can not see, in Mr. Bryan in the Presidential chair and the
Senate and Congress so controlled, either hope that this policy of .
imperialism will be abandoned or that any good can come which
will compensate us for the great evil such a rule will bring with it.
I am not ready to take the administration of this country from
the party which for fifty years has been wrong but once, and
commit it to the party which for fifty years has never once been
right.

Mr. TILLMAN. Not even on the Philippines?

Mr. HOAR. So far.

I beheve that, if not to-day or to-morrow, yet at an early day,
4318

8

bettor knowledge of the facts, the light of experience, the love of
liberty and justice which still bums in the hearts of the Repub-
lican masses in this country, will bring that party back to the
principles and policy upon wnich it planted itself in the beginning.

No, Mr. President. If we subjugate the Filipinos we are, if
you have your way, to ^jovem 10,000,000 people in the East and
nearly another million in the West Indies without any constitu-
tional restraint. There will be under the flag 20,000,000 of other
races, black men at home and brown men abroad, for whom it
bears no star of hope. I do not see my way clear to hand them
over to Mr. Bryan, in the Executive chair, and the Senators from
Alabama and South Carolina, in the Senate, or to the party of
which, beyond all question, they are to be most powerful and
conspicuous leaders.

Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Massa-
chusetts yield to the Senator from South Carolina?

Mr. TILLMAN. I am informed that the Senator requested in
the opening of his sx)eech that he be not interrupted. If he does
not wish to be interrupted now, I shall not intrude upon him.

Mr. HOAR. No. I am suffering with the disorder that is now
so prevalent, and I very much doubt whether I shall be able to
conclude my speech. If I have misrepresented the Senator in any
way, I will yield for an interruption, otherwise I shall proceed.

Mr. TILLMAN. Under the circumstances, Mr. President, I
shaU not interrupt the Senator.

Mr. HOAR . I believe I have said nothing of the Senator except
to read his language.

Mr. TILLMAN. The Senator, however, continued to allude
to the Senator from South Carolina in a manner that would War-
rant interruption and controversy, but I will not interrupt the
Senator further.

Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, I have alluded to the Senator from
South Carolina only to say, in addition to quoting his language,
that he was beyond aU question hereafter to be one of the most
powerful and conspicuous leaders of the Democratic party. I
take it the Senator does not deem that an aspersion.

I believe, Mr. President, not only that perseverance in this pol-
icy will be the abandonment of the principles upon which our
Government is founded, that it will change our Republic into an
empire, that our methods of legislation, of diplomacy, of admin-
istration must hereafter be those which belong to empires, and
not those which belong to republics; but I believe persistence in
this attempt will result in the defeat and overthrow of the Repub-
lican party. That defeat may not come this year, or next year.
I pray Grod it may never come. I well remember when the old
Whig party, in the flush of delirium and anticipated triumph,
gave up the great doctrines which it had so often avowed, and
. undertook to abandon the great territory between the Mississippi
and the Paciflc to its fate. It held its convention at Philadelphia.
It selected as its candidate a great military chieftain. Amid the
tempest and delirium a quiet delegate from my own State arose
and declared to the convention that the Whig party was dead.
It seemed that a more audacious, a more foolish, a more astound-
ing utterance never fell upon human ears. And what was the
result? The party carried the country and elected its President.
But within less than four years thereafter Daniel Webster, as he

4848

lay dying at Marshfield, said, "The Whig party as a political
organization is gone; and it is well." Let no snch fate attend
the Republican party. In my judgment, if not now, it will
retrace its steps in time.

The practical question which divided the American people last
year, and which divides them to-day, is this: Whether in protect-
mg the x)eople of the Philippine Islands from the ambition and
cupidity of other nations we are bound to protect them from our
own.

Edward Everett concludes that masterpiece of consummate ora-
tory, his address on the character of Washington:

Let us make a national festival and holiday of his birthday; and ever as the
22d of February returns letns remember that while with these solemn and joyous
rites of observance we celebrate the great anniversary, our fellow-citizens on the
Hadson, on the Potomac, from the Southern plains to the Western lakes, are en-
1 in the same offices of i^atitude and love. Nor we, nor they alone. Beyond

the Ohio, beyond the MiHsissippi, along that stupendous trail of immigration from
the East to tlie West, which, bursting into States as it moves westward, is already
threading the Western prairies, swarming through the portals of the Hooky
Mountains and winding down their sloi>es, the name and the memory of Wash-
ington on that gracious night will travel with the silver queen of heaven through
sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her
brightness through the Golden Gate of California and passes serenely on to hold
midnight court with her Australian stars. There and there only, in barbarous
archipelagos, as yet untrodden by civilized man, the name of Washington is
unknown ; and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened millions, new hon-
ors shall be paid with ours to his memory.

The time which the orator predicted came. In that Eastern
archipelago, no longer the home of barbarism, a people had
achieved their independence and thrown off the yoke of centuries.
They were longing for civilization, education, and liberty. To
the millions, with which that land is swarming, in the dawning
of a new light the name of Washington has become familiar.
But, alas, the people are citing his example to protect their own
liberties against his countrymen. They are nearly threefold in
number the people to whom his Farewell Address was delivered.
Pray to GK)d that that revered and beautiful character, our shield
so often against distempered folly and unhallowed ambition, may
be theirs also.

In dealing with this question, Mr. President, I do not mean to
enter upon any doubtful ground. I shall advance no proposition
ever seriously disputed in this country till within twelvemonths.
I shall cite no authority that is not by the common consent of all
parties and all men of all shades of opinion recognized as among
the very weightiest in jurisprudence and in the conduct of the
State. I shall claim nothing as fact which is not abundantly
proven by the evidence of the great commanders who conducted
this war; by evidence coming from the President and the heads
of department, or persons for whose absolute trustworthiness these
authorities vouch.

If to think as I do in regard to the interpretation of the Consti-
tution; in regard to the mandates of the moral law or the law of
nations, to which all men and all nations must render obedience;
in regard to the policies which are wisest for the conduct of the
State, or in regard to those facts of recent history in the light of
which we have acted or are to act hereafter, be treason, then
Washington was a traitor; then Jefferson was a traitor; then
Jackson was a traitor; then Franklin was a traitor; then Sumner
was a traitor; then Lincoln was a traitor; then Webster was a
traitor; then Clay was a traitor: then Corwin was a traitor; then
4348

10

Kent was a traitor; then Seward was a traitor; then McKinley,
within two years, was a traitor; then the Supreme Court of the
United States has been in the past a nest and hotbed of treason;
then the people of the United States, for more than a century,
have been traitors to their own flag and their own Constitution.

We are presented with an issue that can be clearly and sharply
stated as a question of constitutional power, a question of inter-
national law, a question of justice and righteousness, or a ques-
tion of public expediency. This can be stated clearly and sharply
in the abstract, and it can be put clearly and sharply by an illus-
tration growing out of existing facts.

The constitutional question is: Has Congress the power, under
our Constitution, to hold in subjection unwilling vassal States?

The question of international law is: Can any nation rightfully
convey to another sovereignty over an unwilling people who have
thrown off its dominion, asserted their independence, established
a government of their own, over whom it has at the time no prac-
tical control, from whose territory it has been disseized, and which
it is beyond its power to deliver?

The question of justice and righteousness is: Have we the right
to crush and hold under our feet an unwilling and subject people
whom we had treated as allies, whose independence we are bound
in good faith to respect, who had established their own free gov-
ernment, and who had trusted us?

The question of public expediency is: Is it for our advantage to
promote our trade at the cannon's mouth and at the point ot the
bayonet?

All these questions can be put in a way of practical illustration
by inquiring whether we ought to do what we have done, are
doing, and mean to do in the case of Cuba; or what we have done,
are doing, and some of you mean to do in the case of the Philip-
pine Islands.

It does not seem to me to be worth while to st-ate again at
length the constitutional argument which I have addressed to
the Senate heretofore. It has been encountered with eloquence,
with clearness and beauty of statement, and, I have no doubt,
with absolute sincerity by Senators who have spoken upon the
other side. But the issue between them and me can be summed
up in a sentence or two, and if, so stated, it can not be made
clear to any man's apprehension, I despair of making it clear by
any elaboration or amplification.

I admit that the United States may acquire and hold propei-ty,
and may make rules and regulations for its disposition.

I admit that, like other property, the United States may acquire
and hold land. It may acquire it by purchase. It may acquire
it by treaty. It may acquire it by conquest. And it may make
rules and regulations for its disposition and government, however
it be acquired.

When there are inhabitants upon the land so acquired it may
make laws for their government. But the question between me
and the gentlemen on the other side is this: Is this acquisition of
territory, of land or other property, whether gained by purchase,
conquest, or treaty, a constitutional end or only a means to a
constitutional end? May you acquire, hold, and govern territory
or other property as an end for which our Constitution was
framed, or is it only a means toward some other and further end?
May you acquire, hold, and govern property by conquest, treaty,
4318

11

or pnrchase for the sole object of so holding and governing it,
without the consideration of any further constitutional purpose?
Or must you hold it for a constitutional purpose only, such as
the making of new States, the national defense and security, the
•establishment of a seat of government, or the construction of
forts, harbors, and like works, which, of course, are themselves
for the national defense and security?

I hold that this ticqusition, holding, and governing can be only
a means for a constitutional end— tne creation of new States or
some other of the constitutional purposes to which I have ad-
verted. And I maintain that you can no more hold and govern
territory than you can hold ana manage cannon or fleets for any
other than a constitutional end; and I maintain that the holding
in subjection an alien people, governing them against their wifl
for any fancied advantage to them, is not only not an end pro-
vided for by the Constitution, but is an end prohibited therein.

Now, with due respect to the gentlemen who have discussed this
matter, I do not find that they have answered this proi)ostion or
undertaken to answer it. I do not find that they have under-
stood it. You have, in my judgment, under your admitted x)ower
to acquire, own, and govern territory, which is just like your
admitted power to govern, own, and control ships or guns, no
more right under the Constitution to hold that territory for the
sake of keeping in subjection an alien people than you have a
right to acquire, hold, and manage cannon or fleets or to raise
armies for the sake of keeping in subjection and under your
control an alien x>eople. All these things are means; and means
to constitutional and not to unconstitutional ends.

The Constitution of the United States sets forth certain specific
objects and confers certain specific powers upon the Govern-
ment it creates. All powers necessary or reasonably convenient
to accomplishing these sx>ecific objects and exercising these
specific jKjwers are granted by implication. In my judgment
the Constitution should be liberally construed in determining
the eartent of such powers. In that I agree with Webster ana
Hamilton and Lincoln and Washington and Marshall, and not
with Calhoun or the Democrats of the time of the war of the
rebellion and since. But the most liberal statesman or jurist
never went further than the rule I have stated in claiming con-
stitutional powers for our Government. The Constitution says
that Congress may make rules and regulations for the govern-
ment of the territory and other property of the United States.
That implies that we may acquire and regulate territory as we
may acquire and use other property, such as our ships of war, our
cannon or forts or arsenals. But territory, like other property,
can only be acquired for constitutional purposes, and can not be
acquired and governed for unconstitutional purposes. Now, one
constitutional purpose is to admit new States to the Union. That
is one of the objects for which the Constitution was framed. So
we may acquire and hold and govern territory with that object
in view. But governing subject peoples, and holding them for
that purpose, is not a constitutional end. On the contrary, it is
an end which the generation which framed the Constitution and
the Declaration or Independence declared was unrighteous and
abhorrent. So, in my opinion, we have no constitutional i)ower
to acquire territory for tne purpose of holding it in subjugation,
in a state of vass£uage or serfdom, against the will of its people.
am

12

It is to be noted just here that we have acquired no territory
or other property in the Philippine Islands, save a few public
buildings. By every other acquisition of territory the IJnite<3.
States became a great land owner. She owned the public land^
as she had owned the public lands in the Northwest ceded to her '
by the old States. But you own nothing in the Plnlippines. The
people own their farms and dwellings and cities. The religious
orders own the rest. The Filipinos desire to do what our English,
ancestors did in the old days when England was Catholic. The
laity feared that the Church would engross all the land. So they*
passed their statute of mortmain. You have either got to let the
people of the Philippine Islands settle this matter for themselves,
or you must take upon you the delicate duty of settling it for
them. Your purchase or conquest is a purchase or conquest of
nothing but sovereignty. It is a sovereignty over a people who
are never to be admitted to exercise it or to share it.

In the present case we have not, I repeat, bought any property.
We have undertaken to buy mere sovereignty. There were no
public lands in the Philippme Islands, the property of Spain,
which we have bought and paid for. The mountains of iron and
the nuggets of gold and the hemp-bearing fields— do you purpose
to strip the owners of their rightful title? We have undertaken
to buy allegiance, pure and simple. And allegiance is just what
the law of nations declares you can not buy. The power of Con-
gress to dispose of the territory or other property of the United
States, invoked in this debate, as the foundation of your consti-
tutional right, may carry with it in a proper case a right to the
allegiance of the occupant of the soil we own. But we have not
bought any property there. The mountains of iron, the nuggets
of gold, the hemp-bearing fields, the tobacco and sugar and coffee
are not ours, unless holding first that we can buy of Spain an
allegiance which this people have shaken off, which Spain could
not deliver, which does not exist in justice or in right, we can
then go on and say that the Constitution of the United States
does not apply to territory, and that we will proceed to take the
private property of this people for public use, without their
consent.

It is understood that the Filipino people purpose to dispossess
the religious orders of their vast real estate possessions. They
are Catholics. But they desire to do what Catholic England did
long before the Reformation — preventing the engrossment by the
church of vast and valuable lands needed by the people. As I
understand it, our treaty binds us to confirm those titles, and
that is one of the things which has provoked this people to their
desperate resistance. Upon the question of the justice of their
demand I do not puriK)se now to enter.

Whether the inestimable and imperishable principles of human
liberty are to be trampled down by the American Republic, and
whether its great bulwark and fortress, the American Constitu-
tion, impregnable from without, is to be betrayed from within,
is our question now.

Will any gentleman affirm that the f ramers of the Constitu-
tion, or the people who adopted it, considered as an object and
end of their government of limited powers which the Declara-
tion of Independence had declared beyond the just powers of any
government and contrary to natural ri^ht? Alexander Hamilton
says the Declaration of Independence is the fundamental consti-
tution of every State,

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13

I liave been unable to find a single reputalble authority more
than twelve months old for the power now claimed for Congress
to govern dependent nations or territories not expected to become
States. The contrary, until this war broke out, has been taken as
too clear for reasonable question. I content myself with a few
authorities. Among them are Daniel Webster, William H. Sew-
ard, the Supreme Court of the United States, James Madison.

Daniel Webster said in the Senate March 23, 1848:

Arbitrary govemmenta may hare territories and distant ixwaessions, because
arbitrary governments may role them by different laws and difi'erent systems.
We can do no such thing. The^ must be of us. part of us, or else strangers. I
think I see a course adopted wmch is likely to turn the Constitution of the land
into a deformed monster, into a curse rather than a blessing; in fact, a frame of
an unequal government, not foanded on popular representation, not founded on
equality, but on the grossest inequality ; ana I think that this process will go on,
or that there is danger that it will go on, until this Union shall fall to pieces.
I resist it, to-day and always ! Whoever falters or whoever flies, I continue the
contest !

James Madison said in the Federalist:

The object of the Federal Constitution is to secure the union of the thirteen
primitive States, which we know to be practicable; and to add to them such
other States aa may arise in their own bosoms, or in their neighborhood, which
we can not doubt will be practicable.— James Mckdison^ Federalist^ No. 14.

William H. Seward said:

It is a remarkable feature of the Constitution of the United States that ita
framers never contemplated colonies, or provinces, or territoriea at all. On the
other hand, they contemplated States only, nothing leas than States, perfect States,
equal States, aa the^ are called here, aovereign States. * * ' There is reason-
there is aound i>olitical wisdom in thia provision of the Constitution excluding
colonies, which are always subject to oppression, and excluding provinces, which
always tend to corrupt and ultimately to break down theparent State.— /Seioard'^
ITorJb*, Volume 1, -page 122.

By the Conatitution of the United States, there are no subjects. Every citizen
of any one State is a free and equal citizen of the United States. Again, by the
Constitution of the United States there are no permanent provinces or depend-
encies.— ^euH»rd'« Works, Volume 4, page 187.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Flem-
ing V8. Page, said:

The genius and character of our institutions are peaceful; and the power to
declare war was not conferred upon Congress for the purposes of aggression or
aggrandizement, but to enable the Government to vindicate ))y arms, if it should
become necessary, its own rights and the rights of its citizens. A war, there-
fore, declared by Congress, can never be presumed to be waged for the purpose
of conqueet or the acquisition of territory; nor does the law declaring the war
imply an authority to the President to enlarge the limits of the United Btatea by
subjugating the enemy's country.

Our Territories, so far, have all been places where Americans
would go to dwell as citizens, to establish American homes, to
obtain honorable employment, and to build a State. Will any
man go to the Philippine Islands to dwell, except to help govern
the people, or to make money by a temporary residence? The
men of the Philippines, under the Constitution and the existing
laws, may become your fellow-citizens. You will never consent,
in the sense of a true citizenship, to become theirs.

Mr. President, our friends who take another view of this ques-
tion like to tell us of the mistakes of ^eat men of other days,
who have vainly protested against acquisition of territory. One
worthy and most exuberant gentleman in another place x)oints
out to his hearers the folly of Webster and Clay, the delusions
of Charles Sumner, and contrasts them with the wisdom of Jef-
ferson and Tyler and Polk. Mr. Jefferson declared that the
acquisition of Louisiana was unconstitutional, and wanted a
constitutional amendment to justify it. I think the general

4348

14

sense of the American people is that in that particular Mr. Jef-
ferson was in error, and that our power to admit new States
clearly involves the power to acquire territory from which new
States are to be made. I wonder, however, if there be any man
now alive, who now holds or who ever did or ever will hold a
seat in either House of Congress, willing to say that, having taken
an oath to support the Constitution, he would, for any purpose of
public advantage, forswear himself for the sake of a real or fan-
cied good to his country. I hope and believe that the spirit of
Fletcher of Saltoun, who said he would die to serve Scotland, but
he would not do a base thing to save her, is still the spirit of
American statesmanship. That exuberant gentleman contrasts
the statesmanship of Polk and Tyler with that of Daniel Webster
and Henr y C lay and Charles Sumner. Somehow or other, the
names of Webster and Clay and Sumner live in the hearts and
on the lips of their countrymen, while the men who brought on
the Mexican War in the interest of slavery are forgotten. I do
not think we hear of men building statues to those counselors,
or celebrating their birthdays, or writing their lives. In all
generations, the statesmen who have appealed to righteousness
and justice and freedom have left an enduring place in the
loving memory of their countrymen, while the men who have
counseled them to walk in the path of injustice and wrong,
even if it led to empire and even if they were in the majority
in their own day, are forgotten and despdsed. Ah, Mr. Pres-
ident, that gentleman says we are the anointed of the Lord, as
the Jews were the anointed of the Lord. But the Jewish empire
is forgotten. The sands of the desert cover the foundations of
her cities. The spider spins its thread, the owl makes its mid-
night perch in their palaces. But still those little words, " Thou
shalt not steal ; thou shalt not covet that that is thy neighbor's ;
whatever ye would that men shall do to you, do ye even so again
unto them," shine through the ages, blazing and undimmed.
Mr. President, you may speculate; you may refine; you may
doubt; you may deny. But the one foremost action in our
history, the foremost action in all history, is the writing upon its
pages those simple and sublime opening sentences of the Declara-
tion of Independence. And the men who stand by it shall live in
the eternal memory of mankind ; and the men who depart from
it, however triumphant and successful in their little policies,
shall perish and be forgotten, or shall be remembered only to
be despised.

When hostilities broke out, February 5, 1899, we had no occu-
pancy of and no title of any kind to any portion of the Philip-
pine territory, except the town and bay of Manila. Everything
else was in the peaceful possession of the inhabitants, fii such
a condition of things, Mr. President, international law speaks to
us with its awful mandate. It pronounces your proposed action
sheer usurpation and robbery. You have no better title, accord-
ing to the law of nations, to reduce this people to subjection
than you have to subjugate Mexico or Haiti or Belgium or
Switzerland.

FOBBIDDKN BY INTERNATIONAL LAW.

This is the settled doctrine, as declared by our own great
masters of jurisprudence.
You have no right, according to the law of nations, to obtain
4348

15

by purchase or acquisition sovereignty over a people which is not
actually exercised by the country which undei*takes to convey it
or yield it.

It is a familiar principle of the common law that you can not
make a lawful purchase of land, of which the seller is disseized,
or of a chattel of which he is dispossessed. The reason of this doc-
trine is to prevent the purchase of lawsuits. This rule applies
with tenfold force to undertaking to purchase human beings when
their country and the selling power is dispossessed at the time of
the sale, and where the title can only be enforced by war.

We have not yet completed the acquisition. But at the time
we entered ujwn it, and at the time of this alleged purchase, the
people of the Philippine Islands, as appears by GFeneral Otis's
report, by Admiral Dewey's report, and the reports of oflBlcers
for whom they vouched, held their entire territory, with the
exception of the single town of Manila. They had, as appears
from these reports, a full organized government. They had an
army fighting for independence, admirably disciplined, accord-
ingto the statement of zealous advocates of expansion.

Why, Mr. President, is it credible that any American states-
man, that any American Senator, that any intelligent American
citizen anywhere, two years ago could have been found to affirm
that a proceeding Uke that of the Paris treaty could give a just
and valid title to sovereigntjr over a people situated as were the
people of those islands? A titie of Spain, originally by conquest,
never submitted to nor admitted by the people of the islands, with
frequent insurrections at different times for centuries, and then
the yoke all thrown off, a constitutional government, schools, col-
leges, churches, universities, hospitals, town governments, a leg-
islature, a cabinet, courts, a code of laws, and the whole island
occupied and controlled by its people, with the single exception
of one city; with taxes lawfully levied and collected, witn an
army and the beginning of a navy.

And yet the Senate, the Congress enacted less than two years
ago that the people of Cuba — controlling peaceably no part of
their island, levying no taxes in any orderly or peaceable way,
with no administration of justice, no cabinet— not only of right
ought to be, but were, in fact, a free and independent State. I
did not give my assent to that declaration of fact. I assented to
the doctrine that they of right ought to be. But I thought the
statement of fact much calculated to embarrass the Government
of the United States, if it were bound by that declaration; and
it has been practically disregarded by the Administration ever
since. But the question now is a very different one. You not
only deny that the Filipinos are, but you deny that they of right
ought to be free and independent; and you recognize Spain as
entitled to sell £o you the sovereignty of an island whiere she was
not at the time occupying a foot of territory, where her soldiers
were held captives by the government of the island, a govern-
ment to which you had delivered over a large number of Spanish
prisoners to be held as captives. And yet you come here to-day
and say that they not only are not, but they of right ought not to
be free and independent; and when you are pressed you answer
us by talking about mountains of iron and nuggets of gold, and
trade with China.

I affirm that you can not get by conquest, and you can not got
by purchase, according to the modern law of nations, according

4348

16

to the law of nations as accepted and expounded by the United
States, sovereignty over a people, or title to a territorv, of which
the power that undertakes to sell it or the power rrom whoni
you undertake to wrest it has not the actual possession and
dominion. Under municipal law you can not buy a horse of
which the seller is dispossessed; you can not buy a foot of land
of which he is disseized. You can not purchase a lawsuit. Under
international law you can not buy a people from a power that
has no actual dominion over them. You can not buy a war.
More than this, you can not buy a tyrant's claim to subject again
an oppressed people who have achieved their freedom.

You can not buy the liberties of a people from a dispossessed
tyrant, liberties they have bravely won for themselves in arms.
You can not buy sovereignty like merchandise and men like
sheep. The King of England kept, down to 1800, the title of
Duke of Normandy and King of France. Could an^ other coun-
try or all Europe together have bouffht France of King George?
I wonder what would have happened if, instead of aclmowleag-
ing our independence, any time before the French treaty France
had bought England out and undertaken to assert her title to the
United States. These questions have to be answered, not amid
the shouting and applause of a political campaign, not in party

Platforms, not alone in a single campaign or a single generation,
'hey have got to be answered to history, to the instructed con-
science of the civilized world, when the passions and the greed
and the ambitions of a single generation have gone by and are
cold. And there will be to them but one answer.

I shall show beyond all question or cavil, from the evidence of
our own commanders, that this was a people. They were a peo-

?le who had taken arms for liberty. They had achieved liberty,
'hey had taken arms to establish a republic. They had estao-
lished a republic — ^the first republic of the Orient.

Now, international law has something to say about this mat-
ter. Will the American people, for the first time in their history,
disregard its august mandates?

You gentlemen who desire to hold on to the Philipi>ine Islands
are trymg to plant the United States squarely upon this doctrine.
You must affirm that a people rising for their own liberties
against a tyrant, and having got actual possession of their own
territory, and having disi)ossessed the oppressor, have no rightful
title thereto.

Not only are we violating our own Constitution, and the great
precepts of the Declaration of Independence which, as the Su-
preme Court of the United States have declared, is to control and
interpret, being, as the Court say, but the letter of which the
Declaration of Independence is the spirit, but we are equally
violating the accepted precepts of the law of nations as ex-
pounded by our own great authorities.

If there De one thing above others which is the glory of the
American Republic it is the resi)ect and obedience it has ever
paid to international law. It is that law, the product of Christi-
anity which prevents every weak nation on the earth from
becoming the prey of the stronger ones. It is to nations what the
conscience is to the individual soul. It finds its enforcement and
sanction in the public opinion of the civilized world, a power,
according to Mr. Webster, stronger than armies or navies. No
nation escai)€s the penalty of its infraction. As Mr. Webster says ,
it pursues the conqueror to the very scene of his ovation and

4318

17

wounds him with the sting that belongs to the consciousness of
having outraged the opinion of mankind.

The late Secretary of State, Mr. Day, the head of the commis-
sion that negotiated the treaty at Paris, has quite lately publicly
disclaimed any title to the Philippine Archipelago by conquest.
I think, although there have been some hasty statements to that
effect, the theory of title by conquest will find few advocates in
this chamber. It is a theory opposed alike to all the traditions
of the Republic and to all the mandates of morality.

Mr. Justice Gray says, in his opinion in the case of The
Paquete Habana and The Lola (U. S. Rep., vol. 175):

International law ia part of our law, and must be ascertained and adminis>
tered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as questions of
right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination.

Sucl;i works are resorted to by judicial tribunals, not for the speculations of
their authors concerning what the law ought t-o be, but for trustworthy evidence
of what the law really is-^HUton v, Guyot, 159 U. S., 113, 163, 164, 214, 215.

They are witnesses of the sentiments and usages of civilized nations, and the
weight of their testimony increases every time that their authority is invoked by
statesmen, and eveiy year that passes without the rules laid down in their works
being impagned by the avowal of contrary principles.— TfAeaton'* International
Law (8th edition), section 15.

In cases where the principal jurists agree, the presumption will be very great
in favor of the solidity of their maxims ; and no civilized nation that does not
arrogantly set all ordinary law and justice at defiance will venture to disregard
the uniform sense of the established writers on international law. — 1 Kent Oom.^ 18.

Our fathers used to think John Locke pretty good authority in
the ethics of freedom. Bacon, and Newton, and Locke still hold
their place as the greatest of English philosophers. You will
find him cited pretty often in the great d!ebates that preceded the
Revolution and the discussions when our national and State con-
stitutions were set up. This is what he says:

Over those, then, that joined with him in the war, and over those of the sub-
dued country that opposed him not, and the posterity even of those that did, the
conqueror, even in a just war, hath, by his conquest, no right of dominion; they
are free from any subjection to him, and if iheir former government be dis-
solved, they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves.

The conqueror, it is true, usually by the force he ha« over them, compels them,
with the sword at their breast, to stoop to his conditions, and submit to such a

government as he pleased to afford them ; but the inquiry is, what light has he to
o so? if it be said they submit by their own couKeut, then this allows their
own consent to be necessary to- give the conqueror a title to rule over them. It
remains only to be considered whether promises extorted by force without ri^ht
can be thought consent, and how far they bind. To which I shall sav, the^ bind
not at all ; because whatsoever another gets from me by force, I still retain the
right vt\ and he is obliged presently to restore.— iocfcc on Civil ^Oovemment, part
2, sections 185, 186.

Now, Mr. President, is there any truth in this? Is this a revo-
lutionary pronunciamento or is it doctrine to which — whatever
monarchial governments may have to say — the American people
are committed by all their traditions and by all their history?

From many authorities I will cite a few.

First. President McKinley, in the language so often quoted-
When the President said that —

Forcible annexation, according to our American code of morals, would be crimi-
nal aggression-
was he a copperhead? Was he disloyal to the flag? Was not he
Republican? Was there ever an utterance so calculated to give
courage to Aguinaldo and his people as that?

When he said —

Human rights and constitutional privileges must not be forgotten in the race
for wealth and commercial supremacy. 'Ibe Government of the people must be
by the people and not by a few of the people. It must rest upon the free consent
4346-2

J

18

of the governed and all of the governed. Power, it must be remembered, whioli
is secured by oppression or usurpation or by any form of injustice is soon de-
throned. We have no right in law or morals to usurp that which belongs to
another, whether it is property or power—

was he a traitor?

I suppose Chancellor Kent is recognized everywhere as the ablest
American writer of jurisprudence, unless some of us were to agree
with Kent himself, in assigning the superiority to Story. Judge
Kent's language, which I myself have quoted elsewhere, has been
quoted already more than once in this debate. He says:

Full sovereignty can not be held to have passed by the mere words of the treaty
wiihout actual delivery. To complete the right of property, the right to the thing
and the iMMsession of the thing must be united. This is a necessary principle In
the law of property in all syatems of jurisprudence. • * *

This general law of property applies to the right of territory no less than to
other rights. The practice of nations has been conformable to this princijile, and
the conventional law of nations is full of instances of this kind. (Page 178.)

The same doctrine is stated by Halleck, International Law,
vol. 2, p. 472, and by Phillimore Commentaries upon International
Law, vol. 3, p. 871.

Halleck says:

The rule of public law, with respect to the allegiance of the inhabitants of a
conquered territory, is no longer to be interpreted as meaning tliat it is abso-
lutely and unconditionally acquired by conquest, or transferred and handed over
by treaty, as a thin<j: assignable by contract, and without the assent of the
subject. On the contrary, the express or implied consent of the subject is now
regarded as essential to a complete new allegiance."

Sumner said in his speech before the Republican State conven-
tion of Massachusetts in 1869:

And he knows our country little, and little also of that great liberty of ours,
who supposes that wo could receive such a transfer. On each side there is
impossibility. Territory may be conveyed, but not a i>eople.

Next. Shurston Baker, whose admirable treatise on interna-
tional law has just been published in Boston. He says:

In modern times sales and transfers of national territory to another power
can only be made by treaty or some solemn act of the sovereign autliority or the
state. And sucli trans lers of territory do not include the allegiance of its inhab-
itants without their consent, express or implied.

At page 355 the same author says:

The rule of public law with respect to the allegiance of the inhabitants of a
conquered territory is therefore no longer to be interpreted as meauins that it
is absolutely and unconditionally acquired by conquest, or transferred and handed
over by a treaty as a thing assignable by contract and without tbe assent of the
subject. On the contrary, the express or implied assent of the subject is now
regarded as essential to a complete new allegiance.

If the inhabitants of the ceded conquered territory choose to leave it on its
transfer and to adhere to their former sovereign, they have, in general, a right to
do so.

The stattit of the inhabitants of the conquered and transferred territory is
thus determined by their own choice.

In the cases arising out of the Revolution by which the North American col-
onies of Great Britain became an independent state it was considered to be an
established maxim of public and international law that there was vested in an
individual a tiqht of electing to remain under the old or of contracting r. new alle-
giance. The choice must be made within a reasonable period of time.

In order to make a transfer of property valid, the authority, whether de facto
or de jure, must be competent to bind the state. Hence the necessity of examin-
ing into and ascertaining the powers of the rulers, as the municipal constitutions
of different states throw many difficulties in the vi ay of alienations of their pub-
lic property, and particularly of their territory. Especially, in modern times, the
consent of the governed, express or implied, is necessary before the transfer of
their allegiance can regularly take place. ^

But why multiply citations to a Senate who, within two years,
affirmed that Cuba of right ought to be free and independent,
and to a Congress and a President that declared war to make that

4318

19

declaration good? Ton were stating a doctrine of public law,
■were you not? You were not uttering a lying revolutionary pro-
nunciamento. You were speaking for a great nation, on a sol-
emn occasion. You were speaking words of truth and soberness,
words you meant to make §ood with the lives of your sons. The
first and the last declaration of public law ever made by the
American peoi^e, the declaration of 1776 and the declaration of
1898, are in full accord and harmony. They both justify the
Philippine people and condemn us.

I know that m that archipelago of 1,200 islands there are many
tribes and races. There are wild men, pagans, who probably
never heard of Spain. There are islands over which Spain never
exercised power. There are Mahometans, polygamists ruled by
a sultan, whose polygamous despotism we are now supporting.
We can buy our peace with him, although we can not even treat
for peace with the men whom our military commanders promised
independence. But I am pleading for that Christian people who
won their freedom from Spain and established free government
over Luzon and the Visayas, a goverment as stable and unques-
tioned as that of any American State during our Revolution.

THB DECLABATION OF INDBPENDENCB.

The Declaration of Independence is not so much a declaration
of rights as a declaration of duties. It prescribes a rule of con-
duct for men in the same state to one another and for the nations
of the earth to one another. Like the golden rule, it makes the
law of individual right the law also of individual duty. Do Sen-
ators reflect how this "imperialism," as they call it, is inaugu-
rating a revolution not only in the law of nations, not only in
the fundamental law by which the people of the United States
have governed themselves until now, not only in the interpreta-
tion of the Constitution, but in the moral law itself? As I hear
the utterances of some worthy gentlemen taking the name of
God upon their lips, it seems to me as if they thought the balance
ot the universe itself had changed within this year, and that God
had gone over to the side of Satan.

There is one question I should like to put to the Republican
majority in the Senate and to the Republican party in the coun-
try: Is this doctrine true or is it false? Are you to stand on it
any longer or are you going to whistle it down the wind ?

Thomas Jefferson declared it, this precise doctrine now at stake
here. John Quincy Adams reaflfirmed it again and again. Abra-
ham Lincoln said he was willing to be assassinated for it.
Charles Sumner was almost assassinated for it in his place in the
Senate Chamber. Republican national conventions in 1856 and
in I860 and in later years have reaffirmed it again and again.
President McKinley, two years ago, made the most extreme
statement of it to be found in literature.

Now, either this thing is true or it is a lying pretense. If it
be a lying pretense, the country has stood on a lie during its
whole history. If it be true, the country is dishonored when we
depart from it. For myself, I believe it is true; I have tried to
live by it; I am contented to die by it; my love of cou^ti-y rests
on it; my pride of ancestry rests on it. To me that is what the
flag symbolizes and stands for.

I believe that utterance made at Philadelphia in 1776 to have
been the greatest evangel that ever came to mankind since the

4818

20

story of Bethlehem. Like the shot fired at Concord, it was heard
round the world. It was heard with fear in the palace of the
tyrant; it was heard with joy in the huts where -poor men dwelt-
I reverently believe it was heard with joy in heaven itself.

I believe, also, that if the gloss put upon that great declaration
by the Senator from Connecticut had been uttered then it
would have been received with a burst of derisive laughter in
hell, and Satan himself would have led the chorus.

We have had so far some fundamental doctrine, some ideals to
to which this people has been devoted. Have you anything to
give us in their place? You are trying to knock out the comer
stones. Is there any material from your swamp and mud and
morass from which you can make a new foundation for our
temple?

Gentlemen tell us that the bill of the Senator from Wisconsin
is copied from that introduced in Jefferson's time for the pur-
chase of Louisiana. Do you claim that you propose to deal with
these people as Jefferson meant to deal with Louisiana? You
talk of Alaska, of Florida, of California; do you mean to deal
with the Philippines as we mean to deal with Alaska and dealt
with Florida or California?

It was safe to give Jefferson — who thought it wicked to govern
a people against its will— a power with which gentlemen who
thmk it is right ought never to be trusted.

I have spoken of the Declaration of Independence as a solemn
affirmation of public law, but it is far more than that. It is a
solemn pledge of national faith and honor. It is a baptismal
vow. It is the bedrock of our republican institutions. It is, as
the Supreme Court declared, the soul and spirit of which the Con-
stitution is but the body and letter. It is the light by which the
Constitution must be read. The statesman or the party who will
not stand by the Declaration and obey it is never to be trusted
anywhere to keep an oath to support the Constitution. To such
a statesman, whenever his ambition or his passion shall incline
him, to such a party, whenever its fancied advantage shall tempt
it, there will be no constitutional restraint. It will oend the Con-
stitution to its desire , never its desire to the Constitution. Consti-
tutio ad causam accommodatur, non causa ad constitutionem.

There is expansion enough in it, but it is the expansion of free-
dom and not of depotism; of life, not of death. Never was such
growth in all human history as that from the seed Thomas Jeffer-
son planted. The parable of the mustard seed, than which, as
Edward Everett said, "the burning pen of inspiration, ranging
heaven and earth for a similitude, can find nothing more appro-
priate or expressive to which to liken the Kingdom of Gk)d," is
repeated again. "Whereunto shall we liken it, or with what
comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard
seed, wliich, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the
seeds that be in the earth.

"But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater
than an herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the fowls
of the air may lodge under the shadow of it." This is the expan-
sion of Thomas Jefferson. It has covered the continent. It is
on both the seas. It has saved South America. It is revolution-
izing Europe. It is the expansion of freedom. It differs from
your tinsel, pinchbeck, pewter expansion as the growth of a
healthy youth into a strong man differs from the expansion of an

4348

21

anaconda when he swallows his victim. Ours is the expansion
of Thomas Jefferson. Yours is the e3:pansion of Aaron Burr.. It
is destined to as short a life and to a like fate.

Until within two years the American people have been wont
to appeal to the Declaration of Independence as the foremost
State paper in history. As the years go round the Fourth of July
has been celebrated wherever Americans could gather together,
at home or abroad. To have signed it, to an American, was bet-
ter than a title of nobility. It was no passionate utterance of a
hasty enthusiasm. There was nothing of the radical in it; noth-
ing of Rousseau; nothing of the French Revolution. It was the
sober utterance of the soberest men of the soberest generation
that ever lived. It was the declaration of a religious people at
the most religious period of their history. It was a declaration
not merely or rights but of duties. It was an act not of revolu-
tion but of construction. It was the comer stone, the foundation
stone of a great national edifice wherein the American people
were to dwell forevermore. The language was the language of
Thomas Jefferson. But the thought was the thought of every one
of his associates. The men of the Continental Congress meant to
plant their new nation on eternal verities which no man possessed
by the spirit of liberty could ever thereafter undertake to chal-
lenge. As the Christian religion was rested by its author on two
sublime commandments on which hang all the laws and the proph-
ets, so these men rested republican liberty on two sublime verities
on which it must stand, u it can stand at all; in which it must
live or bear no life. One was the equality of the individual man
with every other in political right. The other is that you are now
seeking to overthrow — ^the right of every people to institute their
own government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most
Hkely to effect their safety and happiness, and so to assume among
the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which
the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. Equality of
individual manhood and equality of individual states. This is
the doctrine which the Republican party is now urged to deny.

To justify that denial the advocates of the policy of imperiausm
are driven to the strange affirmation that Thomas Jefferson did
not believe it and contradicted it when he purchased Louisiana;
that John Quincy Adams did not believe it and contradicted it
when he bought Florida; that Abraham Lincoln did not believe
it and contradicted it when he put down the rebellion; that
Charles Sumner did not believe it and contradicted it when he
bought Alaska. They say that because, with the full and practi-
cal consent of the men who occupied them, these men bought
great spaces of territory occupied by sparse and scattered popula-
tions, neither owning it nor pretending to own it, not capable of
occup3ring it or governing it, destitute of every single attribute
which makes or can make a nation or a people, those statesmen
of ours, designing to make the territory acquired into equal States,
to.be dwelt in and governed under our Constitution by men with
rights equal to our own— that therefore you may get by purchase
or by conquest an unwilling people, occupying and governing a
thickly settled territory, possessing every attribute of a national
life, enjoying a freedom tney have themselves achieved; that you
majr crush out their national life; that you may overthrow their
institutions; that you may strangle their freedom; that you may

4348

pnt over them governors whom yon appoint and in whose appoini;-
ment they have no voice ; that you may make laws for them m your
interest and not in theirs; that you may overthrow their repxib-
lican liberty, and in doing this you appeal to the example of
Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lmcolu
and Charles Sumner.

Thomas Jefferson comes down in history with the Declaration
of Independence in one hand and the title deed of Louisiana in
the other. Do you think his left hand knew not what his right
hand did? Do you think these two immortal transactions con-
Iradicted each other? Do you think he bought men like sheep
and x)aid for them in gold? It is true the men of the Declaration
held slaves. Jefferson felt the inconsistency, and declared that
he trembled for his country when he felt that Gkni was just.
But he lived and died in the expectation that the Declaration
would abolish slavery, as it did.

In every accession of territory to this country ever made we
recognized fully the doctrine of the consent of the governed and
the doctrine that territory so acquired must be held to be made
into States. The men who say that Jefferson violated the doc-
Irine of the Declaration when he bought Louisiana, and John
Quincy Adams when he acquired Florida, and Sumner when he
made his great speech for Alaska, might, with as much reason,
justify a rape by citing the precedent of every lawful marriage
that has taken place since the beginning of time.

The confusion of the argument of our friends on the other side
comes from conf oundmg the statement in the Declaration of the
rights of individuals with the statement of the rights of nations,
or peoples, in dealing with one another.

The whole Declaration is a statement of political rights and
I)olitical relations and political duties.

First. Every man is equal in political rights, including the
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to every other.

Second. No people can come under the government of any
other x)eople, or of any ruler, without its consent. The law of
nature and of nature's Grod entitle every people to its separate
and equal station among the powers of the earth. Our fathers
were not dealing in this clause with the doctrine of the social
compact; they were not considering the rights of minorities;
they used the word "people" as equivalent to "nation," or
** state," as an organized political being, and not as a mere aggre-
gate of x)ersons not collected or associated. They were not
thinking of Robinson Crusoe in his desolate island, or of scat-
tered settlers, still less of predatory bands roaming over vast
regions they could neither own nor occupy. They were affinn-
ing the right of each of the thirteen colonies separately or of all
together to throw off the yoke of George III and to separate
itself or themselves from Great Britain. Now, you must either
admit that what they said was true, or you must aflSrm the
contrary.

The question is put, with 'an air of triumph, as if it were some'
how hs^d to answer, If this doctrine of yours apply to a million
men why does it not apply to a hundred men? At what point in ^
the census do men get these God-given rights of yours? Well.
the answer is easy enough. Our fathers, in the aflOrmation of
the Declaration of Independence you are now denying, were
speakingof the equal rights of nations, of their duties to each
other. The exact point where a few scattered settlements become
4348

23

a people, or a few nomadic tribes a nation, may not admit of pre-
cise mathematical definition. At what point does a brook become
a river? When does a pond becozfte a lake, or a lake a sea, or a
breeze a hurricane? Yon can not tell me. Bnt surely there are
nations and peoples, there is organized national life; and there
are scattered habitations and wandering tribes to whom these
titles are never applied. Louisiana, Florida, Alaska, New Mexico,
G^ifomia, neither had, nor did their inhabitants claim to have,
such a national vitality when we acquired them. And if there
were anything of that sort when we annexed them, it desired
to come to us. And it came to us to become part of us — bone of
our bone, flesh of our flesh, life of our life, soul of our soul.

But I can give you two pretty safe practical rules, quite enough
for this day's purpose. Each of them will solve your difficulty, if
you have a difficulty, and want to solve it. That is a people,
that is a power of the earth, that is a nation entitled as such to its
separate and equal station among the powers of the earth by the
laws of nature and of nature's Groa, that has a written constitution,
a settled territory, an independence it has achieved, an organized
army, a congress, courts, schools, universities, churches, the Chris-
tian religion, a village life in orderly, civilized, self-governed
municipalities; a pure family life, newspapers, books, statesmen
who can debate questions of international law, like Mabini, and
organize governments, like Aguinaldo; poets like Jos6 Eizal;
aye, and patriots who can die for liberty^ like Jos^ Rizal. The
Boer republic is a nation, and it is a crime to crush out its life,
though its population be less than that of Providence, R. I. Each
one of our old thirteen States would have been a nation, even if it
had stood alone. And the Philippine republic, with twenty times
the number of the Boers, a people more than the whole thirteen
States who joined in the Declaration put together, is a nation,
and it is a greater crime still to crush out its uf e.

There is another rule that will help any Senator out of his
difficulty. It must be a comfort to every one of you in his per-
plexity. Every people is of right entitled to its independence that
has got as far as Cuba had in the spring of 1898. You all admit
that. Admit! You all avow, affirm, strenuously insist on that.
You will all pledge your lives and fortunes and sacred honor for
that. You will go to war and send your sons to war to maintain
that. If Spain shall deny it, or any other country but Great
Britain, woe be to her. It isn't necessary, according to you, to
have a constitution; it isn't necessary to have courts; it isn't
necessary to have a capital; it isn't necessary to have a school.
The seat of government may be in the saddle. It isn't nebessary
to occupy a city, or to have a seaport; it isn't necessary to hold
permanently an acre of land; it isn't necessary to have got the
mvader out of the country; it isn't necessary to have a tenth
part of the claim the Filipinos have, or to have done a tenth part
of the things the Filipinos have done. You settled all this for
yourselves and for the country long ago — March 10, 1898. So I
assume you have only put this conundrum for the pleasure of
answering it yourselves.

Mr. Jefferson estimates the population of Louisiana at the time
of the purchase at 43,375, in his communication to Congress. Its
area in square miles was 1,182,752, one person to 27 square miles.
But Gayarre, the best recent authority, estimates the population
at about 20,000, or less than one person to 50 square miles.

The population of Florida at tne time of the annexation was

4348

24

abont 30,000. At the first census thereafter, it was 34,7)^, makiug'
a little more than one inhabitant to 2 square miles.

A convention of the people Of Florida petitioned for the pro-
tection of the United States as an integral part of the United.
States; and it is notorious that the inhabitants were eager for
annexation.

In the case of Louisiana, the settlers at New Orleans objected.
Those at St. Louis and the other ports were willing. But the
settlers at New Orleans were, many of them, sojourners only,
designing to return to France. And France, as Napoleon well
tnew, was totally unable to hold them against England.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachu-
setts will suspend a moment while the Chair lays before the
Senate the unfinished business, which will be stated.

The Secretary. A bill (S. 2355) in relation to the suppres-
sion of insurrection in, and to the government of, the Philippine
Islands, ceded by Spain to the United States by the treaty con-
cluded at Paris on the 10th day of December, 1898.

Mr. HOAR. I have the authority of my colleague, who is in
charge of the bill, to ask that the unfinished business be inform-
ally laid aside.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachu-
setts asks unanimous consent that the unfinished business be
teniporarily laid aside. Without objection it will be so ordered.

Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, no man can read for a moment
Mr. Sumner's great speech in executive session and claim that it is
in the least a departure from the doctrines of the Declaration of
Independence, or a precedent for the conquest or purchase of the
Philippine Islands. Mr. Sumner declares that upon this region
of more than 570,000 square mites, with 4,000 statute miles of
coast, innumerable islands, and a coast line, including bays and
islands, not less than 11,270 miles in length, there are but 54,000
inhabitants according to the most accurate estimate. He declares
there is no government there; that Russia's control is but nomi-
nal; that in many maps of the Russian Empire the territory is
not contained. Her government, he says, is little more than a
name or a shadow. It is not even a skeleton. It is hardly visible.
Its only representative is a fur company, to which has been added
latterly an ice company. The immense country is without form
and without light; without activity and without progress. Dis-
tant from the imperial capital and separated from the huge bulk
of the Russian Empire, it does not share the vitality of a common
country. Its life is solitary and feeble. Its settlements are only
encampments or lodges. Its fisheries are only a petty i)erquisite
belongmg to local or personal adventurers rather than to the com-
merce of nations. He quotes Alexander Humboldt, who says:
** The Russian factories on the American continent are, for the
most part, mere collections of sheds and cabins, but serving as
storehouses for the fur trade." Humboldt adds that we must not
think that these places are Russian provinces in the sense given
to the word in speaking of Spanish provinces.

The price, $7,500,000, paid for 570,000 square miles of territory
shows that it was but a waste and desolate place, without national
life; without a people in any true sense of the word; without any
inhabitants possessing or claiming a title beyond their petty huts
or temporary dwelling places. And, Mr. President, Mr. Sumner
puts forward as the chief motive for acquiring Alaska the expan-
sion of republican institutions, which, he says, is our traditional

434S

25

aspiration. It was in this spirit that independence was achieved,
and that it is in the name of human rights, the same in which
onr fathers overthrew the kingly power, that this acquisition
is to be made. He quotes John Aoams, saying that our State
governments are destined to spread over the nortnem part of this
whole quarter of the globe. He adds that we are to guarantee a
republican form of government to them, and that Russia is now,
with France and Spain, giving way to the absorbing unity de-
clared in the national motto, **E Pluribus Unum."

Mr. Sumner enters in his speech what he styles a "caveat."
This treaty must not be aprecedent for a system of indiscriminate
and costly annexion. Me says that every stage in our predes-
tined future must be by natural processes, without war, and, he
would add, even without purchase. Our triumph must be by
growth and organic expansion, recognizing always the will of
those who become our fellow-citizens. Our acquisitions, he says,
will be under the sanction of wedlock to the Republic.

Mr. Sumner, as I said ju&t now, estimated the population at
54,000, or one inhabitant to about 11 square miles, divided into
four ^oups — Eskimo, Aleutians, who are of Mongolian origin;
Kenaians and Koloschians, who are American Indians. Some of
them are warlike; some gentle and pacific: all slaveholders; some
cannibals. Mr. Sumner ends his speech with affirming *'that
we are to give to this territory republican government, which,
looking to a long future, we shall organize with free schools and
equal laws, before which every citizen will stand erect in the
consciousness of manhood. Bestow such a government, and you
will give what is better than all you can receive, whether quin-
tals of fish, sands of gold, choicest fur, or most beautiful ivory."

In the case of Hawaii a constitution had been maintained in
peace for five years, in spite of Mr. Cleveland's known inclination
to interfere for its overthrow. There was an express provision
authorizing the Government to make a treaty of annexation
with us.

In the case of the provinces acquired from Mexico, there was
no population capable of a separate national life, and there was
at least no reason to believe that the people dissented.

But in the present case you have a clear, sharp question put to
the conscience of the people: Will you by force of arms or by .
purchase get territory belonging to an unwilling people, num-
bering miUions, for the purpose of holding them m subjugation
forever — a people who had achieved their own independence, had
a government established in order and in peace, who are so
opposed to your rule that they are willing to die in an almost
hopeless resistance to it?

I repeat. In every acquisition of territory we ever made we
meant to make States of it. Jefferson expreBsly says so in his
Louisiana message. There was no nation owning and dwelling
on the territory; no people in the sense of the Declaration; no
organized national lire; and certainly, in every case but Louis-
iana, we had reason to believe that the few scattered dwellers in
the territory approved the transaction.

Mr. Seward said of California:

California yielded to perguasion rather than to conqaest. She renounced her
lineage, language, and ancient loyalty. (Seward's Works, volume 1, page 9.)

There are other arguments, if they are to be called arguments,
which would hardly be deemed worthy of consideration were it

4848

not that they have been given a wide circulation by the impe-
rialistic press.

One says, Yon imprison criminals, and therefore your Qovem-
ment does not rest upon the consent of the governed. Another
says, You subdued the Southern rebellion, and therefore you gov-
ern people without their consent. In the case of the Southern
rebellion, if all the people of any State, without distinction of color
or race, had been counted, there was not one where the majority
was not in favor of the Union. In the case of the Southern rebel-
lion, the rebellion was by States against a government which the
insurgents had aided in establishing, and against the Constitu-
tion which they had declared should be the supreme law of the
land, anything in the constitution or laws of any particular State
to the contrary, notwithstanding.

But it is hardly worth while to undertake to notice arguments
which are not themselves addressed to the reason, and which I
do not believe ever convince those who utter them, althongh
sometimes in the excitement of crowded audiences they pass cur-
rent with those who hear them.

You have tried governing men of other races than your own
at home for a hundred years. You have dealt with the Indian,
you have dealt with the negro, close at hand, knowing all about
them. I supiwse you feel encouraged by your success. There
are ten million of them. And now you go forth to lay your yoke
on ten million more, 7,000 miles away, of whom you know
nothing. You go forth jauntily and boastingly, as Louis Napo-
leon went to meet his doom at Sedan.

AOUINALDO, BRAD'S, HONEST, AND PATBIOTIC.

Senators, if there were no Constitution, if there were no Decla-
ration, if there were no international law, if there were nothing
but the history of the past two years, the American people would
be bound in honor, if there be honor, bound in common honesty,
if there be honesty, not to crush out this Philippine republic, and
not to wrest from this people its independence. The history of
our dealing with the Philippine people is found in the reports of
our commanders. It is all contained in our official documents,
and in published statements of General Anderson and in the
speeches of the President. It is little known to the country
■ to-day. When it shall be known, I believe it will cause a revo-
lution in public sentiment.

There are 1,200 islands in the Philippine group. They extend
as far as from Maine to Florida. They have a population vari-
ously estimated at from 8,000,000 to 12,000,000. There are wild
tribes who never heard of Christ, and islands that never heard of
Spain. But among them are the people of the island of Luzon,
numbering 3,500,000, and the people of the Visayan Islands, num-
bering 2,500,000 more. They are a Christian and civilized people.
They wrested their indei)enaence from Spain and established a
republic. Their rights are no more to be affected by the few wild
tribes in their own mountains or by the dwellers in the other
islands than the rights of our old thirteen States were affected by
the French in Canada, or the Six Nations of New York, or the Cher-
okees of Georgia , or the Indians west of the Mississippi. Twice our
commanding generals, by their own confession, assured these peo-
ple of their i ndependence . Clearly and beyond all cavil we formed
an alliance with them. We expressly asked them to cooperate

4348

27

-vrtth ns. We handed over our prisoners to their keeping; we
Bonght their help in caring for our sick and wounded. We were
"told by them again and again and again that they were fighting for
Independence. Their purpose was as well known to our generals,
to the War Department, and to the President, as the tact that
they were in arms. We never undeceived them until the time
-when hostilities were declared in 18d9. The President declared
again and again that we had no title and claimed no right to any-
thing beyond the town of Manila. Hostilities were begun by
ns at a place where we had no right to be, and were continued
by us in spite of Aguinaldo's disavowal and regret and offer to
-withdraw to a line we should prescribe. If we crush that repub-
lic, despoil that people of their freedom and index)endence, and
subject them to our rule, it will be a story of shame and dis-
honor.

Is it right, is it. just, to subjugate this people? To substitute
our Ghovemment for their self-government, for the constitution
they have proclaimed and established, a scheme of government
Bucn as we could devise ten thousand miles away?

Is it right to put over them officers whom we are to select and
they are to obey and pay?

Is it right to make tariffs for our interests and not theirs?

Are the interests of the Manila tobacco grower to be decided
upon hearings given to the tobacco raisers of the Connecticut
River valley?

Are these mountains of iron, and nuggets of gold, and stores of
coal, and hemp-bearing fields, and fruit-bearing gardens to be
looked upon by our legislators with covetous eyes?

Is it our weaJtii or their wealth these things are to increase?

There are other pregnant questions, some of which perhaps
require a little examination and a little study of the reports of
our commanders.

Had they rightfully achieved their independence when hostili-
ties began between us and them?

Did they forfeit their indei)€ndence by the circumstances of
the war?

On the whole, have they not shown that they are fit for self-
government, fit as Cuba, fit as Greece, fit as Spain, fit as Japan,
nt as Haiti or San Domingo, fit as any country to the south of
us, from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn, was when, with our
approval, those countries won their liberties from Spain?

Can we rightfully subjugate a people because we think them
unfit for self-government?

Said Sir Ja-nes Mackintosh when the partition of Poland was
going on:

There is no political doctrine more false or pemicions than that which repre-
sents vice in its internal government as an extenuation of unqnst agj3^re8sion
against a conntrv and a consolation to mankind for the destruction of its inde-
pendence. As no govei-nroent is without great faults, such a doctrine multiplies
the grounds of war, gives an unbounded scope to ambition, and furnishes benevo-
lent pretexts for every sort of rapine.

The people of the Philippine Islands have never submitted
themselves willingly to Spain. There has been no time for two
centuries when they would not have been free from the yoke if
they could. Their history has been a history of cruelty and
oppression on one side, of resistance and the aspiration for free-
dom on the other.

4843

28

In 1896 a rebellion broke out, headed by Aguinaldo. His peo-
ple were unarmed and poor. The difficulty of communica'fcioii
m a country without roads made combination impossible agaixist
a power that commanded the sea and the seax>orts. Still, tlie
revolt was formidable enough to compel Spain to make promises
of reform and redress of grievances. Aguinaldo, seeing that a
continued strife would cost much suffering, many lives, and in
all likelihood defeat in the end, accepted Spain's promise of
amendment and a^eed that the principal leaders of the rebel-
lion, their wives, widows, and children, should go into exile and
that Spain should make some provision for their support.

Spain was faithless to her promise of reform and paid over only

Eart of the money. This transaction has been much criticised
ere, but, in my judgment, it leaves no stain on the honesty or
patriotism of tne insurgent chief. There is no evidence that h.e
profited himself by the transaction or expended a penny of tlie
money for his own use. The transaction was, as circumstances
then were, for the interest of his people.

Many advocates of imperialism who have investigated the mat-
ter have declared their confidence in Aguinaldo's integrity. Mr,
Schurman, president of the commission, told his students at
Cornell when he got home that Aguinaldo was an honest and a
patriotic man. Our consuls bear this same testimony.

Mr. Williams, United States consul-general at Manila, under
date of March 28, 1898, says:

Bebellion nevermore threatening to Spain. Rebels getting money, arms, and
friends, and they outnumber the Spaniards a hundred to one.

March 21, 1898, he writes of the desertion of an entire regiment
of the Spanish forces to the insurgents, and adds:

Now five thousand armed rebels, who for days have been in camp near
Manila and have been reenforced from the mountains, plan to attack the oity
to-night.

On April 28, 1898, Mr. Pratt wrote a letter to Mr. Day, in which
he speaks of " learning from General Aguinaldo the state and
object sought to be obtained, which, though absent from the
Philippines, he was directing."
Mr. Pratt further says in a letter to Secretary Day:
General Aguinaldo impressed me as a man of intellectual ability, courage, and
worth}^ of the confidence that had been placed in him.

He says further:

No close observer of what haa transpired in the Philippines during the past
'onr years could have failed to recognize that General Aguinaldo enjoyed, above
all others, the confidence of the Philippine insurgents and the respect alike of

the Spanish and foreigners in the islands, all of whom vouched for his justice
and high sense of honor.

Mr. Williams wrote Mr. Moore on July 18, 1898:
General Aguinaldo, Agoncillo, and Sandico are all men who would be leaders
in theh: separate departments in any country.

I have studied as well as I could the character and career of
Aguinaldo. I do not compare him with Washington. To Amer-
icans there is one character too lofty, one name too sacred, for
Earallel or comparison. But I believe he is to take a high rank
ereaf ter among the men who have lived and died for liberty.
He deserves to be remembered with that small band who have
given life, and everything dearer than life, to their country in a
losing cause.

To his loved land he pare, without a stain.
Courage and faith, vain faith, and courage vfiln.

434S

29

He shall live with Kossuth, with Oom Panl, with Joubert, with
KTnTnett, with Egmont and Horn, with Nathan Hale, with War-
ren, i?vith all the great martyrs of history whose blood hath been
the seed of the church of liberty.

He, subtle, strong;, and stubborn, gave his life
To a lost cause, and knew the ^ift was vain.

Later shall rise a people sane and great,
Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one,

Telling old battles over without hate,
Nobfe, his name shall pass from sire to son.

On June 11, 1898, Consul Pratt writes to Aguinaldo from Sitiga-
pore:

I 'wrote fally to Admiral Dewey concerning yon, and to the American Gov-
emmeht have pointed out that you and you alone were equal to the occasion.

Consul-General Wildman writes to Aguinaldo from Hongkong
Jnne 25, 1898, calling upon him to stand shoulder to shoulder
"With the American forces, saying:

1 have vouched for your honesty and earnestness of purpose to the President
of the United States and to our people, and they are ready to extend their hand to
yon as a brother and aid you in every laudable ambition. I give you ray assur-
ance that you can always call upon me to act as your champion should any try
to slander your name.

Do not forset that the United States undertook this war for the sole purpose
of relieving tne Cubans from the cruelties under which they were suflfering, and
not for the love of conquest or the hope of gain. They are actuated by precisely
the same feelings toward the Filipinos. Whatever the final disposition of the
conquered territory may be, you can trust the United States that justice and
honor will control all their dealings with yon.

On the 14th of July, 1898, he writes to Aguinaldo:

Tou have certainly fulfilled nobly all the promises I made on your behalf to
Admiral Dewey.

I am glad to see that our commissioners, in their report, do not
indorse the thoroughly refuted slander that Aguinaldo accepted
any money from the Spaniards for his own purposes. But the
revolution was compromised by an agreement with the leaders
of the insurrection to withdraw from the island, and the promise
from the Spaniards that the people should have representation in
the Cortes of Spain; that the friars should be sent away; that the
right of association and a free press should be enjoyed.

These promises were all broken. ** The civil guard began to
whip and to shoot and abuse the i)eople as before; and it is stated
that in the province of Manila more than 200 were executed.
The money that had been paid to the rebel leaders was at once
converted into a fund for a new revolution." The transaction, on
the whole, seems not to have been disadvantageous to the Fili-
pinos, who, our commissioners say, had a great many soldiers,
but had only about 800 small arms, consisting <5f rifles, shotguns,
and a few cannon of anti(juated models. The fund that had been
obtained from the Spaniards was invested in modern ai-ms of
approved pattern. On the 1st of May, 1898, Admiral Dewey
destroyed the Spanish fleet, and on the 19th of the same montn
Aguinaldo came, and brought thirteen of his staff with him, and
was allowed to land at Cavite and organize an army.

The junior Senator from Colorado, in a manly speech with much
of which I find myself in hearty accord, says that Aguinaldo ia
brave, honest, and patriotic. I am glad to congratulate the Sen-
ate that at least one voice has been found among the supporters
of the policy of imperialism to do justice to a gallant enemy
President Schurman has borne to him a like tribute. These gen
tlemen, at least, have had clearness of sight enough to see that

4348

30

the men who try to disgrace the name of Aguinaldo are dls^rrao
ins Admiral Dewey and President McKinley. Either Againaldo
is Drave, honest, and patriotic, or the great Admiral, witli tlie
approval of the great {^resident, brought over and armed a trai-
tor and a.hireling and put him at the head of the jnen who "wore
then onr allies in arms.

Why, Mr. President, the men who chatter so glibly in news-
papers, and, I am sorry to say, sometimes in the Senate, do not
seem to reflect that they are contradicted by the conduct of the
people "of the Philippine Islands, by the conduct of Admiral
bewey himself.

The Philippine masses, from the beginning until this lionr,
have been most loyal to this chieftain.

* * * General MacArthnr, ooe of the bravest American commanders in the
PliilipmneB, declared a few months ago: '' When I fir^t started in against these
rebels X believed that Againaldo's troops represented only a faction. I did uot
like to believe that the whole population of Xazon — tlie native pupnlatiou — was
oppoeed to us. But having come thus far, after having occupied several towna
and cities in succession, and having been brought into contact with both * Insur-
rectos' and 'amigos,' I have been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Fili-
pino masses are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads."

I give an extract from an address by the Filipino leaders
just after Aguinaldo landed, published by Murat Halstead in his
" Story of the FOippines *':

In exchange for the loftiness of mind with which Seuor Aguinaldo has rigidly-
carried out the terms of the peace a^greement, General Primu de Rivera had the
cynicism to state iu the congress of his nation that he had promised no reform to
Sefior Aguinaldo and his army, but that he had only given them a piece of bread iu
order that they might be able to maintain themselves abroad. This was reechoed
in the foreign press, and Sefior Aguii»ldo was accused in the Spanish press of
having allowed liimsell' to be bought with a handful of gold, selling <»nt his coun-
trv at the same time. There were published, moreover, iu tliose Spanish peri-
otlicals, caricatures of Seiior Aguinaldo which profoundly wounded his honor and
his patriotism.

Sefior Aguinaldo and the other revolutionists who reside in Hongkong agreed
not to take out one cent of the $400,000 depo8ite<i in the chartered banks and the
Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the only amount which Sefior Aguinaldo received
from the Sp.auish Governnieut on account of the stipulated indeinnitj*, but to use
it for arras in order to carry on another levolntion in the Philippines in case the
Spanish Government should fail to carry out the )>eace agreement, at least in so
far as it refers to general amnesty and reforms. All tlie above-named revolution-
ists, Sefior Aguinaldo setting the example, resolved to deny themselves every
kind of comfort during their stay in Hongkong, living in the most modest style.
for the pui-pose of preventing a re<luction by one single cent of the above-nilmed
sum of $400,000, which they set aside exclusively for the beueht of their country.

LAWSUIT BETWEEN DON J. AETACHO AND DON E. AGUINALDO.

Senor Artacho, induced by the father solicitor of the Dominicans and the
consul-general of Spain, filed in the courts of that colony a summons against
Don E. Aguinaldo, sisking for a division of the above-mentioned $400,000 between
those revolutionary chiefs who resided in Hongkong. Artacho and three others,
who joined the revolution in its last days and rendered little service to it, were
the only ones who desired a division of this money ; whereas forty-seven revolu-
tionaries, many of whom were most distinguished chiefs, were opposed to it, sup-
porting the resolution which Sefior Aguinaldo had previously taken in regard to
it. Sefior Aguinaldo, in order to avoid all scandal, did everything piissible to
avoid appearmg in court, answering the summons of Artacho, who, resuiziug that
his conduct had made himself hated by all Filipinos, agieed in a friendly arrange-
ment to withdraw his suit, receiving in excbauge $5,000; in this way were frus-
trated the intrigues of the solicitor of the Dominican order and of the Spanish
consul, who endeavored at any cost to destroy the $400,000 by dividing it up.

Artacho is now on trial before a judicial court on charges preferred by various
revolutionists for offenses whiuh can be proved ; he has no influence in the revolu-
tionary party. (Extract from " The Story of the Philippines," by Murat Halatead,
pages 60-67.)

But what do you think of Admiral Dewey, and General Ander-
son, and General Mac Arthur? Did Dewey bring over to his aid a

81

perjnred scoundrel, who had sold his soul like Judas and his
coTintry like Arnold, form an alliance with him, ask his coopera-
tion and advice, deliver over Si>anish preservers to him, and
commit our sick to his tender mercy?

Th.e United States of America does not use traitors and scoun-
drels for its tools in the great transactions of its history.

Tlie En^Ush General Buller repelled indignantly some attacks
in tlie British press ux>on the character of the Boers, and said
indignantly that it became a brave i)eople to honor a brave enemy.
I think the American people can do that. They will yet do jus-
tice to the martyrs of liberty in this oriental isle. What gener-
ons American, what youth who has been stirred by the story of
Thermopylffl and Marathon, what patriot who remembers War-
ren, -what man with English blood who remembers Hampden, or
Sydney, or Russell, what Dutchman who remembers Egmont
and Horn, what Irishman who remembers Emmet, what Hun- .
garian who remembers Kossuth will not feel his heart throb and
nis eyes moisten as he thinks of the lofty heroism and the awful
tragedy of Jos6 Bizal, or as he reads tne death chant which he
wrote in his last hours, just before he was shot by the Spanish
tyrants on the 30th of December, 1896. Oui- English translation
gives only imperfectly the effect of the noble Spanish, the tongue
in which the great scholar said he should choose to speak to his
God.

Farewell, adored Fatherland; our Eden lost, farewell;
Farewell, O snn's loved rc;;ion, pearl of the eaiitem sea;
Gladly I die for tb3' de^tr sake; yea, thou knowest well
TV ere ray sad life more radiant tar than mortal tongue could tell.
Yet woiild I give it gladly, joyously for thee.

Pray for those who died alone, betrayed in wretchedness;
For* those who suffered for thy sake torments and misery;
For broken hearts of mothers, who weep in bitterness ;
For widows, tortured captives*, orphans in deep distress;
And pray for thy dear self, that thou may'st finally bo free.

Farewell, adored country ; I leave my all with thee.

Beloved Philippines, wlioso soil my leet have trod,

1 leave with thee my lilo's love deep; I go where all are free;

I go where are no tortures, w^here the oppressor's power shall be

Destroyed, where faith kills not, where he who reigns is God.

▲QUINALDO R£PBB8BNTBD WHOLE PEOPLE.

One of the great mistakes of many honest people is the belief
that Aguinaldohasin some way imposed himself upon the people
of Luzon and the neighboring islands against their will; that he is
an unscnipulous usurper, who forced his authority on an unwilling
people. This notion is corrected a hundred times by the testimony
of our officials. Aguinaldo was as much the recognized leader
of his people as Kossuth was the recognized leader of the Hunga-
rians. Admiral Dewey brought him back from exile because he
was the accepted choice of his people. There were 30,000 men in
arms who hailed him on his arrival as their chosen leader. The
constitution he promulgated was accepted by the people who were
then, throughout Luzon and the Visayas, in the enjoyment of a
quiet and orderly government, republican in form, save the brief
and temporary dictatorship exercised only for military pui-poses —
a dictatorship not half as absolute in theory as the dictatorship of
our President over those islands has been in theory during the last
twelve months. Of course, the authority of the government of
Luzon and the adjacent islands did not extend over the savage
tribes in the southern islands, or over the Sultan of Sulu. But
at least it paid no tribute to that sultan.

4348

32

General MacArthnr, talking to H. Irving Hancock, ManilA
correspondent of the Criterion, said, what I have once qnoted:

When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that A^oinaldo's troops
represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population
on Luzon— the native popnlation, that is— was opposed to ns and our offers of aJd.
and good government. But after having come this far, after having occupied
several towns and cities in snccession, and having been brought much into con-
tact with both insnrrectos and amigos, I have oeen reluctantly compelled to
believe that the Filipino masses are loyal and devoted to Aguinaldo and the
government which he heads.

General Otis's proclamation of Jannary 4, 1899, recognizes that
the insurgents under Aguinaldo fairly represent the people. I
will not recite it at length. But there is one very significant
paragraph therein. It is this:

From the tenure and substance of the proclamation of the President, I am
fully of the opinion that it is the intention of the United States Government,
while directing the forces generally, to appoint the representative men now form-
ing the controlling element of the Filipinos to civil positions of trust and respon-

Is that not a full acknowledgment, as of January 4, 1899, in
the first place, that Aguinaldo and those associated with him
were the controlling element of the Philippine Islands; and next,
that they were fit for civil iwsitions of trust and resi>on8ibility?

There is another admission in that proclamation, filtered and
emasculated as it was. It is a part of the I^esident*s own language.
" It should be the earnest and paramount aim of the Adminis-
tration to win the confidence and respect and affection of the in-
habitants of the Philippine Islands by insuring to them in every
possible way the full measure of in(fividual rights and liberty,
which is the heritage of a free people."

It is true, is it not then, that the inhabitants of the Philippine
Islands are entitled to that liberty which is the heritage of a free
people? If it be true, then our imperialistic friends must answer
another question — whether that lioerty, which is the heritage of
a free people, is consistent with the domination of any other peo-
ple determining for them what shall be their institutions, laws,
form of government, and jwlicies, foreign and domestic.

Mr. President, there is one mode by which the people of the
Philippine Islands could establish the truth of the charges as to
their degradation and incapacity for self -government which have
been made by the advocates of imperialism in this debate; and
that mode was by submitting tamely and without resistance to
the dominion of the United States.

WE ASKED COOPERATION, IHEATED THEM AS ALLIES, AND ASSURED THEM OF
INDEPENDENCE.

Aguinaldo came back to Luzon. He found 30,000 men in arms
for liberty waiting to receive him. He conquered. They were
• jworly armed at first, but they got arms from us and they pur-
chased arms abroad. They banished Spain from the whole of
Luzon and the Visayas; they captured thousands upon thousands
of Spanish prisoners; other thousands were committed to them
by us, until they had the whole of the civilized portion of those
islands under their command, and hemmed Spain into the city of
Manila by a line of intrenchments extending from water to water.
But for what they did the army of Spain could have withdrawn
itself from the neighborhood of our fleet, and could have held its
own against our military forces very likely to this moment.

Now, Mr. President, during all this time, down to the breaking

4318

33

out of hostilities on the 5th of February, 1899, the forces of the
people of whom Aguinaldo was the head held that entire terri-
tory as securely, as exclusively, as the American people held
Massachusetts throughout the Revolutionary war after the
evacuation of Boston on the 5th day of March, 1776.

They organized a civil government. It is true Aguinaldo was
declared in the beginning dictator chief, as in three instances in
South America Bolivar was declared dictator. That happens
in all revolutions. While the conflict of arms is going on, but
simultaneously with the dictatorship, Aguinaldo declared his pur-
pose to surrender it as soon as peace and order could be restored
and liberty achieved, and as fast as that happened, peaceful and
orderly local government took the place of military power.

Now, Mr. President, there is no historic fact more clearly estab-
lished by historic testimony than the facts —

First, That these people were aiming at independence from the
beginning.

Second, That they achieved independence.

Third, That our commanders, naval and military, our Secre-
tary of War, our Administration at home, knew all the time
that they were aiming, striving, at independence.

Fourtn, That we encouraged them by every form of practical
assurance.

I am not speaking now of the assurance they derived from our
Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, our known prin-
ciples, our past history — I am speakmg of what they had the
right to take and understand as assurances that their independ-
ence was to be respected. Why, Aguinaldo proclaimed it a dozen
times. He announced a free constitution, an independent con-
stitution, and established it Skil over the islands of Luzon and the
Visayas, and these documents were immediately communicated
to our commanders, and were by our commanders at once reported
to Washington.

During mat whole time, down to the end of December, 1898,
when General Miller unwittingly, contrary to General Otis's
desire, made public the order of the President, not a word of
opposition or of contradiction came from American lips to them.
If ever silence gave consent, if ever actions sx>oke louder than
words, if ever conduct bound a nation, aye, if ever conduct bound
a man of honor, the people of the United States are bound to
respect the independence these people had achieved.

But silence and knowledge of the fact on our part were not
all. We formed an alliance with Aguinsddo; our General wrote
to him official letters asking his cooperation. Admiral Dewev
denies, with some indignation, that he said the things whicn
Aguinaldo relies on as forming an alliance, but the military
commanders do not deny it; they confess it; they reported it to
the Department of War and to the President. Twice did the
commanding eenerals representing the United States give express
assurance to that effect by their own confession.

General Anderson, who commanded in the Philippines before
Merritt and Otis, says in his article in the North American Re-
view for February, 1900:

Whether Admiral Dewey, Consnls Pratt, Wildnan, and WiUlams did or did
not ^ve Afainaldo aasnrances that the Philippine government would be recoff*
nized, the ^lipinos certainly thought so, probably inferring this from their acu
rather than their statements.

£very American citizen who came in contact with' Filipinos at the inception

34

of the Spanisli war, or at any time within a few months after hostilitiee begsuL,
probably told those he may have talked with on the snbjeot that we intended to
tree tbem from Spanish oppression. And bere came in a natural misconception
and misunderstanding. The general expression was, '* We intend to whip tlie
Spaniiurds and set yon A*ee." Bat this to Agninaldo and his immediate followers
had a very different meaning. To them it meant that the United States -vroald
recognize any government be and hie followers might set nn^ It must be remem-
bered that two years before Agninaldo had been the leader in a rebellion tlie
object of which was to set up an independent government. The Filipino people,
in a vague way, had the same anticipation, for it must be understood toat
Agninaldo is to his countrymen an ideal— an Oriental Washington— destined to
be free from Spanish rule. Even if Dewey and the consuls had no right to pledge
the Grovemment, if they did so even without authority, it gives the insnrgent
leaders a certain equitable claim to consideration.

Now, what does the commander of the American forces tell
you? He tells yon that Agninaldo inquired of Admiral Dewey if
he authorized the promise made in his name by the captain of the
Petrel and the two consuls, and that he received satisfactory
assurances. He then goes on to say:

Receiving satisfactory assurances, he proceeded naively to say that the janta
in Hongkong even then suspected that after whipping the Spaniards we would
refuse them independence. The Admiral replied, assuring him that we were
honorable and, having plenty of land, desired no colonies.

General Anderson adds:

Agninaldo is mistaken in attributing this remark to the Admiral. I must
plefM guilty to this Delnhic utterance at a subsequent interview.

General Anderson ados (North American Review, page 277) :

" A few days thereafter he made an official call on me and * * * asked if
we, the North Americans, as he called us, intended to hold the Philippines as
dependencies. I said I could not answer that, but that in one hundred years we
had established no colonies. He then made this remarkable statement: 'I have
studied attentively the Constitution of the United States and I iind in it no
authority for colonies, and I have no fear.'

** It may seem that my answer was somewhat evasive, but I was at the time
trying to contract with the Filipinos for horses, carts, fuel, and forage."

Greueral Anderson says that when he was commander in chief of our land
forces Admiral Dewey thought he could not prudently fight such vessels as the
Pelayo, and other formidable ships, which were then expected through the Suez
Canal, in the close waters of the oay, where they would have the support of the
heavy Erupp guns on land, and proposed that General Anderson shonla reembark
the soldiers we had landed at Cavite and take them to Suhig Bay. He adds :

" At that time the insurgent Filipinos had driven the Spanish soldiers within
the defenses of Manila, and had them completely invested on the land side by
light field works, wMch they held with about 14,000 men. They were poorly
armed and equipped, yet, as they had defeated the Spaniards in a number of fights
in the field and had taken 4,000 prisoners, it may be asserted in the vernacular of
the camp that ' they had the morale on them.' "

The Manila garrison was so demoralized at that time, and so incomplete was
their line of defense, that I believe it would have been possible, by coming to an
understanding with Agninaldo, to have carried their advance works by storm
and to have captured aU of the city, except the walled city or the old Spanish
town. Under existing orders, we could not have struck a bargain with the Filipinos;
as our Government did not recognize the authority of Agumaldo as constituting
ade facto government: and if Manila had been taken with his cooperation, it
would have been his capture as much as ours. We could not have held so large a
city with so small a force, and it would therefore have been practically under
FiUpino control.

On the 1st of July, 1898, 1 called on Agninaldo with Admiral Dewey. He asked
me at once whether '*the United States of the North" either had recognized or
would recognize his government. I am not quite sure as to the form of the ques-
tion, whether it was *'had" or ''would." In either form it was embarrassing.
My orders were, in substance, to eflect a landing, establish a base, not to so
beyond the zone of naval cooperation, to consult Admiral Dewey, and to wait for
Merrltt. Agninaldo had proclaimed his government only a few days before (June
28), and Admiral Dewey had no instructions as to that assumption. The facts as
to the situation at that time I believe to be these : Consul Williams statea in one
of his letters to the State Department that several thousand Tagals were in open
insurrection before our declaration of war with Spain. I do no know as to the
number, yet I believe the statement has foundation in fact. Whether Admiral
Dewey and Consuls Pratt; Wildman, and Williams did or did not give Agninaldo
assurances that a Filipino government would be recognized, the Filipinos oer*

35

-tainly tlionght so, probably inferring this from their acts rather than from their
statements. If an incipient rebellion was already in progress, what conld be
inferred from the fact that Agoinaldo and thirteen other banished Tagals were
brougbt down on a naval vessel and landed in Gavite? Admiral Dewey gave
tbeni arms and ammunition, as I did subsequently at his request. They were
permitted to gather up a lot of arms which the Spaniards had thrown into the
Day, and, with the 4,000 rifles taken from the Spanish prisoners, and 2,000 pur-
oliaaed in Hongkong, they proceeded to organize three brigades and also to arm a
small steamer tney had captured. I was the first to tell Admiral Dewey that
tliere was any disposition on the part of tiie Americui people to hold the Fhilip-
pines, if they were captured. The current of opinion was setting that way when
tlie first expeditionary force left San Francisco, but this the Admiral nad no
reason to surmise. But to return to our interview with Aguinaido.

I told him I was acting only in a military capacitv; that I had no authority to
recognize his government; that we had came to whip the Spaniards, and that if
^we were successful, the indirect eiiiect would be to free them from Spanish
tyranny. I added that, as we were fighting a common enemy, I hoped we could
eet along amicably together. He did not seem pleased witn this answer. The
fact is, he hopf^d and expected to take Manila with Admiral Dewey's assistanoe,
and he was bitterly disappointed when our soldiers landed at Cavite. In a few
boars after our interview, two of my staff officers, Mi^'or Cloman and Lieutenant
Clark, who were walking through the streets of the town, were arrested and taken
before Aguinaldo. They were told by him that strangers could only visit the
town by his permission, but that in their case he was pleased to give them per-
mission to proceed.

We at once landed our forces, and on the 4th of July Aguinaldo waa invited
to witness a parade and review in honor of our national holiday. He did not come,
because he was invited not as President but as General Aguinaldo. This led me
to write him a letter, stating that, while we hoped to have amicable relations with
bim, I would have to take Cavite as a base oi operations, and dosing with this
sentence:

** I have, therefore, the honor to ask your excellency to instruct your officials not
to interfere with my officers in the performance of their duties, and not to assume
that officers or men can not visit Cavite without your permission."

A few days thereafter he made an official call, coming with cabinet and staff and
a band of music. On that occasion he handed me an elaborate schedule for an
autonomous government which he had received from some Filipinos in Manila,
with a statement that they had reason to believe that Spain would grant them
such a form of government. With this was an open letter addressed to the Fili-
pino people from Pedro Alexandre Petemo, advising them to put their trust in
Spain rather than America.

The day before two German officers had called on Aguinaldo, and I believe they
had brought him these papers. I asked him if the scheme was agreeable to him.
He did not answer, but ask if we, the North Americans, as he called us, intended
to hold the- Philippines as dependencies. I said I could not answer that, but
that he conld trust the honor of the United States; in one hundred and twenty
years we Lad established no colonies. He then made this remarkable statement :
** I have studied attentively the Constitution of the United States, and I find in
it no authority for colonies, and I have no fear."

It may seem strange that my answer was somewhat evasive, but I was at the
time trying to contract with the Filipinos for horses, carts, fuel, and forage. * * *
About the middle of July the insurgent leaders in Cavite invited a number
of our army and navy officers to' a banquet. There was some postprandial
speechmaking, the substance of the Filipino talk being that they wished to be
annexed, but not conquered. One of our officers, in reply, assured Uiem that we
had come not to make them slaves, but to make them freemen. A singular scone
followed. All the Filipinos rose to their feet, and Buencamino, taking his wine-
glass in his hand, said : *' We wish to be baptized in that sentiment.'^ Then he
and the rest poured the wine from their glasses over their heads.

The origin of our controversies and conflicts with the Filipinos can, as already
explained, be traced back to our refusal to recognize the political authority of
Aguinaldo. Our first serious break with them arose from oar refusal to let
them cooperate with us. * * *

The Filipinos had made every preparation to assail the Spanish lines in their
front. Certainly they would not have given up part of their line to us unless
they thought they were to fight with us. They therefore received General Mer-
ritt^B interdict with anger and indignation. They considered the war as their
war, and Manila as their capital, and Luzon as their country. * * *

The situation was exceedingly critical. Our soldiers believed that the Filipinos
were almost beside themselves with rage and disappointment. The friendly rela-
tions we had with Generals Becati and Morial alone prevented aoohfiiot then and
there. * * *

I received an order from General Merrit^^ to remove the Filipinos from the city.
Had we attempted to use force, we wouli have had to fight te carry oat oar
48iS

36

erdera. In that event we would certainly have had a serious complication.
With 10^000 men we would have had to guard 13,300 Spanish prisoners and fl^bt
14,000 Filipinos. I therefore took the responsihilitj of telegraphing Agninaldo
requesting him to withdraw his troops, and intimatmg that serious consequencea
would foltow if he did not do so. I received his answer saying that a commission,
would come to me the next morning with full powers. Accoraingly the nextcla;y
Sefiores Buencamino, Lag&.*de, Araneto, and Sandeco came to division headqa&r-
ters in Manila and stated that they were authorized to order the withdrawal ot
their troops if we would promise to reinstate them in their present positions on
our making peace with Spain. Thereupon I took them over to Gtonenu Merritt:.

Upon their repeating their demands, he told them he could not give sncli. a
pledge, but that thev could rely on the honor of the Americati peopla The Gr43zi-
eral then read to them the proclamation he intended to issue to the Filipizio
people. The commission then went back to Aguinaldo for further instructions.
A member of the commission brought me a letter from Aguinaldo complaining
tnat he had been harshly treated, and that his army had given up a part of tbeir
lines to us on the understanding that there was to be a cooperation between us in
tbe future in military movements. General Merritt directed me to reply that if
Aguinaldo had been apparently harshly treated it was firom a military necessity,
and that, while we might recognize the justice of their insurrection, it "wsis
thought Judicious to have only one army in Manila at one time.

WAS LUZON ▲ CONQUBBED COUIVTBYf

We held Manila and Cavite. The rest of the island was held not by the Span-
lards, but by the Filipinos. On the other islands the Spaniards were confined to
two or three fortified towns. At the time referred to we could not (daim to hold by-
purchase, for we had not then received Spain's quitclaim deed to the archipelago.

Now, mark, this is the commander in chief of the American
forces, and he tellsyou that although Dewey did not make that
promise, he did. Here were these people in arms. They were
in arms for independence. They nad established government
all over Luzon and the Visayas; all over the civilized and
Christian i)ortions of the Philippine Islands; their army was
80,000 strong, and constantly increasing. They were a people of
two or three millions, at least. They were hemming m Spain
into a single city; they had a constitution, a civil constitution,
a republic, and we knew it; and then Aguinaldo says to the
American commander, " Our friends in Hongkong are getting
uneasy lest you intend not to leave us independent." And the
reply is, " You can trust the honor of the Umted States; we have
had no colonies for a hundred and twenty years." And the
leader of that free people answers, " I have no fear; I have read
your Constitution, ana there is no provision for holding colonies
in it."

Why, Mr. President, the Republican party in great States of
this Union have been excited to indignation within a few weeks
because General Miles had told the people of Porto Rico they
should have the immunities of American citizens. '* Immunities "
is rather a vague and uncertain word, but if the assurance of
General Miles given to a people who had done nothing for them-
selves, of immunities, sets the constituents of my friends from
Vermont, and my friends from Indiana, my friends from Iowa,
into a fever of alarm lest the faith of the United States be
broken, what are we to say to a statement, when we were asked
if we intended to interfere with their independence, " You can
trust the honor of the United States; we have had no colonies
for a hundred and twenty years ? "

Now, we must of course accept Admiral Dewey's disclaimer.
But Dewey and Anderson called on Aguinaldo together, and
Aguinaldo afterwards called on Anderson by himself. It is of
little consequence which said it, or if it be of any consequence
which said it, the assurance of tlie commander of our troops on

13tf

37

land was more important nnder the circnmstances than the Aame
thing would have been coming from the Admiral. "Admiral
Dewey did not say it, but I did," says the General. ** I wanted
to buy articles of the Filipinos." Yes, and he wanted a good
deal more than that.

The Spaniards were hemmed in and kept in by the Filipinos.
If Agninaldo had withdrawn his forces, or if he had made terms
with Spain, a very different and a very difficult task would have
been that of the commandant of the American forces.

If there ever were a pledge of honor accepted and acted ux>ony
and a consideration given, binding a great and noble people by
the strongest tie that can bind a great and noble people — ^its na-
tional honor — ^that pledge was given that day.

But this is not all. I shall allude in a moment to the conduct
of our commanders, establishing an alliance with the forces of
the Philippine republic, commanded by Aguinaldo all through
that year. Our attitude was maintained down to the end of
December, 1898, when General Otis made this statement in a
proclamation addressed to the people of the Philippine Islands,
suppressing President McKinley's proclamation:

General Otis says:

It is also my belief that it is the intention of the United States Government to
. draw from the Filipino people so mncb of the military force of the islands as is po»-
Bible and consistent with a free and well-constitnted government of the country.
* ** ^ I am also copvinced that it is the intention oi the United States Govern-
ment to seek the establishment of a most liberal government for the islands, in
which the people themselves shall have as full representation as the maintenance
of law and order will permit, and which shall be susceptible of development, on
lines of increased representation and the bestowal of increased powers, into »
government as free and independent as is eaioyed by the most favored provinces
in the world.

That is what you told those men through your military com-
mander six weeks before the hostilities broke out.
There is the promise. In another statement he says:

I will assure the people of the Philippine Islands the full measure of individual
rights and liberties, which is the heritage of a free people.

Now, what does that mean? What does that mean, Mr. Presi-
dent? My honorable friend says we must hold on to those islands
forever; that he is a dastard who does not think so. And yet
General Otis, whom the honorable Senator as I have no doubt
justly eulogized, as the representative of the honor and the justice
of the people of the United States, uttered that promise. Did he
utter that promise to a people of slaves, haHi Spaniards and half
savages in character? Did he utter that promise to a people in-
capable of self-government? He sent home his dispatch, and he
has been in command there ever since till just now.

The President says he did not authorize that proclamation but
he approved it.

Here, then, Mr. President, is the constant proclamation from
the beginning that independence is the object of the Philippine
people, known all along to the commanders and the Government
of the United States.

Here is an independence actually achieved.

Here is a free, orderly, constitutional government, under which
two or three million people are living, with schools, churches,
universities, a congress, an administration, and an army.

Here is the oppressor driven out of every foot of his own land
except one city, and penned up in that.
4348

Here are two distinct, sexMurate assaranres from otir milit^ury
commanders that it is not the purpose of the United States to
meddle or interfere witli that peoide.

Here is the acceptin£[ and acting upon that assurance in one
instance, the first tmie it was given, earl^ in Jnly, 189S.

Here is the benefit obtained by the Umted States:

The Spanish army kept within onr grasp and within the fixe of
oar gons, instead of escaping to the interior.

Bat that is not all. We recognized that independence in many
ways. We made an alliance with Agninaldo and his peo]^e; tbe
facts Were reported to onr Administration at home, and the alli-
ance never disclaimed.

Now, be it remembered that dnring all this time President
McEinley disclaimed any titie to any part of the Philippine
Islands except Manila. Me declared more than once, in langnagre
which is familiar, that we, the United States, have claimed no
title to any part of the islands except the town.

We got no titie, pretense of titie, or claim of title to an inch of
the territory bevond the city of Manila and its defenses, antU the
ratification of the treaty on the 10th day of May, 1890.

Now, if we had no title, who had? Will any man stand up in
this Senate, in the American Senate, in the closing vear of the
nineteenth century, and declare that a rightfnl title to that
territory was still m Sx)ain? The man who wonld declare that,
had better go to Spain to live. He has drawn in no Americanism
with his mother's milk.

The whole correspondence in that period is a correspondence «
between allies. It oiscloses that they are fighting for independ-
ence on their side and we disclose no purpose to interfere with it
on ours. On the 4th of July, 1898, General Anderson writes to
Agninaldo:

I have the hoDor to inform you that the United States of Aroerioa, whose
land forces I have the honor to command in this vicinity, being at war with the
Kingdom of Si>ain have entire svmpathy and most friendly sentiments for the
native people of the Philippine Islands.

For tnese reason I desire to have the most amicable relations with yon and to
have you and your people woperaU with as in military operations against the
Spanish forces.

In doing this I do not wish to interfere with your residence here and the e^er*
dse by yourself and other native citizens of all functions and privileges not
taconsistent with military rule.

That was, it seems to me, a communication by the command-
ing general of the purpose of the Uniteil States not to interfere
with the civil functions of the Philppine Government, except so
far as was necessary for the conduct of military operations at
Cavite.

On the 6th of July, 1898, General Anderson addresses Agnin-
aldo by his titie of commanding general, and says:

I should like to have your excellency's advice and cooperation, at yon are
best acquainted with the resources of this country. It must be apparent to you
that we do not intend to remain here inactive but to move promptly against our
common enemy. I am solicitous to avoid any conflict of authority which might
result from having two sets of military officers exercising command at the same
place. I am also anxious to avoid sickness, by taking sanitary precautions. Tonr
sanitaiT medical officers have been making voluntary inspectiouH with mine, and
fear epidemic disease if the vicinity is not made clean, would it not be well to
have prisoners work to this end under the advice of the surgeon f

I again renew my assurance of distinguished consideration.

July 6, 1898 (page 5), General Anderson replies to Agninaldo

4848

89

(again addressinjg him *'SefIor Don Emilio Agninaldo, Com-
manding Philippme Forces"), and says:

I am encouraged by tbe friendly wentimcnU expressed by yoor exceileney
* * * to endeavor to come to a definite understanding, which I hope will be
idrantageons to both.

Very ftoon we ezpe<'t a rery large addition to onr force*, and it mnat be ap-
parent to you aa a milltnrv' officer that we will reciaire much more room to camp
onr aoldiem, and also Mtorerooni for our nuppliea. For this I would like to hare
your excellency's Mlvice and cooperation, as yon are best acquainted with the
resources of the country.

He also says that the medical officers of the two commands
have been making voluntary inspections together, and asks
whether it would not be well to have the prisoners work to make
the vicinity clean, nnder the advice of the surgeons.

July 9, 1898. General Anderson reports (page 6) to the Ad-
jutant-General of the United States Army, Washington, D, C:

Oeneral Agninaldo tolls me he has about 15,000 fighting men, but only 11,000

rmed with guns, which mostly were taken from the SpHniards. He claims to

have in all 4,000 prisoners. When we first landed he seemed very suspicious and

not at all friendly, but I have now come to a better understanding with him. and
he is much more friendly and neems willing to cooperate. But he has declared
himself dictator and president and is tryiiig to taae Manila without our assiS'
tance. This is not probable, but if he can eflect his purpose he will, I apprehend,
antagonize any attempt on our part to establish a provisional government.

Julv 14, 1898, General Anderson reauests Aguinaldo that he
give nis (Anderson's) officers all possible assistance in making
reconnoissance to the lines and approaches, and that Aguinaldo
favor them with his advice (page 6) . He adds: ** Officers coming
from me will have a note to that effect."

July 18, 1898 (page 8) , General Anderson reports to the Adju-
tant-General, U. 8. Army:

Since reading the President's instructions to Oeneral Merritt, I think i
should state to you that the establishment of a provisional government on our
part will probably bring us in contlict with the insurgents, now in active hostU*
ty to Spain.

July 19, 1898 (page 8), General Anderson writes to Aguinaldo,
saying that Mai. J. F. Bell, U. S. A., has been sent by Gren. Wes-
ley MeiTitt, U. S. A. , to collect for him by the time of his personal
arrival certain information concerning the strength and positions
of the enemy and concerning the topography of the country sur-
rounding Manila. He adds:

I would be obliged if you would permit him to see your maps and place at hia
disposal any information you have upon the above subjects, and also give him •
letter or pass addresMcd to your subordinates which will authorize them to fur-
niHh him any infonnation they can on these subjects and to faciliute his passage
along tbe lines upon a reconnoissance around Manila.

July 19, 1898 (page 9), General Anderson writes to Aguinaldo:

Your ofTer of assistance is appreciated and your assurances of good will are
most gratifying.

July 22, 1898 (page 9), General Anderson writes to Aguinaldo:

I observe that your exoollenoy has announced yourself aa a dictator and pro-
claimed martial law. As I am horo simply In a military capaoitv I have no author,
ity to recognize this assumption. I hnve no orders from my (tovernment on the
subject; and, so far ns I uau ascertain, your independent status has not been
recognized by any foreign power. Uappy as I am to see you fighting so bravely
and successnilly against a common enemy, I can not, without orders, recognise
your civil authority.

General Anderson writes to Aguinaldo on the 28dof July, 1898:
Sefior Don Emilio AoriNAUX),

Ooimnandini; I'hillippinc Forett.
GSNBRALi When I came here threo weeks ago, I requested your excellency to
give what assistance you could to procure means of transportation for the Ameri
4848

40

can Army, m it was to ii|^t in theoanse ofyonr people. So far I have reoetved
no response. As you represent your people, X now nave the honor to make requisi-
tiou on you for 500 horses, 50 oxen and ox carts. If yon can not secure these, I
will have to pass you and make requisition direoUy on the people.

Now put that letter, dated the 23d of July, 1898, addressed to
Sefior Don Emilio Aguinaldo, commanding Philippine forces
(and there are plenty similar communications), with Admiral
Dewey's own to our Government that the people want independ-
ence. Who would doubt that a people unskilled in diplomatic
forms, or would doubt that a people most skilled in diplomatic
forms, would rightfully understand that the United States knew
that Aguinaldo was the representative of his people, and, second,
that they were then fighting for their independence?

July 24, 1898 (page 10), Aguinaldo rephes to (^neral Ander-
son:

I came fjrom Hongkong to prevent my countrymen from making common
cause with the Spanish against the Xorth Americans, pledging before my word
to Admiral Dewey to not give place (to allow) to any mtemar discord, because
(beins) a Judge of their desires, i had the strong convictions that I would succeed
in boui objects, establishing a government according to their desires.

Thus it is that in the beginning I proclaimed the dictatorship, and after-
wards, when some of the provinces had been liberated themselves nrom Spanish
domination, I established a revolutionary government that to-day exists, giving
it a democratic and popular character as far as the abnormal circumstances m
war permitted. * * *

It 18 true that my government has not been acknowledged by any of the for-
eign nowers, but we expected that the great North American nation, whieh strug-
gled nrst for its independence, and afterwards for the abolition of slavery, and u
now actually struggling for the independence of Cuba, would look upon it with
greater benevolence than any other nation.

He then expresses his indebtedness for our generosity and cau-
tions (jl^neral Anderson against disembarking our troops in places
conquered by the Filipinos from the Spanisn, without previous
notice to his government, because as yet no formal agreement
exists between the two nations, and the Philippine people might
consider the occupation of its territories by North American
troops as a violation of its rights.

On October 27, 1898, (General Otis writes to Aguinaldo in regard
to the establishment of a convalescent camp. Me says:

General Emilio Aguinaldo,

Commanding Revolutionary Foreei, Malolos, Philippine Islands.
Gbmbbal : * * * I knew that you would not offer objections if It could be so
placed as not to give your people annoyance, since it could not be in any wise a
menace, but, on the contrary, would place our sick within your power and to a
certain extent under your protection. * * * I am fully convinced of your wish
to maintain harmonious relations with the United States forces and government
of T' -"

Aguinaldo writes a little later:

I can answer for my people, because they have given me evident proofs of their
absolute confidence in my government, but I can not answer for that which
another nation whose friendship is not well guaranteed might inspire in it ^e
people] ; and it is certain that I do this not as a menace, but as a further proof of
the true and sincere friendship which I have always professed for the North
American people, in the complete security that it wiU iind itself completely iden-
tified with our cause of liberty.

July 21, 1898 (page 12), General Anderson reports to the Adju-
tant-6eneral of the United States Army:

Since I wrote last Aguinaldo has put in operation an elaborate system of mili-
tary government, under his aHsumed authority as dictator, and has prohibited any
supplies being given us except by his order. As to this last, I have written to
him that our requisitions on the country for horses, ox carts, fuel, and bamboo (to
make scaling Udders) miyit be filled, and that he must aid in having them filled.
4348

41

His aas-amption of oiril authority I luiv» ignored, and let him know verballv that
I oottld ana would not recognize it, whtia I did not recognize him as a muitaiy
leader.

I suppose the word ** not " is a misprint
He aads:

It may seem stranse that I have made no formal protest aeainst his proclama-
tion as aictator, his declaration of martial law, and publication and execution of
a despotic form of government. I wrote such a protest, bat did not publish it, at
jflLdmiral Dewey's request, and also for fear of wounding the susceptibilities of
Major-Q-eneral Merritt, but I have let it be known in every other way that we
do not recognise the dictatorship.

Tliese people only respect force and firmness. I submit with all deference, that
'we bave heretofore underrated the natives. They are not ignorant, savage tribes,
but bave a civilization of their own; and, although insignificant in appearance,
are fierce fighters, and for a tropical people they are industrious.

An^nst 5, 1898, General Anderson reports to the adjutant-
general, Department of the Pacific, etc.:

X bave the honor to inform you that General Aguinaldo, through a jBtaff oflScer,
complains that the Signal Corps, United States Army, in putting up wires has
interrupted his communications; that he was promised tnat this Interruption
-would not last more than one day, but that it has now been out of working order
for tbreedays; that he is very glad to have the army use his telegraph po^s, but
it is so important to keep hi» communication that he earnestly requests prompt
action in tne matter.

August 10, 1898 (page 14) , General Merritt issues instructions
^ ' ^ ' ck to i ' *

to General Babcock to ask insurgent generals or Aguinaldo for
permission to occupy their trenches, out if refused not to use
force.

July 30, 1898 (page 15), General Anderson reports to the adju-
tant-general, Dei)artment of the Pacific, etc., referring to instruc-
tions in relation to an issue of rations to Spanish prisoners:

I made verbal answer that if their prisoners were kept here they would have
to be well fed, but that he could, of course, remove them if he saw fit to do so.

August 1, 1898 (page 15.) , Aguinaldo writes to Consul Williams:

I am fully persuaded that the Filipinos will arrive at the height of happiness
and glory if In future they can show with raised heads the riffhts which today
are shown by the free citizens of North America. These islands will be in effect
one of the richest and pleasantest countries of the globe if the capital and indus-
try of North Americans come to develop the soil.

Answering Consul Williams's suggestion that this might be
accomplished without annexation to the United States, he says
(pages 16, 17):

But I do not believe these unworthy suspicions. I have full confidence in the
generosity and philanthropy which shine in characters of gold in the history of
the privileged people of the United States, and for that reason, invoking the
friendship which .>^u profess for me and the love which yon have for my people,
I pray you earnestly, as also the distinguished generals who represent your conn-
try in these islands, that yon entreat the Government at Washington to recognize
tbe revolutionary government of the Filipinos, and I, for my part, will Tabor
with all my power with my people that the United States shall not repent their
sentiments of humanity in commg to the aid of an oppressed people.

iSay to the Government at Washington that tbe Filipino people abominate
savagery ; that in the midst of their past misfortunes they have learned to love
liberty, order, justice, and civil life, and that they are not able to lay aside their
own wishes when their future lot and history are under discussion. Say also
that I and my leaders know what we owe to our unfortunate country; that we
know how to admire and are ready to imitate the disinterestedness, the abnega^
tion, and the patriotism of thegrand men of America, among whom stands pre-
eminent the immortal General Washington.

Yon and I both love the Filipinos; both see their progress, their prosperity,
and their greatness. For this we should avoid any conflict which would be fatal
to the interests of both people, who should always be brothers. In this you will
acquire a name in the history of humanity and an ineradicable affection in the
hearts of the Filinino people. (From General Aguinaldo to Mr. Williams,
United States consul^
4348

42

On x)ages 19 aid 20 are memoraiifta of notes to General Ander-
son, which it is said were drawn up and submitted to General
Anderson by the commissioners ol Agninaldo. It contains tliis
article:

10. We are pleased, lastly, to be certain (afBrm) that oar own commission a
and petitions do not siniify acknowledgment on onr part of North Araerioaji
sovereignty in these islands any more (or longer) than the necessity of actoal
war (demands).

General Merritt replies, Angnst 20, 1898 (page 20) :
As most of them (memoranda) seem to be reasonable, it gives him much pleas-
nre to say that he agrees to the following.

And then he assents to several of them in terms. He does not
express any objection to the others.

in reply to a further communication of Aguinaldo, dated
August 21 (.page 21, etc.), General Merritt directs Major Bell to
make certain communications, the third of which is as follows
(page 22):

(3) That I have every disposition to represent liberally the Govemment at
Washington, which I know is inclined to deftl fairly with him and his people; but
not knowing what the policy of that Govemment will be, I am not prepared to
make any promises, except that in the event of the United States witharawing
from these islands care will be taken to leave him in as good condition as he wot
found by the/orees of the Ocvemment.

Major Bell, in a note of explanation (page 23) , says:

Their lack of defioiteness and my unwillingness to comment upon the lan-
guage seemed to arouse their suspicions and apprehensions.

August 27, 1898 (page 25) , Aguinaldo addresses Gener^ Merritt
and reminds him: —

" * That without the long siege sustained by my force yon might have
obtiined possession of the ruins of the city, but never the rendition of the Spanish
forces, who could have retired to the interior towns.

September 8, 1898 (page 28) , General Otis, in command and
the military governor m the Philippines, addresses Aguinaldo a
letter in which he claims no authority except over Manila. Then
urging him to a certain course of conduct, says (page 29) :

By the able representatives who have charge of the interests of the Philippine
revolutionary forces this conclusion will be admitted to be incontrovertible, and
argument on the point is unnecessary. Can they who seek civil and religious
liberty, and invite the approval and assistance of the civilized world, afford to
enter upon a course of action which the law of nations must condemn?

Also:

It is well known that they have made personal sacrifices, endured great hard*
ships, and have rendered aid. But is it forgotten that my Government has swept
the Spanish navy from the seas of both hemispheres, sent back to Spain the Span-
ish army and navy forces recently embarked for year destruction and for the
secure holding of its Philippine possessions; that since May 1 last its Navy has
held the city ox Manila at its mercy, but out of considerations of humanity refused
to bombard it, preferring to send troops to demand surrender and thereby preserve
the lives and property of its inhabitants? Is it forgotten that the deAtruction of
the Spanish navy and the retention of Spanish armed men in its European posses-
sions has opened up to you the ports of the island of Luzon and held Spain help-
less to meet its refractory subjects ?

It was undertaken by the United States for humanity's sake, and not for their
aggrandizement or for anj* national profit they expected to receive, and they ha^-e
expended millions of treasure and hundreds of the lives of their citizens in the
interest of Spanish suffering colonists.

In a communication October 14, 1898 (page 36) , General Otis
writes to Aguinaldo, speaks of the necessity of establishing a
conviUescent camp, and says:

Should the emergency become imminent, the dictates of humanity and the over-
whelming demands of my Govemment would oblige me to establish a convales-
cent camp in this locality, to which troops could be sent for recuperation, and to
4348

43

relieve the congested situation which roust attend the presence of so large a body
of armed men within a thickly populated cit) . I have in mind for this possible
camp the grounds on the shore oi the bay formerly occupied by Unitea States
troops ana designated Camp Dewey, or the high ground to the east of the city.
It is my desire to place it at a locality which would not inconvenience any organi-
sations connected with your forces or the surrounding inhabitants, and to the
emergency of this antiripated proceeding I respectfully invite your consideration
and ask yonr assistance should execution become necessary. Should action of
this character be decided upon, I beg of you to rest firmly in my unqualified
assurances that it will be undertaken in a spirit of the greatest friendliness and
with the sincere desire to neither compromise nor affect in the slightest degree
your interests and those of the people whom you represent, but, on the contrary,
to enhance them.
Permit me to subscribe myself. General, with the highest respect,
Your most obedient servant,

E. S. OTIS.
Major-Oeneral, U. S. F.,
VniUd State* Military Oovemor in the PhUippinet.

October 27, 1898 (page 39) , General Otis writes to Aguinaldo
conceding that he is right in his interpretation of General Merritt's
requirements fixing the lines for the occupation of the two forces.
This is exceedingly important as showing that the place where
the hostilities broke out was within the Filipino territory and
not in ours. He further expresses the opinion that all difficulties
have arisen from a misunderstanding, and assures Aguinaldo of
his confidence in the sincerity of his desire to maintain harmo-
nious relations.

November 2, 1898 (page 41) , General Otis, addressing Aguinaldo
by his title of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, commanding Philippine
revolutionary forces, calls attention to —

the erroneous impressions which publicly prevail regarding the humane senti-
ments and good intentions cherished by the Filipinos, and which are so damaging
to them in securing a position as a people which they seek to invoke. You will

SleaAB pardon me for this allusion; but the matter is so important to the best
iterests of the Filipinos, that I have taken the liberty, uninvited, to present it.
Confident that you seek the welfare of your people, may I in that confidence
aHk you to use your conceded influence to correct this condition of affairs and to
act with me in efforts to place these prisoners in a position which will put an end
to the acrimonious criticisms which now so widely prevail?

This means— if it mean anything— the advice of our command-
ing general to the commander of the Philippine forces so to act
as to promote the desire of his people for independence.

November 3, 1898 (page 42) , Aguinaldo replies, stating the rea-
sons for treating the Spanish priests as prisoners, being for special
reasons applicable to them alone, and claiming also that ordinary
international law will have to give way before the just cause
of a country of millions of souls, because this cause is one of
humanity.

To this General Otis replies, November 10, 1898 (page 44) :

I am unable to comprehend the force of your remark to the effect that interna-
tional law must give way before the^ust cause of a country of millions of souls
because it is one of humanity. I fail to understand how the principles of that
law can be antagonistic in any particular to the welfare of a people, founded, as
they are, on the bent interpretation of the law of nature whioh the acknowledged
wisdom of ages of human proinress has been able to bestow. Every independent
nation claiming advanced enlightenment professes to be bound by these obliga*
tions of that law and certainly would be held responsible by the civilized world
should it openly violate them.

I do not think that the views you advance would receive favorable general
acceptance, and believe therefore, in all sincerity, that the good name, reputation,
and welfare of that people would be greatly enhanced by relieving those men
from the captivity wnicn they have so lon*g endured.

I can only ask in conclusion that the wishes of my Government may receive
more favorable consideration than your most friendly letter indicatea.
4814

44

Agninaldo replies Novenbei 18, 1898 (p&ges 46 et 8eq.)« cli3*
cussing the question of international law with General Otis, and
says:

The principles <»f international law snHtained by the most noted anthors 'f
talcen into aoconnt bv me when I treated as prisoners of war civil employees and.
the prieeta. Jiore, Martens, Blontschli, and others hold that all persons, thoagh.
not forming a part of the army, but who follow it to perform their pacific func-
tions, ran Be neld as prisoners of war. I only exempt the hospital personnel,
according to the Geneva convention, provided that they take no active part in.
t)ie war.

In virtue of the right of retort, during the war of North American independ-
ence, the great Washington, to avenge the shooting of an American colonel, a
Srisoner in the hands ot the Enjrlish, deemed beyond the rules of war the Eng-
sh Colonel Argyll, a prisoner held by the Americans. Thanks to the interven*
tion of the Queen of Arance, the order was not executed. In virtue of the same
right, the German generals in the war of 1870 ordered the houses in which their
soldiers had been treacherously attacked to be fired and destroyed.

He adds a statement of the aspiration of the Filipino people
who aspire to a life of liberty and index)endence. To say the
least, tms most able argument, said to have been prepared by
Agninaldo's attorney-general, is worthy of any jurist anywhere,
and at least compares well in ability with those of any com-
mander who has taken onr side in the discussion.

The Senator from Maine [Mr. Frye] puts this question to Com-
mander Bradford:

I would like to ask Just one question in that line. Suppose the United States,
in the progress of that war, found the leader of the present Philippine rebellion
an exile from his country in Hongkong, and sent for nim and brought him to the
islands in an American ship, and then furnished him 4,000 or 5/00O stands of arms,
uid allowed him to purchase as many more stands of arms in Mongkong, and ac-
cepted his aid in conquering Luzon, what kind of a nation, in the eyes of the
world, we would appear to be to surrender Aguinaldo and his insurgents to Spain f

Commander Bradford answers: .

We become responsible for everything he has done. He is our ally and we are
bound to protect him.

The question was worthy of a manly heart, and no manly
heart, as it seems to me, could answer it but one way: "We would
as soon think of restoring a redeemed soul to Satan as to think
of restoring the Filipinos to Spain. " Then I should have expected
from what I knew of that honorable Senator, another question,
which perhaps may before these proceedings are over be put to
him:

Suppose the United States in the progress of that war found
the leader and president of the Filipino rebellion an exile from
his country in Hongkong, and sent for him and brought him to
the islands in an American ship, and thtm furnished him with
4,000 or 5,000 stands of arms, and allowed him to purchase as
many more, and accepted his aid in conquering Manila, what
kind of a nation, in the eyes of the world, should we apjiear to
be to turn upon him and plunder him of the independence we
had helped him to gain? What sort of a nation would we appear,
in the eyes of the world to be, when we had accepted that aid,
and he had conquered the entire country but one city, we know-
ing at the time that he and his people were striving for independ-
ence; what kind of a country should we appear to be to wrest
from him liiat independence, to put his people under our feet, to
declare that we never would let them go, whether they were fit
for self-government or not, that we were there to get all we could,
and to hold all we could get, and that if we had oui- way they
should never have independence to the end of time? I wish my
honorable hiend from Maine had put that question also. For
4848

45

myself I make to it the same answer: I wonld as soon restore a
redeemed sonl to Satan as to plunder that people of the liberty
for which they have fought.

Now, Mr. President, if instead of a great international trans-
action, this had been a case of a contract between two citiaens, to
be enforced in any court ; if one had rendered valuable aid, or
delivered valuable property, which had been accepted by the other
with the declaration that a certain compensation was expected ;
if Aguinaldo had worked on a farm, or had helped draw a load,
under such circumstances, is there a court in the civilized world —
on the face of the earth— that would not have declared that silence
and the failure clearly and distinctly to reject the condition, and
to reject assistance, was of itself equal to an affirmative accept-
ance? Does not the silence of a great nation give consent as well
as the silence of common men? " The people expect independ-
ence," said Admiral Dewey to the Secretary of the Navy and to
the President,and no instruction was given to undeceive them.

THET DESIRED INDBPENDENCB AKD A RBPUBUO.

We knew they were fighting for independence.

June 12, 1898, Dewey sends three proclamations issued by Gen-
eral Aguinaldo, dated May 24, to the Secretary of the Navy.

These documents disclosed to our conmianders in the East and
to our Administration at home that the Philippine people were
in arms for independence, and their confidence that the Ameri-
can people desired to aid them in the accomplishment of that
holy aspiration. The receipt of such a communication was an
assent, and can not be interpreted otherwise by honorable men
or honorable nations.

My Beloved FeUow-CoQiitr3rmeii :

1 accepted the treaty proposed by Don Pedro H. Patemo, agreeinff with the
captain-general of these islands under certnin conditions, and lay ins down anus
and dismissing the forces under my immediate control, because I baueved it bet-
ter for the country than tu carry on the insurrection, for which resources were
lackins; but since the failure to fulfill any of the taid condllions certain bands
were dUsatisfled and remained under arms, and since a period of five months has
elapsed without any step toward the reforms which we demand to advance our
country to the rank of a civilized nation, like our neighbor Japan, which In a lit*
tie more than twenty years has advanced to a satinfactory position, and demon-
strated her power and vigor in the late war with China, wniie the Spanish Gov*
emment remains powerless to contend with certain obstacles which constantly
arrest the progress of our country with a deadly influence, which has been a prin-
cipal factor in causing the uprising of the people, now that the great and pow-
erful North American nation has come to otter disinterested protection fbr the
effort to secure the liberation of this country, I retuin to assume command of all
the forces for the attainment of our lofty aspirations, establishing a dictatorial

government, which will set forth decrees under my sole responsibility, assisted
y the advice of eminent persons, until these islands are completely conquered
and able to form a constitutional convention and to elect a prealdent and A cabi-
net, in whose favor I will duly resign the authority.

.Given at Cavite the 24th of May, 1898.
Filipinos :

This dictatorial government proposes to begin within a fbw days our military
operations, and beuiff informed that the Spaniard intends to send u« a parlia-
mentary commission m order to open negotiations for restoring Spanish authority,
and being resolved to admit no negotiations of that sort In view of the collapse
of a former treaty by default of the same Spanish Government, and noting, more-
over, the presence in this place of certain persons coming in the capacity of splet
for the said Spanish Government, as general-in-chief or thlt region I decree at
follows:

Abticlb I. Civilians or soldiers who enter this territory with anthorlty to
negotiate, but without presenting themselves under a flag of truce aa provided
for such cases by international law, and also those lacking credentials and docu-
ments for their due recognition of character and personality, shall be ooneidered
guilty of serving as spies and put to death.

Article II. Any Filipino wno nnde takes the aforesaid lerrioe shall be oon*
4848

46

sideied as a traitor to hia oonntry, and there sfaall be imposed upon him the penal^
of hanjiing by the neck in a pablic plaoe for the period of two hours, with a label
attached bearing the statement that he is a traitor to his country.

Abticlb m. Any soldier or civilian found within our territories seeking to
pass over to the enemy bearing secrets of war or plans of fortifications shall also
be reckoned as a traitor and put to death.

Given in Cavite the 2ith of May. 1898.

On the 10th of Jtme, 1898, Agoinaldo addressed from Cavite to
the "President of the Repnbuc of the Great North American
Nation " an eloquent bnt impassioned appeal. It was called out
by a story in the London Times that it was the purpose of tlie
United States to sell the Philippine Islands to Great Britain, or
some other European power. Agoinaldo declares his belief that
the story is a vile slander. He is then at Cavite, from which he
dates his letter. He informs the President that he has organized.
a government there '*by the consent of the Admiral of your
triumphant fleet," and says his forces are then besieging Manila
on the south and east, and have alreadv captured the whole garri-
son of the province of Cavite, as well as that of the adjoining^
province of Bataan, together with the governors and officials of
Doth provinces. He protests against the statement of the London
Times, *' in the name of this people, which trusts blindly in you
not to abandon it to the tyranny of Spain, but to leave it free and
index>endent, even if you make peace with Spain." He concludes
thus: ** I offer fervent prayers for the ever-increasing prosperity
of your powerful nation, to which and to you I shall show
unbounded gratitude, and shall repay you with interest that
great obligation."

Now, here is an official declaration. Mark the date. It is June
10. 1898; when the insurgents had conquered the adjoining islands,
with the governors and officials, and were holding Manila on the
land side while the American forces alone held it by sea. Agpii-
naldo declares his profound affection, and that of ms x>eople, for
the United States, and tells President McKinley that the^ are
trusting him to leave them free and index>endent, even if we
make peace with Spain. This is no question of a consul. It is
not a question of a commanding general. It is not a question of
an admiral. This leader of his people, in his own name and
words, addresses the President of the United States and informs
him of their faith— their blind faith— that the American nation
will leave him and his people free and independent; will leave
them exactly what the American x)eople had declared of the
Cubans when they had much less control of their own territory
than the Filipinos had of theirs— that they are and of right ought
to be. Our fathers of the Declaration of Independence spoke
for three million; Aguinaldo spoke for eight. We declared they
were what the Senate declared Cuba of right ought to be. Then
the Cuban armj was almost under the feet of Spain. Then ev^
one of her capital towns, and every one of her ports, and every
one of her strongholds was in Spanish hands.

Mr. E. Spencer Pratt, consul-general at Singapore, telegraphs
the Department May 6, 1898, inclosing the Singapore Free Press
of the day before, containing a report of the departure of Agm-
naldo to join Commodore Dewey, and says that the facts are, in
the main, correctly given. In that statement is the following
sentence:

General Agninaldo's policv embraces the independence of the Philippinea,
whose internal affaira would oe controlled under European and American advia-
era. Amcnrican protection would be desirable temporarily, on the same linea aa
that which might be inatitated hereafter in Cuba.
434S

47

Now, Mr. President, this is a pretty significant fact, fortified as
it is with so many like statements coving the entire period before
Againaldo reached Manila, perhaps before he reached Hongkong.
The Grovemment at Washington knew that he went there to put
himself at the head of the Philippine forces for the purpose of
achieving their independence. They knew it from an official com-
munication, which declares that the main facts of that article are
correct. And knowing it, they accepted his aid; they furnished
him with arms; they dealt with him as a general; they asked for
his cooperation; they permitted him to wrest from the Spaniards
every spot of that territory but the city of Manila, and they never
undeceived him.

What court, what public opinion, what honest man, what man
of honor, what gentleman would fail to keep, letter and spirit,
the promise implied by such a transaction in any circumstances
in life? One of our commissioners at Paris asked Mr. Foreman,
when he was testifying, if it were not true if the Spaniards failed
to act up to the lofty spirit of the Psalmist— of promising to their
own hurt, and changing not.

I should have liked to ask that honorable commissioner what
he thought they would say of us if we accepted the assistance of
these Filipinos, with the full knowledge that they were asking
for their independence, and then coolly appropriated the proceeds
of their devotion and valor to our own advantage.

Gren. Charles A. Whittier said before the commission, "All
the success was on the native side, and vet the Spaniards surren-
dered between 7,000 and 8,000 men, well armed, plenty of ammu-
nition , and in ^ood physical condition. " ( Page 499, Document 63. )

Gteneral Whittier adds, "Aguinaldo's troops control all the set-
tled part of the island (except Manila) , as well as much of the
southern country." ♦ ♦ ♦ "Their conduct to their Spanish

grisoners has been deserving of the praise of all the world. I
ave heard of no instance of torture, murder, or brutality since
we have been in the country." (Page 500.)

"Every place had been taken from them bv the Filipinos,
who managed their advances and occupation of the country in
an able manner." (Page 501. )

THBT HAD ACHIBVED INDEPENDENCE.

Now, there is nothing more clearly proved in the whole history
of these transactions tnan that the desire of the Filipinos for
independence, both soldiers and people, was fully known during
the whole of the year 1898 and down to the time of the breaking
out of hostilities—to the President, to the Secretary of State, to
our consuls, to Admiral Dewey, to General Otis, and down to a
time long after the capture of Manila they knew that there was
an unsuspecting confidence on the part of that x)eople that the
United States had no desire to interfere with their liberty or
their independence. They accepted their aid. They cooperated
with them in military movements. They asked favors of them.
They requested them to change their military x>ositions for the
convenience of our forces. They handed over to them prisoners
of war by the thousands. They asked their advice. They gave
our sick in hospitals over to their care. They made requests on
them for military supplies. And not a word or a thought con-
veyed to them that they had any expectation but to cooperate
with them against a common enemy, as an independent and as
an equal ally. Whether the word ally was used— and of course

4348

48

no man (questions the denial of Admiral Dewey — the substance
of an alliance existed, and the snbstance of the thing was con-
veyed by the United States to the Philippine nation in a hundred
ways.
General Otis says, speaking of the early part of August, 1898:

Outwardly peace reined, bot the insui^eiits, disappointed becanae not per-
mitted to eivfoy the spoils of war in accordance with medinval onstoms, and to
exercise with the United States aathorities Joint control of monicipal affSsirs.
were not friendly disposed, and endeavored to obtain their asserted rights and
privileges through controversies and negotiations and a stubborn holding of tlie
positions taken by their troops.— Oti* R^ort^ page 4.

A communication took place between Aguinaldo and General
Merritt. A letter was addressed to Merritt, August 27, 1898,
describing the line to which he would retire, and stating some
conditions which he said he was compelled to insist upon. — Otis
B^oort, page 5.

Otis answers, August 31, that General Merritt has been unex-
pectedly ordered away, and that he must have a little time to
acquaint himself with the conditions. — Otis Report y page 6.

September 8, 1898. General Otis addressed A^naido by the
title ** The Commanding General of the Philippme Forces."

He says:

I note with pleasure your allusion to your very friendly disposition toward
my Grovemment, as manifested by your prompt attendance to our request for a
supply of water. * * * I do not forget that the revolntionarv forces under
your command have made many sacrifices in the interesto of civil liberty and for
the welfare of your people.

And adds that as Manila had been surrendered to the United
States by Spain—

by, all the laws of war and of all international preoedente, United Stetes
authority over Manila and ite defenses is full and supreme.— Oti« Report, page 7.

He goes on:

But conceding * * • that they [the forces under Oeneral Aguinaldo's com-
mand] have made great personal sacrifices, endured great hardships, and have
rendered aid, my Government has swept the Spanish navy from the seas of both
hemispheres, * * * and that Bince May 1 last ite Navy has held the city of
Manila at ite mercy, but out of consideration of humanity refused to bombard
it. * * * Is it forgottonthat the destruction of the Spanish navy and the reten*
tion of Spanish armed men in ite European possession has opened up to you the
porte of the island of Luzon and held Spain helpless to meet ite renractory sub-
Jecte — Otii Report, page 7.

He adds that the war —

was undertalcen by the United States for humanity' s sake, and not for any aggran-
disement or for any national profit it expected to receive.— Oti« Report, page 7.

Otis then demands that Aguinaldo withdraw his troons beyond
the line of the city's defenses before Thursday, the 16tn instant,
and says that if he shall decline he shall be obliged to resort to
forcible action. — Otis Report ^ page 9.

Aguinaldo asked him to withdraw his threat to use force, as
he was fearful that he would be unable to remove his troops upon
a demand."— OitM Report^ page 9.

Otis then, at Aguinaldo's request, furnishes him with a simple
request to withdraw, which he might show his troops in order
that they might not infer that they were withdrawing under a
threat; and adds an expression of nis confidence in tiae ability
and patriotism of Agumaldo. *' The withdrawal was effected
adroitly, as the insurgents marched out in excellent spirits, cheer-
ing the American troops."— O^is Report^ page lOr

43A8

49
Speaking of the same period, General Otis says:

The insorrection liad spread to and was active in all the islands with the ex>
ception of the Znla Archipelago. * * * Vessels flving the Spanish fla^ could
not safely enter any ports which had been seized by tne insargents.— Oti« Report^

The insurgents, whose government had taken firm root at Malolos, were,
through the medinm of president, cabinet, and congress, reeling off decrees and
constitutional provisions at a rapid rate. Their army was continually successful
against the small Spanish garrisons scattered throughout the islands, and they
w:ere beginning to acquire the belief that they were invincible. Bevenne was
their need and desire, and this they began to derive tyiite largely from imposing
export duties on all products shipped to Manila. — Otis Report^ page 15.

Aguiualdo's army of observation, on the outskirts of the city, contained many
natives or residents of Manila.— Otis JS^port, page 15.

** The assertion was made and became current that certain sub-
urbs were not within the jurisdiction of Manila." He adds: ' ' The
best opinion did not consider the suburbs, still occupied by the
insurgent troops, bey^ond the city limits." But he afterward ad-
mits that he was mistaken and that the Filipinos were right in
their claim. — Otis Report, page 15.

October 14, 1898, Q-eneral Otis addresses a long communication
to ** Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, commanding Philippine revolution-
ary forces, Malolos, P. I."

He says:

It was found impossible to determine definit^, on any existing map, either the
limits of the city or the lines of its defenses. — OH* Report^ pages 16-17.

He then asks Aguinaldo's assistance, if it shall become neces-
sary, to establish a temporary convalescent camp on high ground
to the east of the city, and adds:

Should action of this oliaracter become necessary, I beg of you to rest flrmly in
my unqnaMed assurances that it will be undertaken iu a spirit of the greatest
ftiendlmess, and with the sincere desire to neither compromise nor affect in the
slightest degree your interests and those of the people whom you represent, but,
on the contrary, to enhance them.— Oti* Report, page 18.

On October 20 it was reported that ** insurgent troops were mov-
ing southward by railway from Malolos. and other points and
were being concentrated near the north line of the city," and
speaks of it as a threatening demonstration. — Otis Report, page 19.

October 22 Aguinaldo writes to General Otis, calling his atten-
tion to the fact that " the town of Pandacan has always been con-
sidered outside of the old municipal limits of Manila." — Otis
Report, page 19.

Afterwards, on October 27, Otis writes to Aguinaldo: ** I have
referred to General Merritt's letter of August 20, which you men-
tion, and find that it is as you state. " * * * " Pandacan is cer-
tainly far within the line of defense, and * * * have been led
to believe that it has of late been considered one of the city's
suburbs." — Otis Report, page 21.

Otis then asks Aguinaldo's consent to the establishment of a
convalescent camp for the American soldiers. — Otis Report, page
21.

Aguinaldo replies, November 4, that such a camp must have
American troops there to protect it, " unless it depends for secu-
rity solely and exclusively upon the guaranty offered by the laws
dictated by our government," and adds: ** It is my duty to sub-
mit these conditions to the representatives of the people." — Otis
itepor*, page 21.

This was followed by dispatches from Dewey from July 17,
forwarding a proclamation and decree addressed to the people
4318-4

50

and providing for the election by the people of public ofiicox-sr,
the organization of courts, the taking of a census, a tribrm al o ^

justice and civil records, and one of revenues and property. TTIxo
decree begins by this declaration :

To the People of the Philippines :

Acts of Proridence have placed me in a position for which I can not but i

nize my natural ineffioiencT, bat as I have no right to violate the laws of Proi
dence, nor to decline the aaties which honor and patriotism impose upon me, X
greet yon, my beloved people, from that position.

In the face of the wnole world I have proclaimed that the aspiration of Ta.y
whole life, the final object of ail my wishes and efforts, is yonr independence,
becaase I have the inner conviction that it is also year constant lon^^iniTi. sinco
independence for ns means the redemption from slavery and tvranny, the recov^-
ery of lost liberty, and the admission to the concert of civilised nations.

I understand, moreover, that the first dntv of any government is to interpret
faithfully the aspirations of the people. With this in view, although the abnor-
mal circumstances of the war have compelled me to constitute thb dictatorial
government which assumes full civil and military power, my constant desire is
to surround myself with the most prominent peopls nom each province, who by
their conduct deserve its confidence, so that, learning firom them the true needs
of each, I mav be enabled to adopt the most efBLoacious means for filling such
needs and curing deficiencies in accordance with the wishes of alL

The proclamation of June 28 recites the history of the connec-
tion with Spain, and of the conflict which has resulted in a sepa-
ration. He says:

And now they no longer limit their claims to the assimilation with the polit-
ical constitution of Spam, but ask for definite separation from her; they are fight-
ing for their independence, firmly convinced that the time has come when they
can and mast govern themselves.

So they have constituted a revolutionary government, based upon wise and Just
laws,^ adapted to the abnormal conditions through which they are passing, and at
the same time preparing them to become a republic. Takine reason as the only
guide for their actions, Jastice as the only end, and honorabto work as the only
means, they call upon tneir Philippine sons, without distinction of class, to unite
firmly together for the purpose of forming a society of nobility, not nobilitv of
birth or pompous titles, but of work and personal merit of each one— a free society
where there shall be no egotism and personal politics that crush and annihilate,
no envy and favoritism that debase, no bragging and charlatanry that make
ridiculous.

And it could not be otherwise ; a people which has given proofs of valor and long
sufiering in time of trouble and danger, and of industry and diligence in time of
peace, is not intended for slavery ; such a people is called to be great, to be one of
the strongest arms of Providence to direct the destinies of humanity ; such a people
has sufficient resources and energy to free itself from the ruin and annihilation
into which the Spanish Government has plunged it, and to claim a modest, bat
humble seat in the concert of free nations.

Given at Cavite, June 23, 1898.

The third proclamation (also of June 23, 1898) contains careful
and wise provisions for a provisional government.

Mr. President, these are three of the greatest sttfte papers ui
all history. If they were found in our own history of our own
Bevolutionary time, we ^ould be proud to have them stand by
the side of those great state papers which Chatham declared were •
equal to the masterpieces of antiquity. Admiral Dewey was well
justified in sajdng that these people were far superior in their
mtelligence and more capable of self-^ovemment than the natives
of Cuba, and that he was familiar with both races.

On July 22 Dewey telegraphs to the Secretary of the Navy:
** The people expect independence."

On the 7th of August General Merritt and Admiral Dewey
sent a joint notice to the Spanish general in chief that hostile
operations would begin in forty-eight hours from the receipt of
the notice, to which the governor-general replies:

Finding myself constantly surrounded by insurrectionary forces, I am with-
out places oi refage for the increased numbers of wounded, sick, women tnd
ehiluen who are now lodged within the walls.
4848

51
General Merritt and Admiral Dewey replied:

We submit, -without prejudice to the high sentiments of honor and Antj
which yoiir excellency entertains, that surroonded on every side as you are by a
constantly increasing force, with a powerful fleet in your cront, and deprived of
all prospect of reenforcement and asustance, a most useless sacrifice of me would
result in tlie event of an attack.

NovT, Mr. President, look for a moment at that correspondence.
They lield np to the Spimish commander as the compellmg reason
on 'Which, he most surrender that he is snrfonnded by the con-
stantly increasing forces of Agoinaldo. Thev speak separately in
another sentence of the powerful fleet in his front. But the letter
of Gteneral Merritt and Admiral Dewey puts the necessity for sur-
render distinctly on the ground that the Spaniards are surrounded
hy the powerful and increasing forces of Aguinaldo.

Mr. President, that was in July. The American forces held
Manila and Iloilo Bay only in the group. Two positions only in
that g^oup of twelve hundred islands, and the rest was held
peaceably, quietly, and without dispute bv the people thereof.
The forces of Agmnaldo had complete authority and control of
Luzon. They had established a constitution, a representative
government; courts, schools, and public worship had resumed
their ordinary course. They had fought for independence, which
they had won. No act like those acts which unhappily accom-
pany great wars, even among civilized people, has oeen laid to
their charge; not even acts like those which were charged upon
the contending parties during our own civil war. There is an
occasional statement that Aguinaldo, or his comrades, desired
to loot or to plunder the cify of Manila; that they desired to
inflict cruel vengeance upon the Spanish, and that they desired
to perform this or that fict of cruelty. As to the acts of Agui-
naldo, all his declarations to his people contradict these charges.
On August 1 the Secretary of tne Navy cables to Admiral
Dewey: *' Reported here that monks and other prisoners in the
hands of the insurgents at Cavite are in danger of being unjustly
put to death." But no confirmation of that report comes from
Dewey.

On the 9th of August the Assistant Secretary of the Navy cables
to Admiral Dewey:

At the instance of the French ambassador, information oonoemln^ treataient <^
Spanish prisoners by insurgents is requested.

To which Admiral Dewey replies:

Keferring to yonr telegram of August 29, from my observation and that of my
officers, the Spanish prisoners are not treated cruelly by the insurgents, but they
are neglected, not from design, but owing to want of proper food supply, medical
outfit, and attendance.

At this time Admiral Dewey thought a force of 6.000 ilien all
that was necessary to reduce the islands to our complete control.
At present 86 war vessels, 2,051 officers, and 63,483 men are found
necessary.

I shall not speak just now of the President's proclamation, sup-
pressed by General Otis because he feared that it would bring on
mstant hostilities, and the unexi>ected publication of that pro-
clamation by General Miller, with its effect. But I wish to
allude here to the President's instructions to General Merritt of
May 28, 1898, as showing the absolute folly of the claim of those
persons who speak of the Filipinos as savages, as niggers, as bar-
barians.

4348

53

The President says (page 86, Doc. No. !

All ohnrches and boildings devoted to religions worship and to the arts and
sciences, all schoolhouses, are, so far as possible, to.be protected, and all destruc*
tion or intentional defacement of such places, of historical monuments or archives,
or of works of science or art, is prohibited.

That instruction was made to the Filipinos by General Merritt
and proclaimed August 14, 1898 (page 87) :

YI. All churches and places devoted to religious worship and to the arts and
sdences, all educational ijistitntions, libraries, scientiflo collection^), mnsenms, tire,
BO far as possible, to be protected ; and all destruction or intentional defacement
of such places or property, of historical monuments, arcbives, or works of science
and art, is prohibited, save when required by urgent military necessity. Severe
punishment will be meted out for all violations of this regulation.

The custodian of all property of the character mentioned in this section will
make prompt returns thereof to these headquarters, stating character and loca-
tion, and embodying such recommendations as they mav think proper for the full
protection of the properties under their care and custody, that proper orders may
issue enjoining the cooperation of both military and civil authorities in securing
such protection.

On July 15, 1898 (page 90) , Aguinaldo addressed Admiral Dewey
as follows:

SiB: The revolution having taken possession of the various provinces of the
archipelago, this government has found it necessary to adopt the form and organ-
ization best suited to the popular will. I have tberefore the pleasure and huuor
of placing in your hand the inclosed decrees, which contain the organization
referred to, begging that you will communicate to your Government that the
desires of this government are to remain always in friendship with the great
North American nation, to which we are under many obligations.

A decree announced to Admiral Dewey and doubtless at once
communicated by him te the President contained the following
(page 90):
To the People of the PhiZippinea:

Acts of Providence have placed me in a position for which I can not but recog-
nize my natural inefficiency, but as I have no right to violate the laws uf Provi-
dence, nor to decline the duties which honor and patriotism impose upon me, I

greet you, my beloved people, from that position.

In tne face of the wuole world I have proclaimed that the aspiration of ray
whole life, the final object of all my wishes and efforts, is your independence,
because I have the inner conviction that it is also your constant longing, since
independence for us means the redemption from slavery aud tyranny, the recov-
ery of lost liberty, and the admission to the concert of civilized nations.

This decree goes on to say (page 91), June 18, 1898:
I understand, moreover, the urgent necessity of establishing in each town a
solid and substantial organization, a stronger bulwark of public security, and the
only means for insuring the uuion and discipline which are indispensable for the
establishment of a republic — that is, the government of the people by the people —
and for settling international conflicts which may arise.

He then goes on to make a decree to establish a local self-
go vemment, prescribing as a condition that any inhabitant qual-
ified shall be entitled to be elected, provided always that he is a
friend of the Philippine independence.

In Aguinaldo's proclamation of June 23, 1898, establishing the
revolutionary government, he says (page 95):

Abticlb I. The dictatorial government will be entitled hereafter the revolu-
tionary government, whose object is to struggle for the independence of the
Philippines until all nations, including the Spanish, shall expressly recognize it,
and to prepare the country so that a true republic may be established.

On the 6th of August, 1898 (page 99) , Aguinaldo issued a proc-
lamation to foreign governments, in which he says:

To Foreign Government*:

The revolutionary government of the Philippines on its establishment explained
through the message dated the 23d of June utst the true causes of the Philippine
revolution, showing according to the evidence that this popular movement is the
result of the laws which regulate the life of a people which aspire to progress and
to perfection by the sole road of liberty.
434S

63

The said rerolntion now rales in the provinces of Cavite, Bstanffas, Mindoro,
TTayabas, Laguna, Moron g, Bnlacan, Bataan, Pampanff& NuevaEcija, Tarlao,
IPan^asinan, Union, Infanta, and Zambales, and it holds besieged the capital of
Itfanila.

lu these provinces complete order and perfect tranquillity reign« administered
"by the antnorities elected by the provinces in accordance with the organic decrees
dated 18th and 23d oi June last.

The revolution holds moreover about 9,000 prisoners of war, who are treated in
accordance with the customs of war between civilized nations and humane senti-
ments, and at the end of the war it has more than 80,000 combatants organized in
the form of a regular army.

In this situation the cniefs of the towns comprised in the above-mentioned
provinces, interpretine; the sentiments which animate those who have elected
them, have proclaimea the indenendence of the Philippines, petitioning the revo-
lutionary govemrrent that it will entreat and obtain from foreign governments
recoj^ition of its belligerency and its independence in the firm benef that the
Philippine people have already arrived at that state in which they can and ought
to govern, themselves.

Accompanying this is an account of a meeting of representa-
tives of tne various towns, setting forth in an admirable manner
the evidences of civilization and aspiration for freedom and their
fitness for self-government:

The discussion took place with the prudence and at the length which so impor-
tant a question demands, and after suitable deliberation the following dedara-
tionfl wera unanimously adopted :

The Philippine revolution records, on the one hand, brilliant feats of arms, real*
ized with siugnlar courage by an improvised army almost without arms, and, on
the other, the no less notable fact that the people after the combat have not en>
tered upon great excesses nor pursued the enemy further, but have treated him,
on the contrary, with generosity and humanity, returning at once to their ordi-
nary and trannuil life.

Such deeds demonstrate in an nndisputable manner that the Philippine people
was not created, as all believed, for the sole purpose of dragging the chains of
servitude, but that it has a perfect idea of order and justice, shuns a savage life,
and loves a civilized life.

But what is most surprising in this people is that it goes on giving proofs that
it knows how to frame laws commensurate with the progress ofthe age, to respect
theiu and obey them, demonstrating that its national customs are not repugnant
to this progress; that it is not ambitious for power, nor honors, nor riches, aside
from the rational and just aspirations for a free and Independent life and inspired
by the most lofty idea of patriotism and national honor; and that in the service of
this idea and for the realization of that aspiration it has not hesitated in the sao-
rifice of life and fortune.

Filipinos are fully convinced that If individuals have need of material, moral,
and intellectual perfection in order to oontribute to the welfare of their fellows,'
peoples require to have fullness of life; they need liberty and independenoe in
order to contribute to the indefinite progress of mankind. It has struggled and
will struggle with decision and constancy, without ever turning back or retro-
grading Imore the obstacles which mav arise in its path, and with unshakable
faith that it will obtain justice and fulfill the laws of Providence.

In virtue of the foregoioe considerations the undersigned, giving voice to the
unanimous aspirations of tne people whom they represent and performing the
oflices received from them and the duties pertaining to the powers with which
they are invested —

Proclaim solemnly, in the face of the whole world, the independence of the
Philippines;

This document also contains the Philippine constitution (page
107) , beg^ning—

We, the representatives ofthe Philippine people, lawfully invoked, in order to
establish justice, provide for common defense, promote general welfare, and insure
the benefits of fireedora, inploring the aid of the Sovereign Legislator of the Uni-
verse in order to attain these purposes, have voted, decreed, and sanctioned the
follo\ving—

POLITICAL CONSTITUTION.

FiBSl TiTLB.
THE BEPUBUC.

Abtxcli 1. The political association of all the Filipinos oonstitutes a nation,
the estate of which is denominated Philippine Bepnblio.
Abt.2. The Philippine Repuolic is free and independent.
Art. 8. Sovereignty resides exclusively in the people.
4S48

54

AST. 4. The goTernmeni of the republic is popular, repreeentatiye, altenative,
and responsible, and is exercised by three distinct powers, which are denominated
legislative, ezecnttve. and jndiciaL Two or more of these powers shall never be
vested in one person or corporation; neither shall the legislatiirebe vested in one
kidividaal alone.

Thdid Titlb.

SBUGION.

Abt. 5. The state recognizes the equality of all religioaa worships and the sep
aration of the chnrch ana the state.

The constitution contains the nsaal safeguards for freedom
found in the constitutions of onr American States.

The reports of Admiral Dewey and of General Otis and the
officers under his command are ample to diow l^t &e people
of th e Philippine Islands were a brave and intelligent people,
struggling for independence, for which thev were fit, under com-
petent and able leadership, actuated by a like spirit. They were
striving for an independent republic— bravely, inteUigentiy, and,
but for us, successfully.

May 16, 1898, this appears clearly enough from the dispatches
of Dewey, although in the beginning he undervalued the strength
of the people of the Philippine Islands.

May 18, 1898, he telegraphs:

I can take Manila at any moment. To retain possession and thns control the
Philippine Islands would reqaire, in my bestjndgment, a well-eqaipped force
of 6,000 men. Spanish force is estimated at 10,000 men. The rebels are reported
80,000 men.

May 24, he telegraphs:

Agninaldo, the rebel commander in chief, was brought down by theMeOuUoeh,
Organising forces near Cavite and may render assistance that will be valuable.

It will be seen that the rebels who accepted A«^uinaldo as their
leader were 80,000 strong before he came to tnem. How idle,
then , in the face of that single fact, to suggest that he was
imposing an unwilling domination upon that people.

May 27 Dewey telegraphs:

It if impossible for the people of Manila to buy provisions except rice.

Of course, this was due to the investment by the rebel forces.
And he adds:

Steamer has Jnst arrived from Amoy with 3,000 Manser rifles and a great
amount of ammunition for Aguinaldo, whose force is increasing constantly.

May 80 Dewey telegraphs:

Aguinaldo, revolutionary leader, visited the (Hympia yesterday. He expects
to make a general attack on May 81. Doubt ability to succeed.

June 6 Dewey telegraphs:

Insurgents have been engaged actively within the province of Cavite during
the last week. They have won several small victories, taking prisoners about
1,800 men, 60 officers; Spanish troops, not native.

June 27 Dewey telegraphs:

Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, with 18 of his staff, arrived May 19, by permis-
•ion, on NtUMhan, Established self Cavite, outside arsenal, under the i>rotection
of our guns, and organized his army. I have had several conversations with
him, generally of a personal nature. Consistently I have refrained from assisting
him m any way with the force under my command, and on several occasions I
have declined requests that I should do so, telling him the squadron could not
act until the arrival of the United States troops. At the same time I have given
him to understand that I consider insurgents as friends, being ' "

, enemy. He has gone to attend a meeting of insurgent leaders for the pur-
pose of forming a civH government. Aguin^do has acted iDdependently oi the
squadron, but nas kept me advised of his progress, which has oeen wonderful.
I nave allowed to pass by water recruits, arms, and ammunition, and to take such
Spanish arms and ammuDition from the arsenal as he needed. Have advised fre>
qnently to conduct the war humanely, which he has done invariably. My rel**
ttons with him are cordial, but I am not in his confldence. The United Ststet
4848

05

lias not been bound in any way to assist iosorgents by any act or promises, and
lie is Dot, to my knowledge, committed to assist ns. I believe he expects to cap-
ture Manila without my assistance, birt doubt ability, they not yet having many
S^ns. In my opinion these people are far superior in their intelligence and more
capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both
races.

Leonard R. Sargent, with the permission of Admiral Dewey,
spent the greater part of the months of October and November,
1898, in company with Paymaster Wilcox, in the interior and
northern x)art of the island of Lnzon. They travded more than
ax hundred miles. Their report is highly commended by Admi-
ral Dewey, who speaks of ''the success of their undertaking,
their thoroughness of observation, and the ability shown m
their report." The gentleman's observations appear in two arti-
cles published in the '* Outlook," September 1st and 21st, respec-
tively, 1899.

The original report is now before me, and bears this indorse-
ment signed by Admiral Dewey:

Approved and respectfully forwarded for the Information of the Navy Depart*
ment.

Especial attention is invited to this interesting and carefully prepared report,
whicn, in my opinion, contains the most complete and reliable information
obtainable in regard to the present state of the northern part of Lnzon Island.

GEORGE DEWEY.
Bear-Admiral, V, 8. Navy, Commanding Asiatie Station,

The report furnished evidence of the quiet and order main-
tained all over the island by the Filipino authorities. There was
some little hesitation at permitting the gentlemen to travel with-
out a pass from Aguinaldo, who in his turn expected an applica-
tion from the American commanders. But a x>ersonal letter was
obtained from Consul-General Williams to Aguinaldo requesting
that passports be provided. Aguinaldo put his refusal on tiie
ground that there was an attempt to stir up an insurrection in
me northern provinces, and that should that hapx>en he might
not be able to provide for their safety. But he assured them
they were free to prosecute their journey, and that they would
encounter no opposition from his forces.

Mr. Sargent says:

At that time the miUtaiy forces of the United States held oontrol only in
Manila, with its environs, and in Cavite, and had no authority to proceed farther.
In the meantime the native population, taking matters into their own hands, had
declared their independence from all foreign Jurisdiction and had set up a pro-
visional government with Aguinaldo at its head. Although this government
has never been recognized, * * * it can not be denied that, in a region occu*
pied by many millions of inhabitants, for nearly six months it stood alone between
anarchy and order. It was the opinion at Manila during this period, and possi-
bly in uie United States, that their oondition was something akin to anarchy.

But he adds.

We found the eonditions to be muoh at variance with this opinion.

They visited seven provinces, of which some were under the
immediate control of the central government at Malolos, while
others were remotely situated and accessible only by lengthy and
arduous travel. He says:

As a tribute to the efficiency of Aguinaldo's government and to the law-abid>
ing character of his subjects, I offer the fact that Mr. Wilcox and I pursued our
journey throughout in perfect security and returned to Manila with only the most
pleasing recollections of the quiet and orderly life which we found the natives to

Mid yi „ ^ . .

refinement of the inhabitants. * * * We were particularly struck by the dig
nlfled demeanor of our hosts and by the graceful manner in which they extended
to us their welcome. We had unlimited opportunities for conversation witli the
4848

56

citizens of the towns, and we fonnd everywhere a class that gave evidence ot oon-
elderable cnltnre and a certain amount uf education. * * * The Spanish lan-
enage, Spanish history, charch history, and the dead languages evidently formed
Its leadine features. The natives of this class seemed to have made une of the
opportunities offered them, and they had the subjects above mentioned completely
at command. * * *

Our route carried us through the valley of the Rio Grande Cagayan — probably
the largest area of level country in Luzon Island. Its towns throughout give evi-
dence of the labor that has been expended on them. Each town has an elaborate
church and convent, usually built of brick. Our entertainment in the different
towns varied according to the facilities at hand, but in all cases music was the
leading feature. The towns of Ilagan and Aparri, with their wealthy and pleasure-
loving population, provided a most elaborate entertainment. These towns are
laid out in regular streets, and have many squares of substantial frame buildings.
They have each a population of between ten and fifteen thousand. "We spent three
days at Ilagan, and I think it was here that we were brought into closest touch
with the Filipino character. The cultured class which I have spoken of before
was strongly in evidence, and I think before leaving we had discussed views with
nearly every member of it. They all realized that they were passing through a
crucial period in the history of their people, and were eager to acquire all possi-
ble knowledge that might assist them to think clearly in this crisis. On the even-
ing following our arrival a ball was given in our honor, which was attended by
allthe 6111 e of the town. There were present about fifty young women and twice
that number of men. All were dressed in European fashion. The girls were
pleasant, and the men comported themselves in all respects like gentlemen. It
was hard to realize that we were in the very heart of a country generally supposed
to be given up to semi-savages.

During our stay at Ilagan we lived at the house of the mayor. This building
was of great size, and was built of macniflcent hard wood from the nei<!hboring
forest. The reception room was very large, with a finelv polished floor. It con-
tained a piano and set of excellent bamboo furniture, including the most com
fortable cnairs and divans imaginable. The Filipinos pride themselves on their
cookery, and it is indeed excellent. There is no suspicion of the greasy and
garlicky flavor that characterizes a Spanish meal. The shortest of three din-
ners given in our honor numbered fifteen courses, and seemed interminable. ' In
addition to fish, rice, chickens, and other domestic products of the country, there
was served game of many sorts, including doves, snipes, deer, mountain ouffalo,
and boar. It was astonishing how many of the dishes were "comida del paia"
and must be sampled by the visitor to secure a just conception of the Filipino
talent in matters of the palate. The Filipino's table is always set, at least when
guesits are present. He ib very temperate in his use of liquor. I have never seen
an intoxicated Filipino.

Why, Mr, President, they seem to get along without the Maine
law as well as the people of Maine get along with it.

Vigan, the capital of South Docos, has a population of about 28,000, and Candon,
farther to the southward, is not far behind this figure. The mayor of Candon
was of the hostler type, and was evidently on the outlook for an opportunity to
**boom " his town. On our departure he presented us with a written description
of its exceptionidly desirable location from a business standpoint. Every town
fl»ve evidence of tne bitter fighting that had taken place between the natives and
tne Spaniards. The men whom we met in the western provinces possessed in
general the same characteristics that we had observed in tne countrymen farther
to the eastward. * * * Freedom of thought marked the views of every Filipino
that I have heard express himself on the subject of religion. * * * Through-
out the island a thirst for knowledge is manifested, and an extravagant respect
for those who possess it. I have seen a private native citizen in a town in the
interior exercise a more x>owerful influence than all the native officials over the
minds of the inhabitants, simply beeause he was known to have been educated in
the best schools at Manila, and was regarded for that reason as a superior man.
The heroes of these people are not heroes of war, but of science and invention.
Without rival, the American who is best known by reputation in Luzon is Mr.
Edison, and any native with the slightest pretension to education whom you may
question on the subject will take delight in reciting a list of his achievements.
The ruling Filipinos, during the existence of theii provisional government, ap-
preciated the necessity of providing public schools to be accessible to the poorest
inhabitants.

And then he adds:

I have found the native of the interior of Luzon an astonishingly different char-
acter from the one ordinarily met in Manila.

In the second of these articles Mr. Sargent gives an astonishing

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67

acconnt of the awakening of the faculties of these people. He
says:

We heard many tales, and were in a position to authenticate them to a great
extent, of deeds that told in glowins terms of the endurance and courage the Fiii-
pisos could display when impellea by a sufScient motive. The revolution in
Luson Island was hv no means a simultaneous uprising of the population, and in
ltd early stages the force that opposed the Spanish power was not overwhelming in
its numbers. In the provinces zar in the interior particularly the earlier encoun-

ters found the advantage in the hands of the Spaniards, whose opponents were
bnt small bands of the most darine and desperate natives of the vicinitv. poorlv
armed, and entirely without organization or discipline.

Remember all along that this is indorsed by Admiial Dewey.
He says:

Yet these pioneers of rebellion did win brilliant and surprising victories, uid
by their success encouraged their more timid neighbors to join their fortunes to
the cause. * * *

At the time of our journey the patriotic enthusiasm of the population was
everywhere at its height. Theboastof ever inhabitant was the national arrov,
whose organization was then being rapidlj' perfected. Commissions were eagerly
sought by the young men of the higher class, and there were more volunteers for
service in the ranks than could be armed or uniformed. It is universally asserted
that every preparation should be made to defend the newly won independence of
the island against all foreign aggression. The older Filipinos, especially those ot
wealth and influence, declared their desire to give every support in their power
to the cause, and were as much a part of the warlike movement as those who
actually took up arms.

This was before the negotiation of the treaty of peace, before
the debate in the Senate, and before the date of the anti-impe-
rialist leagues or political movements here.

That the civil power should be placed in the same hands was a dangerous
experiment, but at the same time a necessary one. The first object of the Fili-
pinos had been to win their independence ; the next was to defend it. For both
these purposes they had need of their best fighting material, and the selection
was made accordingly. The result proved mure fortunate than there had been
reason to hope. While exercising absolute authority throughout the island and
governing entirely by military law, the leaders of the army appeared, neverrhe-
less, to endeavor to mete oat Justice to all classes alike.

They continued, moreover, to assert their intention to relinquish their tem-
porary power when the establishment of a perfect peace should make such a step
possible, and gave most encouraging proofs of the good faith with which they
spoke.

On the whole, as far as I could Judge, the tendency was upward. The young
officers displayed an earnest desire to improve their minds for the benefit of the
state, and seemed to be impelled by the ambition to prove themselves worthy of
the trust that had been confided in them.

The report finds on several occasions Spanish prisoners— priests,
soldiers, and civil oflBcials. It says:

We have seen representatives of each of these three classes in these towns.
We could detect no signs of previous ill treatment, nor of undue restriction. On
the contrary, they appeared to i>ossess the freedom of the town In which they
lived.

Speaking of the smaller towns, they say:

They were well grounded on only three points — the destruction of the Spanish
sonadron in Manihi harbor, the surrender of Manila, and the declaration of the
Philippine government at Malolos of the independence of the islands, and the estab-
lisliment of a republican form of government with Aguinaldo as president.

Balls were given in their honor. They were welcomed to the
houses of the principal inhabitants, where they found very much
such a reception, in the way of elegant hospitality, as they would
have found in traveling in this country or anywhere in Europe.

Speaking of the provinces of Cagayan and Isabella, they say:

An idea of their wealth can be obtained from the fact that before the Philippine
insurrection $3,000,000 in tobacco alone came yearly from the one province of
Isabella. Both provinces raise also sugar, rice, cocoa, and cofiTee. Cattle also are
shipped. * * *
4348

58

At Aparri we went alongside the FhUivpina, and reached the wharf by croea-
ing this vessel. We were met on board by Commandante Leyba, military com-
mander of the province of Cagayan. We were taken to a private hoose where
we were quartered during our stay at Aparri. Here we met Colonel Tiroua,
commander of the military district including the provinces of Nneva Vizcaya,
Isabella, and Cagayan. He welcomed as cordially, and continued from that tune
to treat ns in a very friendly manner. We remained at Aparri three days, until
the departure of the steamer Otlo, November 9. (Par. 41.)

The steamer Satumat^ which had left the harbor the day before our arrival,
brought news from Hongkong papers that the Senators from the United States at
the congress of Paris favoredtne independence of the islands, with an American
protectorate. Colonel Tirona considered the Information of sufficient reliability
to JustilV him in regarding the Philippine independence as assured and warfare'
in the island at an end. For this reason he proceeded to relinquish the military
command he held over the provinces, and to place this power in the hands of a
civil officer elected by the people. On the day following our arrival in Aparri,
the ceremony occurred whicn solemnized this transfer of aathoritv in the province
of Cagayan. The presidentes locales of all the towns in the province were present
at the ceremony, conducted by a native priest. After the priest had retired.
Colonel Tirona made a short speech, stating that, since in all probability per-
manent i>eaoe was at hand, it became his duty to relinquish the authority he had
previously held over the province, and to place it in the hands of a civil officer
elected by the people. He then handed the staff of office to the man who had
been elected "jefe provincial." This officer also made a speech, in which he
thanked the disciplined military forces and their colonel for the service they had
rendered the province, and assured them that the work they had begun woald
be perpetuated by the people of the province, where every man, woman, and child
stood ready to take up arms to defend their newly won liberty, and to resist with
the last drop of their blood the attempt of any nation whatever to bring them
back to their former state of dependence. His speech was very impassioned.
He then knelt, placed his hand on an open Bible, and took the oatn of office. He
was followed by the three other officers who constitute the provincial government,
the heads of the three departments— justice, police, and internal revenue. Every
town in this province has this same organization. At the time of our departure.
Colonel Tirona planned to go within a tew days to Iligan, and firom there to Bay-
ombong, repeating this ceremony in the capital city of each province. (Par. 42.)

The report goes on to say:

There are no Spaniards here, with the exception of two or three merchants.
One of these we have met. He is pursuing his business entirely unmolested.
(Par. 43.)

The above statement abont Spanish provinces is repeated in
regard to some other provinces, and there is no exception to this
condition of things thronghont the entire island. They smn up
their conclnsions as follows:

53. INTELLIQKNCB AlVD EDUCATION OF THB NATIVES.

The Philippine officers, both military and civil, that we have met in all the
provinces that we have visited have, with very few exceptions, been men of
intelligent appearance and conversation. The same is true of all those men who
form the upper class in each town. The education of most of them is limited,
but they appear to seize every opportunity to improve it. They have great
respect and admiration for learning. Very many of them desire to send their
children to schools in the United States or Europe. Many men of importance in
different towns have told us that the first use to be made of the revenue of thcdr
government, after there is no more danger of war, will be to start good schools in
every village. The poorer classes are extremely ignorant on most subjects, but
a large percentage of them can read and write.

54. Rklation brtwekn Rich aihd Poor.

There is a very marked line between these two classes, and this has been
broadened by the insurrection, for the reason that military officers must equip
themselves without pay, and that civil officers have numerous expenses for
which they receive no return. All officers, civil and military, have therefore
been chosen from the richer class, and the political and military power of the
provinces is in the hands of that class. The private soldiers are fed and clothed
by the government and allowed a very small amount of spending money— in the
western provinces 30 cents in silver x)er week.

55. ATrrruDB of the Militabt toward the Civil Class.

In the provinces of the east that we have visited there appears 'to be little or
no friction between the civil and military classes. Officers and privates, as far as
we could observe, treat civilians w:\th consideration. In the provinces of Ilocos
4318

59

Snr and Union there is a marked difference. The officers are more domineering.
In travelini; in these provinces we had many opportunities to observe this atu-
tade. ^Wben accidents happened to oar carriafre, the officer commanding oar
esoofit oalled to our assistance every native within sight. When they did not
snawer his call promptly, we have seen him strike them with his ridine whip.
One msn had a serioas woand on his face, where an officer had strack hun with
bis pistol hntt. He came to oa for redress, after having appealed in vain to the
mUitarv officer in command of the town. An order from Don Emilio Agnlnaldo,
dated October 18, 1898, calls the attention of his officers to the evils of this prac-
tice, and orders them to correct it in themselves and to instrnct all sergeants,
corporals, and privates on the attitude they should maintain toward civilians.

56. DOMOnON OF THB CHUROH.

In the provinces of Nueva Ic^a, Nueva Yizcaya, Isabella, and Cagayan the
native prieets have no voice whatever in civil matters. The Catholic church itself
seems to have verv little hold on the people of these provinces. Many men have
expressed to us their preference for the Protestant church. In Bocos Bur and
Union there are many more priests than in the other provinces mentioned. Every
pneblo and barrio has its cura, and there are higher officers of the church in the
larger towns. They appear to have an important influence in all civil matters.

67. POPULAB SCNTIMKNT KsaABDINa INDSPKNDBNOB.

Of the large number of officers, civil and military, and of leading towns*
people we have met, nearly every man has expressed m our presmce his senti-
ment on this question. It is universally the same. They all declare they will
accept nothinff short of independence. They desire the protection of the United
States at sea, but fear any interference on land. The question of the remunera-
tion of our Qovemment lor the expense of establishing a protectorate is never
tonobed upon. On the subject of independence there is again a marked difference
oetween the four provinces first visited and those of Ilocos Sur and Union. In
tbe former there is more enthusiasm, the sentiment is more of the people; in the
latter it is more of the higher class and of the army. In these provinces we
have seen signs of actual duoontent with the existing state of things.

68. ATTITUDI toward THB UNITED STATBS.

There is much variety of feeling among the Philippines with regard to the debt
of gratitude they owe to the United States. In every town we found men that
aaiS tliat our nation had saved them from slavery, ana others who claimed that
without interference their independence would have been recognised before this
time. On one point they are united, however, vis : That whatever our Government
may have done for them, it has not gained the right to annex them . They have been
prejudiced against us by the Spaniards. The charges made have been so numer*
ons and so severe that what the natives have since learned has not sufficed to
disillusion them. With regard to the- record of our policy toward a subject peo-
ple, they have received remarkable information on two points— that we have mer-
cileeslv slain and finally exterminated the race of Indians that were native to
our soil, and that we went to war in 1861 to suppress an insnrrection of negro
slaves, whom we also ended by exterminating. Intelligent and well-informed
men have believed these charges. They were rehearsed to us in many towns in
different provinces, beginning at Malolos. The Spanish version of our Indian
problem la particularly well known.

60. PIUEPASED5KSS TOR WAB.

The Philippine government has an organized military force in every province
we have visited. They claim it extends also into Ilocos, Norte, Abra, Lepanto,
Bontoo, and Benguet. With regard to its existence in Ilocos and Benguet we
ean sneak with assurance.

It is said that 200,000 men, from all the islanda, could be put into the field well
armed. They were then distributing 40,000 rifles, and ammunition was pleatifuL
The rifles were principally Remingtons, but many were Mausers.

TEXT WXBB FIT FOB INDXPBNDXNCB.

They say Agninaldo in the beginning established a dictator-
ship. So did we. The difference is he promised to abandon it
when independence was achieved, accompanied it with a form of
government, and the soldiers under his command were eager to
give way to the civil power, even when there came what turned
out to be a false rumor that independence was not to be interfered
with by us.

We, on the other hand, steadfastly refused to promise anything
for the future, and we refuse it now. The dictatorship for a short

48i8

60

tixne of the tmsted and beloved leader of a nation fighting for
freedom and the dictatorship forever of a foreign connti^ tamng
abont Chinese trade and motintains of coal and nuggets of gola
are very different things.

It seems to me that tne Filipino leaders and the Filipino people
have shown themselves, under difllcult and trying conditions, as
fit for freedom and self-government as any people south of us on
the American continent from the Rio Grande to Gape Horn. I
believe if we had dealt with them as it seems to me we ought
to have dealt with them, they would have established their
nation in constitutional liberty much more rapidly than has
been done by any Spanish-speaking pjeople. Certainly they would
have compared favorably with Haiti, with San Domingo, or even
with Mexico in her early days. They devised an excellent con-
stitution. They had a congress, they had courts, they had a
president, they had a cabinet. Much less than this was declared
by our imperialist friends sufficient to make Cuba a nation
entitled to reco^ition. It is true they declared a dictatorship
for their transition period, just as Bolivar did in the South
American countries; lust as Massachusetts did with her commit-
tee of safety during the first few years of the Revolutionary war.
They had newspapers, schools, literature, statesmen. They have
exhibited remarkable fighting qualities, considering the enormous
superiority of the mighty antagonist with whom they had to deal.
Major Younghusband, an English writer of great intelligence,
sympathizing himself with the British view of human rights and
the relations of powerful countries to weak ones, which our
friends have imbibed of late days, says that their people were
stirred to their last outbreak against Spain by the effect of a
powerful novel, just as our people in the old anti-slavery days
were moved by Uncle Tom's Cabin. They are Christians. In
their houses and churches are found books, paintings, and other
works of art. One pretty high authority— I do not think that is
at all true, however— says that there was less illiteracy there than
in the United States. But I have no doubt that there was less
illiteracy there than in many parts of the United States, and in
all parts of the continent south of the United States at a very
recent period. The State papers which these people have issued
show a high degree of intelligence. Their communications to
our generals, whether oral or written, while they show something
undoubtedly of the attitude of weakness dealing with strength,
are, on the whole, highly creditable to their sagacity.

We have been furnished with the reports of the commissioners
appointed by the President of the United States to investigate
affairs in the Philippine Islands. They made a preliminary
statement which came out by accident, not by design, just on
the eve of last fall's election.

These preliminary statements fail to give us any facts as to the
constitution framed by Aguinaldo and his comx)anions; as to
their own declarations of purpose in their proclamation; as to
whether their authority was paramount and undisputed; whether
they established good government and good order; whether they
bad courts or legislative assemblies, or schools, or churches.
It is as if somebody should write the history of the American
Revolution and the establishment of our Government without a
word enabling you to ascertain whether the Americans were fit •
for self-government or independence; or whether France, our
4818

61

ally, had a duty to subjugate us, as she tried afterward to subju-
gate Mexico, on the ground that other nations would if she did
not; or Ixad left out altogether any statement of our national and
State constitutions, and the history of government in provinces
like Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where the foot of the
invader never touched the soil after they were driven out, in the
early part of 76.

So -wlienever the character of persons are spoken of they are
invariably styled the best men. I suppose that is the natural
fashion of speech; that any Senator in speaking of the people of
any toiwrn, or State, or neighborhood, would speak of the Repub-
licans, or Democrats, or Populists, as the best people, according
as he happened to belong to the one or the other political party.

There are many points of resemblance between Americans
straggling for independence and the Filipinos. The commis-
sioners say :

Tbis movement was in no sense an attempt to win independence, but was
merely an effort to obtain relief from abuses which were rapidly growing intoler-
able. The reforms demanded are set forth in a proclamation by one of the insur-
gent leaders.

The reforms demanded, and for which they were struggling,
are not unlike those set forth in our address to the King, and our
address to the people of England in 1774-5. They demanded that
-flie lands held in mortmain by the church should be returned to
the townships, or to the people, just as in the early history of
England, when she was Catholic, the people passed the statutes
against mortmain and limited the holding of lands by ecclesi-
astic authority.

Second, They demanded that " Spain should concede to the Fili-
pinos parliamentary representation, freedom of the press, tolera-
tion of all religious sects, laws common with hers, and adminis-
trative and economic autonomy, trials in the neighborhood,
equality before the law."

Why, that sounds like a passage from Bancroft's History.

" He has transported men beyond the seas," says the Declara-
tion of Independence.

" Legal equality for all persons," "All men are created free and
equal," says the Declaration of Independence. And even my
fnend from Connecticut thinks this is true of some of them.

The commissioners go on to say;

A powerful ad^iunct to the revolutionary movements was the Katipunan Society.
This order was patterned on the Masonic order. It was a secret society and had
about 400,000 members, who were in the main residents of the Tagalog provinces
and of tbe valley of the Pasig Kiver. In Manila and this valley there were 80,000
members.

I have heard somewhere that there was a similar prosperous
organization in the United States in the early days, and that a
commander in chief named Qteorge Washington clothed himself
with its insignia and, I believe, laid the comer stone of a capitol
somewhere.

I do not profess to know very much about that mighty order
to which so many of the greatest men in America and through-
out flie world have been members, in high authority and in full-
est communion, including some Presidents of the United States,
but it strikes me that if in the city of Manila itself, in the single
city, the only spot where these hostilities begun, with one or two
trifling exceptions, held by the power of the United States, there

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62

was an order of this character, with 80,000 members, devoted to
independence, it is pretty good evidence that the best citizenship,
after all, is on the side of the people. Do you not think it likely
that the love of liberty and the love of independence bums
brighter in the human soul in proportion as the man is better?
That it does not blaze quite as clearly, quite as intensely, in the
bosom of the ignorant and degraded savage as in the bosom
where education, and religion, and honor, and refinement have
their home? I suppose that every British gentleman, and every
British commissioner would have ^one back to England at any
time during the war of our revolution and rei)orted that the best
men were on the side of Great Britain and that Washington was
a scheming adventurer, having only the rabble for his associates.
General Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth a week after Bunker
Hill:

The rebels do not see that they have exchanged liberty for tyranny. Ko peo-
ple were ever governed more absolutely than the American provinces now are;
and no reason can be given lor their submission bat that it is tyranny which they
have erected themselves.

According to the London Times, telegraphing under date of
September 16, 1898, a private interview with Aguinaldo, it says:

The majority of the Filipinos have been straggling for freedom for years,
indeed, for oentnries, and now I believe thev have obtained it. The only form
of government he oonld understand was absolute independence. He had not
Btudied political economy, and knew nothing about the various forms of govern-
ment. He said : *' We have no need of protection, because the Filipinos are able to

task, they will return to America." He was unwilling t

cans would demand a reward for their humanity, and he declined to admit any
necessity for a quid pro quo. He was confident that the Philippine republic
would eventually build a navy, and that in the meantime the great nations would
protect and aid a young nation, instead of grabbing its territories.

The Times, for September 20, says in a dispatch from Manila:

The insurgents, urged by constant rumors of the intention of America to
reestablish Spanish rule in the archipelago, continue actively recruiting their
army. Hundreds from Manila are enlisting daily, and troops are drilling every-
where. Great diligence is exhibited in imitating the American formation and
manual, particularly in vollev firing. The intrenchments in certain positions are
being strengthened and a vigilant line of pickets is kept outside the suburbs.
At the same time their attitude is much more friendly than before the evacuation.
Several thousand rifles have recently been landed, and four new Maxims.
Kothing important is reported from the insurgent congress, which holds ses-
sions daily at Malos."

September 24 the Times says:

The national assembly has decided to request the Americans (1) to recognize
the independence of tbe Philippines; (2) to establish a protectorate relating only
to external affairs, and to induce the powers to recognize the indei)enrreDce of the
islands, and (3) to appoint a ioint commission of Americans and Filipinos to
arrange details as to how the Philippines shall reciprocate America's services

On September 26, the London Times prints the following from
its special correspondent, dated at Camp Dewey, near Manila,
July 31, 1898.

The occupation of a portion of the insurgent lines, which was successfaUy
accomplished on Friday morning, July 29, without irritation to the natives, was
the first real move toward assuming the military responsibility of investing the
town of Manila. This occupation was so diplomatically effected that 4)he insur-
gents withdrew the small force which was in position near the seashore without
protest and without delay, the only point insisted upon being the demand for a
written receipt for the trenches. This point was covered by a concise letter from
Genera] Greene, announcing to Aguinaldo that the United States troops had taken
possession of the works. The situation had become impossible. General Greene
nad established a picket line from the seashore extending along the cross roads
About a mile inshore north of his camp and five or six hundred yards in the rear
4848

63

of the inBnreent rifle pits, and another between the camp and the back ooantry.
— rthe: ' ' ^ *

Whenever the insnrgeuts made what they call an attack, the American picket*
found themselves in a zone of very lively fire, because the Spanish MaoaerDuUeta
found lodinnent exactly alon^ that line, and most of the shells and shrapnel bunt
In the immediate vicinity of the pickets or the supports. It was very irritattnic
to the men to endure the frequent fire without bemg able to return a shot.

During the entire time between the snrrender of Manila to the
outbreak of hostilities, February 1, 1899, not only did the Filipino

Siyemment extend over the whole island, except the city of
anilia, but the people of that city and the full strength of that
city, as shown by the reijorts of our military and naval com-
manders, were on their side. But it was continually reenforc-
ing and strengthening its armies in the field and procuring
arms and military supplies. They were also doin^ their best to
get a fleet, and they had in fact quite a number of ships, rudely
enough armed I suppose, but constituting a naval service.

They charge Aeumaldo with a desire to loot Manila. Where is
the evidence of tnat desire? Manila was full of his adherents, as
our generals declared; there was a Masonic order there of 80,000
members, devoted, almost, to independence. It must have con-
tained substantially every grown man in the city not a Spaniard
or a foreigner.

Our generals all testify, and C. S. Wilcox testified, to the humane
treatment of prisoners by the Filipinos. That treatment will com-
pare favorably with the treatment of prisoners on either side in
our own civil war; it will compare favorably with the treatment
of prisoners by England in the Revolutionary war or the war of
1812.

Did he loot Hoilo? Did he loot a village or a single farmhouse
throughout the length and breadth of the islands?

You can find, Mr. President, in the report of the Philippine
Commission no facts that are not highly creditable to this people;
the conjecture what they would do, the imputation of a purpose
to plunder or loot, the imputation that Aguinaldo desired to
establish a despotism, comes from a hostile fancy, and has no
foundation whatever in fact.

I sxippose no advocate of the policy of seizing the Philippine
IslandjB Dy force, of compelling them to accept such government
as we choose to impose upon tnem, will be likely to question the
trustworthiness of the evidence of Major-Gteneral Otis. Nobody
questions his zeal in that cause. Nobody questions his oppor-
tunity to know the facts. Indeed, the evidence furnished by him
in his report of August 81, 1899, is made up largely of official
documents. When he undertakes to penetrate the motives of the
men with whom he is waging war, or engaged in diplomatic con-
troversies or discussions, he is stating not facts but judgment,
and his judgment is likely to be affected by the same influences
that affect other good and able men in like circumstances, espe-
cially the judgment of good and able and patriotic men, that tiie
authorities of their own country are engaged in discussions with
the authorities of other countries, friendly or hostile.

Now it seems to me that it is impossible for any candid man to
read carefully the report of General Otis without seeing that it
absolutely overthrows, flrst, the claim that the people of the
Philippine Islands are savages; second, that Aguinaldo and those
associated with him are not actuated by an honest desire for
independence and liberty; do not act and think exactly as Ameri-
cans would act and thmk under the same ciicumstoncesy and
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64

exactly as Americans have always acted and would always act
and think nnder like circumstances; third, that they are inca-
pable of self-government, or of establishing institutions based on
justice and constitutional liberty; fourth, that they were in the
least guilty of the outbreak of hostilities; and, fifth, that their
action was in the least provoked, instigated, or affected by the
expressions uttered on this side, of an opposition to the policy of
conquest and imperialism, except so far as those expressions are
found in the prior history of this country and in the declarations
of its revered fathers and patriots, from George Washington and
Sam Adams and Thomas Jefferson down to Abraham Lincoln
and Charles Sunmer to William McKinley, and down to the
Senate of the United States when it passed the resolutions declar-
ing our policy as to Cuba.

This is confirmed by General Otis's letter to Aguinaldo, dated
November 3, 1898, speaking of the treatment of the Filipino peo-
ple toward the Spanish Catholic clergy and nuns, he says:

I believe that a vast mt^'ority of t^e reports of great craelty and barbarous
treatment practiced by the Filipinos toward these individuals, which have been
pat in general circnlation, are nntrue. Indeed I have forbidden cablegrams pre-
pared on this sabject, which I had good reason to suppose could not be substan-
tiated.

It would require more time than I have a right to take to-day
to examine the evidence, and to cite the noble State papers which
demonstrate the fitness of these people for independence.
Admiral Dewey's estimate, never retracted, can never be con-
clusively shaken. General Wheeler, on his return, declared
these people fit for self-government, as he expresses it, ** of a cer-
tain sort." He explains that he means local and village self-gov-
ernment.

Mr. President, capacity for local and village self-government
is capacity for the highest self-government, as the history of New
England witnesses. But there is no greater and more pestilent
delusion than the notion that a strong people may take away the
liberty of a weak one, if we happen to thmk the weak one not
fit for liberty.

But I will refer to a few of the many admirable State papers.
Their written constitution is a masterpiece of statesmanship.
They discuss questions of international law with our representa-
tives, and show themselves fully a match for them in debate. I
especially refer to the final appeal of Mabini to our commission-
ers, so noble and so mournful, and the poem composed by Jos6
Rizal, in his dungeon, the night before he met his death for his
country.

San Isidro, April S9, 1899.

HoNOBABLB GENTLEMEN: The Philippine people, through its goYemnieut,
makes known to the commission that it has not yet lost its confidence in the
friendship, justice, and magnanimity of the North American nation.

It feels itself weak before the advance of the American troops, whose valor it
admires, and in view of the superiority of their organization, discipline, fighting
material and other resources, does not feel humiliated in soliciting peace, invok-
ing the generous sentiments of the Government of the North American people,
worthily represented by the commission, and the sacred interests of humanity.

But tne Philippine government, fully convinced that it has not provoked war,
and that it has only employed its arms in defense of the integrity of its native
land, asks for a suspension of hostilities and a general armistice in all the archi-
pelago for the short time of three months, in order to enable it to consult the
opinions of the people concerning the government which would be most advan-
tageous, and the intervention in it which should be given to the North American
GU>vemment, and to appoint an extraordinary commission with full powers to act
in the name of the Fhllii^pine people.
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65

The weliare of this unfortunate country and the triumph of the governing
party in the United States of America depend upon the prompt establishment of
peace. We confess ourselves weak, but we still possess resources— above all the
unfaltering resolution to prolong the war for an indetinite space of time if the
undertaking to dominate us by force is persisted in.

In layinfT l>efore the commission the preceding statements I believe that I inter
pret the sentiments of my president and his government and those of the Philip-
pine people.

I salute the commission with the greatest respect.
Your most obedient servant,

[SEAL.] AP. MABINI.

Manifesto published by Ap. Mabini, on behalf of the Philippine
government, at San Isidxo, April 15, 1899.

(The manifesto begins by summarizing the terms of the
proclamation recently issued by the American commission, and
published in the ** Oceania" of April 5, 1899. The benevolent
mtentions of the American Government, its proi)osal to establish
"an enlightened system of government under which the
Philippine people may enjoy the fullest autonomy and the most
complete liberty consistent with the obligations and purposes "
that Government has in view, its conclusion that American
sovereignty is not incompatible with the rights and liberties of
the Philippine people, and its threat to overwhelm by force those
who do not recognize that soverei^ty are recited in some
detail. The fact that the commission proposes to introduce
certain improvements and reforms in the political, judicial, and
economic administration of the country is mentioned, and the
manifesto continues as follows:)

Such is in abstract the address to the Philippine people of the American com-
missioners who, to inspire greater confidence, have not hesitated to have
recourse to falsehood, shamelessly assertin^^ that my government, by not having
understood the good will and fraternal sentiments of their ambitious President,
has provoked war, when everybody is aware that President MoKinley had to
decree war in order to force the American Senators of the opposition to ratify the
cession of the Philippines stipulated in the treaty of Paris, thus sacriflci ng to
his ambition the welfare of two peoples, who ought to be united by an eternal
friendship.

You clearly see that the North American Government undertakes to extend its
sovereignty over the Philippine Islands, basing its claim upon a title null and
void. This title is the treaty of Paris, agreed to by the Spanish- American Com-
mission the 10th of last December, and ratified, according to the commission that
signs this address, by the American Government some weeks ago, and by that of
Spain on the 20th of last March. This contract to cede the islands was concerted
and concluded when the Spanish domination had already ceased in the Philippines,
thanks to the triumph of our arms. Moreover, in this act of cession no voice what-
ever was allowed the representatives of the Philippine people to which belongs
the sovereignty of the islands by natural right and international laws. Wljat a
spectacle it is to see at the end of the century, called the century of enlightenment
and of civilization, a people Jealous and proud of its own sovereignty employing
all its great powers, the result of its own continued free existence, to wrest Irom
another people, weak but wortny of a better fate, the very rights which in its
own case it believes to be inherent by law nataral and divine ! And how discour-
aging the cold and indifferent attitude, in the face of such a scandalous usurpation,
taken by the great powers to whom Providence confides the high mission and the

great means of guarding universal peace and justice. But no matter ! We shall
/^ht till the last breatn to revindicate our own sovereignty, our independence.
It the North American people is great and powerful, far greater and more pow-
erful is Providence which watches over the unfortunate and chastises and
humbles the proud. We have suffered so much in our own interests that per-
haps we are quick to recognize misery. Thus, if we should lay down our arms,
we should leave our sons without liberty and without the means of retrieving our
fortune, and moreover we should bequeath to them all the penalties and sufferings
of a coniiict which of necessity they would have to face if today we do not release
them from this task. If overwhelmed by misery and weighed down by the
chains of servitude, you should picture to yourselves the sad future of'^your
posterity, will yon not a thousand times prefer death ? To this lamentable state
of despair would all those be reduced who without reflection allow themselves to
be deceived by the specious promises of the American commission.
4348-5

OG

On the other hand, these promises, when examined, amount to nothing in prao-
tice. They are such as political parties ordinarily use to secure power, and wholly
disregard once their object is attained. For it is very easy to promise when do
obligation or le^al respousibiltv to perform the promise is incurred. And more-
over— be assured of this— the North American Government has not wanted and
does not want to recognize our independence, because this recognition will bind
it to make formal agreement with us and not to fail or depart from the terms of
this a.<rreement. For this reason I have sought it from the begiuning, but tlie
representatives of the North American Government have always refused to ac-
cord to my government an official character, having recourse first to coercion and
finally to instigating war. Tliey promised to aid us in the attainment of our lib-
erty, and you have seen how they have just pro\ oked us to war for being unwill-
ing to lose onr liberty by recognizing their sovereignty.

Apparently it pleases them better to have no sort of agreement with us, in order
that they maymake of us what best suits them, as soon as they have subjected us
to their rule. It would be more to their advantage to promise us the greatest
improvements in all kinds of industries and means of communication in order
afterwards to possess themselves of our properties and control of all industries
with the help of their ^reat capital, reducing us to the condition of partners, or
porters and workmen, if not mere domestics and servants. It is a clever and
ingenious scheme, to promise us the amplest autonomy and the fullest political
liberty, that afterwards they may oppress us at will, under the pretext that the
concessions of liberty are prejudicial to their rights of sovereignty and inter-
national obligations. We were the equals of the Spaniards betore the laws of
Si>ain, but we in no case obtained justice without recourse to vile and underhand
means and without incurring an interminable series of humiliations, for wher-
ever we betook ourselves race-hatred pursued us, and that hatred is much more
violent, cruel, and pitiless among the Anglo-Saxons.

Open ;vour eyes, my dear countrymen, while there is yet time. Fight without
truce or respite, without faltering or desponding, without measuring the duration
of the conflict, the forces of the enemy, or the greatness of the sacrifices. Build
not on others your happiness and welfare, for selfishness and interest prevail in
the relations of individuals, of cities, and of nations, above all when they are se]>-
arated by the impassable chasm opened by race hatred. Even when the Consti-
tution of the United States is declared law in the Philippine Islands and the North
American Congress accords us all, absolutely all, the rights and liberties of Amer-
ican citizens, and a state government, recognized by the Constitution— which is the
greatest good annexation can bring us — race hatred will curtail these preroga-
tives, especially since section 10 of article 1 of the Constitution prohibits each
State from imposing taxes on imports and exports (the products of such taxes be-
longing to the Treasury of the United States), and from passing laws on this point
without the approval of Congress. Under this section we should not be able, with-
out the approval of the same Congress, to lay any taxes on tonnage, nor maintain
in time of peace troops and war ships to command respect for the liberties and
rights we had acquired. Annexation, in whatever form it may be adopted, will
unite us forever to a nation whose manners and customs are different from our
own, a nation which hates the colored race with a mortal hatred, and from which
we could never separate ourselves except by war.

And since war is the last resource that is left to us for the salvation of our
country and our own national honor, let us fight while a grain of strength is left
US; let us acquit ourselves like men, even though the lot of the present genera-
tion is conflict and sacrifice. It matters not whether we die in the midst or at the
end of our most painful day's work ; the generations to come, praying over our
tombs, will shed for us tears of love and gratitude, and not of bitter reproach.

By authority of the president of the republic and its government.

AP. MABINI.

San Ibidro, April 15, 1899.

NOTES ON THE MESSAGE OP GENERAL MILLER.

Firstly. The succtession of the sovereignty of the United States to that of Spain
is based on three facts, viz :

The destruction of the Spanish squadron, on the surrendering at Manila of
the Spanish army, and on the treaty of Paris.

Let us examine the validity of the reasons alleged.

After the destruction of the Spaaish squadron in the bay of Manila the Ameri-
can squadron remained there as master of the sea in those parts. This fact being
based on undeniable liacts, the destruction of the Spanish and the victory of the
North American squadron, we admit the same without any reserve whatever.

The surrendering of the Spanish army at Manila caused the Americans to
establish there a government of military occupation. If this essentially military
fact furnished the only and sufiicient cause for the establishment of the govern-
ment of occupation, then the sovereignty of the United States must needs remain
restricted to the city of Manila, for the same principle must then be applied to
the townships which were conquered by the army of deliverance of the Philip-
pines ; and over and above that the sovereignty thus acquired by our Army must
4348

67

needs l>e connidGred as being much better justified, Aa th6 Pldlippine army
achieved what it did without any foreign help and assistance, while on the other
hand the Army of the United States would never have succeeding in taking
Manila without the narrow and strong girdle of iron that our armies had laid
around it.

Assuming the above premises to be correct, and applying the same to the ter-
ritory of Bisayas, we can not see how here the sovereignty of the United States
is to 'be established, for here, to be snre, we have neither a sea nor a land battle
where the Americans have in any way participated.

To take the matter npfrom that point of view betrays but a puerile conception,
and we ourselves merely drew the consequences to show how easily the argument
bronght forth by the American Government can be refuted.

The fact however is, that the cession of the Philippine Islands by the Spanish
in favor of the Americans, and accepted by the latter nation, constitutes a viola-
tion df the sacred interest of the Philippine nation and an act of bad faith on the
side of the United States. For, to be snre, a long time before the breaking out of
the Spanish- American difficulties the Philippines were lighting, as they are fight-
ing now and will always fight, for their liberty and independence; and the
American nation in allying itself with our army for the destruction of the Spanish
dominion has contracted a moral and political responsibility of the first order; it
has, indeed, contracted the plainest obligation to aid and abet the realization of
the just aspirations of the Philippines. The simplest conclusion from what we
have said would be to assume that, on the Spanish suggesting the cession of the
Philippine Islands (for surely we must not assume that uie cession has to be traced
back to the initiative of the United States), the United States would at once have
considered it an act of pure justice to ascertain with regard to this matter the
wishes of the Philippine nation, its ally. For, having lent to the latter to a cer-
tain extent its help in the battle for liberty and index>endence, it could easily be
conceived that the Philippines would not sufier a new reign, least of all of a
nation on whose conscience the curse of the Redskins rests as a heavy load.

Secondly. The military government which is proposed for the islands is sup-
posed to ''establish security for persons and private property on the islands,"
etc., ete., but, to be sure, also from this point of view we could easily dispense
with said government, for both natives and foreigners, if at all sincere, can not
but acknowledge that here as well as everj where where the Philippine govern-
ment has been established the public order has been fully and thoroughly estab-
lished.

Thirdly. As regards the fact that General Miller is in a position, as he says, to
occupy at any time and any moment with his forces the fortress and city of
Iloilo, we do not doubt that the intention is entertained all right; but we can not
help wondering considerably that so far he has not carried out such an intention.

Headquarters at Jaro, January 3, 1899.

MACARIO ADEIATICO.

Issue of the 8th of January, 1900.

Once in a while we read or hear in the course of this discussion
some counsel as to our dealing with this people, based on the
character of what is called the "Asiatic mind." I suppose that
notion comes directly or indirectly from Englishmen. Li the
beginning the rule of England in Asia was a rule of pure force.
The highest type of civilization, and, as we like to think, of
human intellect, met a lower type. It had the superiority in
every element of strength, except justice. The weaker races
met the stronger race as weakness always meets strength— with
dissimulation and deceit. England, of late, has tried a better
method, and is meeting with better success.

But do you not think, Mr. President, that this talk about the
Asiatic mind involves some audacity of generalization? Why,
there are in Asia, I suppose, nearly or quite 800,000,000 people —
more than half the population of the globe. You might as well
talk about the human mind, drawing your conclusions alone
from the Fiji islanders, or about the American mind, drawing
your conclusions from the Patagonians. There is as much differ-
ence between the fatalists who submit to the rule of the Sultan
in Turkey and the gentle and philosophic Buddhist, and the busy,
ambitious, enterprising Japanese, who have taken their place
among the foremost of civilized nations in half a century, or
these Filipinos with whom we are dealing, their hearts full of
the passion for republican liberty, as between the haughty and

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effeminate Spaniard and the brave, stnrdy, constant, and wise
Swede or Norwegian. Yon might as well invite ns to subdue
Denmark and draw an inference of her unfitness for self-govern-
ment from the Spaniards as to impute to this race, whose liberty
you ask us to crush out, what you call the "Asiatic mind."

The state papers of Aguinaldo, the discussion of the law of
nations by his attorney-general, the masterly appeal of Mabini,
are products of the Asiatic mind. They are not unworthy of the
Asiatic mind, the vehicle through which came to us the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament, the poetry of David, the eloquence
of Isaiah, the wisdom of Solomon, the profound philosopl^^^ of
Paul. A pure and unmixed Asiatic race, during the century just
closing, has given to Europe its masters in finance, in art, in the
drama, in music, and to England a statesman who by the force of
his own unaided genius brought a proud aristocracy to his feet.
It is not quite time to dismiss contemptuously eight hundred
million of the human race to the class of inferior races, and almost
to the class of inferior animals.

HOW HOSTIUTIB8 CAME TO PASS.

An attempt has been mad6 to shift the responsibility for this
war to the men who resisted it. It has not been very successful.
No man whose intellectual ears are not long enough to 'reach
from here to the Philippine Islands is likely to believe that these
men were instigated to fight — ^not by the men who undertook to
buy them like sheep and pay for them in gold; who were looking
with greedy eyes on their lands, and their coal, and their mines
of precious metals, and their hemp-bearing fields; who were
hurrying soldiers and men-of-war to their islands after they had
made peace with their old tyrant, but by the men who resisted
all these things, who counseled peace, who desired that we should
let them alone, unless they asked our help.

When I spoke in the Senate on the 9th of January, 1899, which
was the beginning of the public debate, except a constitutional
argument made by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Platt] ,
there had been a declaration of war on both sides. General
Miller lay with his soldiers in the bay of Hollo. He had been for
weeks urging General Otis to give him the order to attack, plead-
ing that the insurgents were strengthening their forces m the
city and increasing his difficulty every day. The President's
proclamation claimmg sovereignty and ordering Otis to enforce
It had been made public. Aguinaldo had met it by a counter
. pivXlamation declaring that if there were any attack made on
the Visayas, he and his people would fight. That proclamation
of Aguinaldo's had been pasted ovet all the walls of Manila, a
city luU of his adherents. Allowing for the difference of time,
that was more than twenty-four hours before I spoke and nearly
forty-eight hours before my speech was made public.

Now what was it that brought this thing to pass? What was
it that substituted for the gratitude of that people when they
pressed about our consuls and our soldiers early in the year 1898,
welcoming them as deliverers, welcoming them almost as angels
from heaven— a feeling first of doubt, then of suspicion, then of
sullen dislike, then of fierce hatred, and finally culminating in
war to the death? If you would answer this question, ask your-
self what the American people would have done in a like case.
Ask yourself what you would have done in a like case. Think of

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69

the lessons you have received from your fathers, and the lessons
I doubt not you have handed down to your sons. This people had
gone joyously about the work of building up their republic. They
had established local governments aU over the islands. They
were eager to learn the English language — ^the native language of
freedom. They were studying the lives of our own great patriots
and liberators. They had driven the Spaniards from their soil,
save for a single city, and, whether right or wrone, they were con-
fident of their capacity to capture that. They had been furnished
with arms. Aguinaldo ana his companions had been brought
over, and the work for which they had been brought over and
armed had been done. Now they find, first, a constant and con-
temptuous treatment in private of their soldiers by ours, which
the American, I am sorry to say, almost alone among civilized
nations, extends to the people of other races. But they found also
that the promises we were making them were vague and ambigu-
ous. The old frank talk of the consuls, though never disavowed
by our Administration, was never repeated except in three or four
special cases where we were trying to get some advantage from
them. We had used them. We had profited by them. We had
squeezed the orange, and it now seemed we were not unlikely to
be ready to throw away the peel. They found that the American
[>ress and American puolic speakers were beginning to talk less and
less of liberty and more ana more of trade. The words justice,
freedom, righteousness seemed to be disappearing from our
vocabulary. Then after the capture of Manila , when General Otis
had declared that not more than 5,000 soldiers would be necessary
to keep the peace in that entire archipelago of 1,200 islands, they •
saw we were hurrying over reenf orcements and increasing our
naval and military strength. Then came the tone of demand and
of authority. President McKinley had said again and again and
again in public speech that we had no rip;htful title to a foot of the
territory in those islands outside of the limits of Manila. And yet
our generals were demanding with unconcealed threats the con-
traction of their lines and the expansion of ours. Then came the
President's proclamation; the substitution for it by General Otis
of one reafiirming the promises of independence, and the unfor-
tunate accident by wnich both these proclamations c£^e out
together.

Now, I should think that might look to the Asiatic mind as
disingenuous and portraying a purpose to deception. Of course
we know it was pure accident. We know the honorable charac-
ter of the President and the honorable character of General
Otis. But suppose there h&d come out after Yorktown a procla-

mation by the King of France claiming that he had bought sov-
ereignty over the wnole of our thirteen colonies, and directing his
generals to enforce it, and then on the same day a proclamation
from the French commander assuring us that we were to be free
and independent as the most-favored province on earth. Would
not there have been indignation? Would not there have been,
even in the staid Puritan mind, a flame of fire? Would not there
have been war? The only difference between that case and this
is that I do not think there would have been a Frenchman found
reckless enough to have attributed the event to a speech in the
French Assembly counseling peace and protesting against that
dishonor.
How idle to attribute this condition of things, going on for seven

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months, to the effect of pamphlets and speeches made ten thousand
miles away, most of them made long after this condition of things
became established! There is one simple key to the history of
those seven months. Apply that solution and everything is ac-
counted for; everything f ^s into its natural order. Suppose the
Filipinos to be governed by the same motives which would have
governed you or any liberty-loving American in their condition.
Suppose a people thirsting for liberty, desiring self-government
and independence, menaced by a superior power, ready to defend
their principles to the death if need be, and yet in the light of the
history of their mighty antagonists, incredulous that such a thing
can be possible. Every fact that reaches us from any trustworthy
source is in this wajr explained, and can be explained in no other
way. It was the spirit of liberty stirring the people of the Philip-
pine Islands as of old it stirred the Englishman; as of old it stirred
the Swiss; as of old it stirred the Swede; as of old it stirred the
Greek; and as in the earlier and better days of Spain it stirred the
Spaniards themselves. And when word came to the Filipino from
our country, dedicated to and founded upon liberty, of a treaty to
destroy his independence, and with an offer, most insulting to all
manly hearts, to give him good government from without, this
Asiatic vindicated his right to stand by the side of liberty-loving
nations of all mankind. If he could not be there, at least he could
die.

Now, there is a marvelous resemblance between the condition of
the people of the Philippine Islands during the last year and that
of Spain when she was overrun by Napoleon. The Filipinos who
side with Aguinaldo, are thoroughly as fit for self-government as
were the people of Spain. If Admiral Dewey be right in com-
paring them with the people of Cuba, they were far fitter. Na-
poleon undertook to give them what he called a good government.
The story of the Spaniards' brave resistance has been told better
than any living lips can tell it by the greatest of English poets
since Milton, William Wordsworth. This is his description of
the feeling of the Spaniards, and this is his description of the re-
sistance of the Spaniards:

THE FRENCH AND THE SPANISH GUERILLAS.

Hunger, and sultry heat, and nipping blast
From bleak hilltop, and length of march by night
Through heavy swamp, or over snow-clad height —
These hardHhips ill-snstained, these dangers past,
The roving Spanish bands are reached at last.
Charged, and dispersed like loam; but as a flight
Of scattered quafls by signs do reunite.
So these — and, heard of once again, are chased
TVith combination of long-practiced art
And newly kindled hop©; but they are fled.
Gone are they, viewless as the buried dead :
Where now ? Their sword is at the foeiuau's heart !
And thus from vear to year his walk they thwart,
And hang like areams around his guilty bed.

Aguinaldo, as I have said, met our proclamation of December
24 with his proclamation affirming his purpose to resist. He
also reissued the decree of June 18, 1898, which I will print with
my remarks:

DECREE OF THE CENTRAL OOVERNMENT OF LUZON REGABDINa THE ORGANIZATION OF
LOCAL BOABDB, TO BE PUT IN FORCE THROUGHOUT THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

To ike Philippine Nation:

Providence has placed me in a position for the sustaining of which I cannot but
feel my natural deficiency, but since I can not oppose myself to the commands of
Providence nor shirk the duties imposed npon me by honor and patriotism, it is
from this position that I salute thee, O my oeloved country.
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I ha^e proclaimed to the whole world tkat the aspiration of my whole life, the
final object of all my strength and efforts, is none other than thy independence,
fur I have the firm conviction that this represents thy constant desire, as inde-
pendence signifies for us the redemption from slavery and tyranny, the recovery
of our lost lH>erty, and the entering into the ranks of the civilized nations.

I understand, also, fnll well that the first duty of every government is the faith-
ful interpretation of the wishes of the fieople. '^ Therefore, although the abnormal
conditions produced by the war hare forced me to institute this dictatorial gov-
ernment, which comprises the fnll civil and military power, my constant wish
has been to surround myself with the most ]iromlnent'persons from each provin('«,
who by their bearing have gained the contidence of the same, in order that, learn-
ing from them the real needs of each province, I may adopt the most efiicacioas
means for remedying and supplying them to the extent desired by all.

I appreciate, besides that, the pressing necessity of establishing in each town
a solid and lasting organization as a stronghold for public security and as the
only means for insuring the union and discipline indisx)en8able for establishing
the republic; that is, the government of the people by the people, and to avoid
iutemational conflicts that might occur.

In virtue of the considerations expounded, I decree the following:

Article 1. The inhabitants of each township still held by the Spanish will agree
as to the best means to combat and annihilate the same according to the resources
at their disposal, giving to the prisoners of war the treatment most conformable
to the sentiments of humanity and the customs observed by cultured nations.

AiiTiCLE 2. As soon as a township is liberated from Spanish dominion, the in-
habitants prominent by their education, social standing, and honorable character,
b«>th in the township itself and the district, will convene in a eeneral assembly,
which will proceed to elect by a majority of rotes the mayor of the town and a
head of each district, the center of the city proper also to be considered as a
diMtrict.

All inhabitants complying with the conditions mentioned above, and provided
they are friends of the Philippine independence and hare attained their twenty-
first year, can take part in this nssemblv and can be elected.

Article 3. In the same asBembly also three delegates will be elected by a
majority of votes, one for luc ])olice, the other as justice and civil registrar, the
third as tax coUector and assessor.

The chief of police will assist the mayor in the organization of the armed force
which each township is to maintain to the extent of its resources, and for the
piewervation of order, good morals, and the hygiene of the place.

The justice and civil registrar will assist the mayor in the administration of
justice, and by keeping the registers of births, deaths, marriage contracts, and
the census.

The tax collector and assessor will assist the mayor in the collection of the
taxes, admiuiiitration of the public funds, the cattle and cadastral registers, and
in every other bninch of administration.

Article 4. The mayor, as chairmnu. with the heads of the districts and with
the delegates referred to, are to form the "boards" who are to enforce the fulfill-
ment of the laws and ordinances, and who are to look out for the special interests
of each township.

The head of the center districts will act as rice-chairman of the board and the
justice as secretary.

The heads of the districts will act as representatives of the mayor in their
respective districts.

Article 5. The mayors of every township, after having obtained the advice of
their respective boards, are to assemble and elect by a majority of rotes the
chief of the province and three councilors for the three branches referred to
above.

The chief of the province as president, the mayor of the principal town of the
province as secretary, and the three councilors constitute the provincial coun-
cil, which will see that the dispositions of this government are carried out in their
province, and which will take charge of the general interest of the province, and
propose to this Government such measures as may be conducive to the welfare
of all.

Article 6. Said chiefs of the provinces will elect also by a m^ority of votes
three representatives for each of the provinces of Manila and Cavite, two for
each of the provinces classified as such in the Spanish legislation, and one each for
all the other provinces and political and military commanderies in the Philip-
pine Archipelago.

Said representatives will take charge of the general interests of the archi-
pelago, as well as of the special interest of their respective provinces, and will
constitute the revolutionary congress, which will propose to the present gov-
ernment all measures re^raroing the order in the interior and the exterior safety
of the islands, and will be consulted by the government in all important ques-
tions which admit of delay or waiting.

Article 7. The persons elected for any of the offices referred to can not enter
upon them unless properly confirmed by this government, which will issue the
confirmation upon presentation of the documents of election.
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The documents of election will serve as credentials for the respective persons

Abtiolb 8. The military chiefs nominated by this government in each prov-
ince are not to interfere with the management and administration of the same,
confining themselves to ask for such assistance in troops or. material as they
may need from the chiefs of the provinces and the mayors of the towns, who, in
case of actual necessity, are not to refuse such assistance.

If, however, a province is in part pr as a whole threatened or occupied by the
enemy, the military chief highest in rank is entitled to assume all the functions
of a chief of the province until the danger has disappeared.

Article 9. The government will name for every province a commissioner for
the special purpose of carrying out the provisions of this decree referring to the
organization, and that in compliance with the instructions which the govern-
ment will communicate to him. The military cliiefs who liberate a township
from Spanish rule are commissioners ex officio.

Said coiumissioners will preside over the first assembly in each town in the
respective provinces.

Abticle 10. As soon as the organization which forms the object of the present
decree is effected, fdl nominations for civil offices previously made are canceled,
whatever may be their origin, and all dispositions which are in opposition to the
present' decree are abolished.

Issued at Cavite the 18th of June, 1898.

BMILIO AGXnNALDO.

Another charge has been made. It wonld not be entitled to
seriotis consideration but for the fact that it has been widely cir-
cnlated. It is that by the delay in the Senate in ratifying the
treaty of peace the rebellion in the Philippine Islands found some
comfort and support. I have seen it stated a hundred times that
if the Senate had promptly ratified the treaty there would have
been no war. The Senate had ratified the treaty when Aguinaldo
informed our generals in command that he regretted the outbreak
of the 5th of February, and proposed to withdraw his troops to a
greater distance; that he wanted no hostilities, and trusted there
would be no more of them, and was met with the reply that as
the fight had begun it must go on.

But this treaty, considering its importance, was before the
Senate for a marvelously short time. It was before the Senate
for a shorter time than a large majority of all the treaties in our
history, important or unimportant. It was signed at Paris on
the 10th of December, 1898. It wasi sent to the Senate and re-
ferred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on the 4th of Jan-
uary, 1899. On the 11th of January, seven days afterwards, it
was reported back from the Committee on Foreign Relations
without amendment. On the 25th of January there was a unani-
mous agreement for a vote on the 6th of February, and on that
day the treaty was ratified — with a single vote to spare. From
all these proceedings the injunction of secrecy was removed.

Now, Mr. President, the Committee on Foreign Relations had
11 members, 8 of whom were on the commission that made the
treaty; and it took that committee seven days to make its rejwjrt,
with 3 of its members thoroughly familiar with the whole sub-
ject, on which I presume it does not require much boldness to
say nearly every other member had made up his mind. It was
before the Senate but twenty-six days— before a Senate crowded
with all the other business of a short session. If a body of 11
men specially learned and familiar with that subject required
seven days for sufficient discussion and debate, was twenty-six
days an unreasonable time for a body of 90 Senators without
si)ecial familiarity with the great subject?

I think I know something of the state of mind of Senators on
both sides of that question; certainly I know the state of mind of
many Senators among those who were opposed to the treaty; and
I affirm that if there were any delay, any desire or purpose of

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delay anywhere, which added one hour to the interval between
tlie report of the treaty and the final vote, that purpose or desire
T^as not in the minds of the opi)osition. No, Mr. President, it is
as certain as anything can be certain that if there had been a
single assurance on the part of our Executive of a purpose to
recognize the Filipinos in the independence they had won, or, at
any rate, had largely helped to win (while we captured 10,000
prisoners, they captured 9,000; while we captured a single city,
they captured the rest of the territory) ; if, 1 say, there had been
a single assurance that we intended to respect tnie independence
to 'Which they aspired, there would have been no war.

If we had dealt with them in the treaty of peace as we dealt
with Cuba there would have been no war.

If we had not hurried reinforcements to Manila, both of ships
and of men, strengthening the forces of our army and navy
there, after Spain had yielded, there would have been no war.

If the urgent request of Aguinaldo, after the outbreak of the
5th of February, that hostilities might cease, had not been met
by the declaration of Otis that ** fighting must go on," there
would have been no war.

If Aguinaldo's offer to withdraw his troops and make a wider
belt between the two armies had been met in a like spirit, there
would have been no war.

If Senators had not been talking about holding on to all they
could get, about making money out of their great act of libera-
tion, about keeping from the people of these islands their liberty
and their independence, for purposes of gain and trade, there
would have been no war.

And now the attempt to charge this thing upon those of us who
tave but proclaimed the doctrine of the Declaration of Independ-
ence, and have but repeated again the Cuban resolutions; who
have but quoted the language of the President of the United
States— the responsibility for these hostilities is a proceeding not
matched in impudence since the day of the upstream wolf and
the downstream lamb.

The trouble with our imperialistic friends is that they can not
understand that conscience, patriotism, or love of liberty can
exist in other men. If they would but put themselves in the
place of the Filipinos; if they would but apply the golden rule
to the relations between this country and this people — ^this peo'
pie of the Eastern Hemisphere, from which the golden rule came
m the beginning. If the Filipinos knew enough of what was
going on in the tJnited States to be moved, to risk life and every-
thing that makes life dear in the hope that their liberty might
be granted, from reading the speeches of political leaders, articles
in the newspapers, or debates m the Senate, is it not quite likely
that they may have heard also of the Declaration of Independ-
ence, of our Constitution, of the writings of Jefferson, of the
speeches of Lincoln, and of recent Presidenti^ utterances? Is
it not likely that they would attribute as much weight to them
as to the speeches of Mr. Schurz, the letters of Mr. Edmunds, or
the pamphlets of Mr. Atkinson? Had they not a right to believe
them? Had they not a right to think that the people of the
United States thought that there should be no government im-
posed upon them but with their consent? That the people of the
LFnited States thought that annexing them by force would be
criminal aggression; that the doctrine that government rested
upon the consent of the governed is a universal obligation; that

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it is applicable to every people the round wjrld over; that it
applies not only to some men but to all men?

They tell us this question is settled. Is it settled? If it be
settled, who settled it? Not the American people. The American
people have never voted to change their government from a
republic, by which every man has his equal share, into an empire

foveming ten or twelve million people, benevolently it may be, *
ut in an absolutely unchecked despotism, without a single
constitutional restraint. The American people have never voted
that the Declaration of Independence is only a revolutionary
pronunciamento which the men who made it have been constantly
violating. They have never admitted yet that the Supreme
Court or the United States was all wrong when, within ten years,
they said that the Declaration of Independence was the spirit of
our Government, of which the Constitution was only the form
and letter. They have never declared as yet that Gteorge Wash-
ington and Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams and
Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sumner and
John Marshall were false prophets. Congress has not settled it.
You have not, so far, had a vote that we would undertake to rule
unwilling and vassal States. We were expressly told when the
treaty was up— the Senator from Greorg^a [Mr. Clay] has shown
that seven of the nine men who spoke for the treaty exi)ressly
admitted it— that it was to settle nothing, but only to put an end
to the war with Spain, and that afterwards we would determine
whether we would keep in subjection the people of the Philippine
Islands. Why, our excellent and honored President himself de-
clared again and again and again, all over the country, that the
question was for Congress and not for him, and that it was his duty
only to restore order and to keep order until Congress should act.
When we asked you last year to give the same assurances in the
matter of the Philippine Islands that you had given already in the
matter of Cuba, and said that if Cuba was of right and ought to be
free and independent, certainly this people, with their constitu-
tion, their achieved independence, their public order, their schools,
their universities, their village governments, were and of right
ought to be free and independent , we were answered : ' * We won't
give assurances to men with arms in their hands. " I did not think
the answer a good one then. I thought some assurance needed
to be given to the American people as wel} as to the Filipinos and
that, hard as was the lot of that struggling people, the injury of
which the American people was in danger was worse than any
meditated to them. Meantime we hurried over our reinforce-
ments and fought our battles 3tnd conquered our enemy; and now
you turn upon us and say that you did not mean what you said
then and that the whole thing was settled a year ago.

A little more than fourteen months ago there were presented to
the Senate two propositions in sharp contrast with each other.
One was a proposition to deal with the Philippine Islands as we
dealt with Cuba; to assure them of their liberty; to protect them
against foreign ambition and to lend our aid m restoring order;
to sx)eed them with our blessing on the pathway of freedom and
independence, equal among independent nations, making such
treaties with them for future commerce and intercourse as our
advantage and theirs would require and as their good will and
gratitude might be willing to grant.
The other was to buy them nke slaves; to pay for them in gold:

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to set tip against them the dishonored and discredited title of
Spain, and to conquer them to a sullen submission and to a future
of perpetual hatred and fear.

The Senate took its choice. We have had twelve months' ex-
perience. We can tell already something of the cost of this thing.
It has cost us more than one hundred and fifty millions in money.
An increase over 1898 of the cost of Army of more than one hun-
dred and twenty-two millions; of the Navy, of six millions; of
the pension list, four millions.

But all this is the merest trifle. It has cost us the lives of 6,000
men who are dead. It has wrecked the lives of other thousantis,
victims of disease and of wounds. It compels us to maintain in
the future a large and costly military and naval force.

You are to keep certainly, hereafter, 50,000 private soldiers,
in the flower of their youth, in that tropical clime. What is
to be their fate?

Mr. President, worse than the most lavish expenditure, worse
than the heaviest burden of national debt, worse than the loss of
precious lives, worse than the reduction of wages, worse than the
overthrow of our settled fiscal policies, is the price, the terrible

Erice, we are to pay, if there be any lesson to be learned from
uman experience, in the souls of the young men we are to send
as soldiers to the Tropics. Have you read the horrible, the
unquotable story which comes from the English official reports
of the life of the common soldiers of the English army in India?
I wonder if our enthusiastic gentlemen, who prate so glibly of
dominion and empire — I wonder if our well-meaning clergymen,
who fancy themselves preaching the gospel of Christ to these
yellow congregations, have read anything or care anything for
the lessons of experience?

Hardly a deparment of the Government does not add some
items of cost incident to a control or a knowledge of the late
' Spanish possessions.

The government of these islands will be a military government,
to be assisted and gradually superseded by civil officers. No
sums adequate to the purpose have been asked for, nor has any
money been asked to construct and equip coast and harbor
defenses necessary to military occupation or for the improve-
ment of harbors and waterways, cleansing cities and towns,
construction and maintenance of military and other railroads,
relief of the needy, and the many items of expense incident to the
occupation of distant and unprotected possessions, peopled by
poor and untaught natives, oppressed into insurrection, and at
present undisciplined to control of any kind. To keep the army
of occupation of sufficient strength will involve a fearful drain
upon the population of the United States, equal to more than
double the loss of an army in a great battle. The cost of admin-
istering justice will not be small; the actual and constant rebel-
lion of the natives against our rule is a strong probability, and
the sullen opposition of a home-rule element must be faced and
met. The islands do not promise to be self-supporting to the ex-
tent of providing for such contingencies as rebellion, and so the
annual cost to the people of the United States must be increased,
even as an insurance aga inst an uprising.

Assuming that the War Department has asked for a sum suffi-
cient to assure the occupation of the islands and a proper estab-
li^ment for police purposes, it will be seen there are other large

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76

and nncertain items of cost unprovided for, and the annual
appropriations will in future be nearer $200,000,000 in excess of
those of 1898 than $155,712,751.

An annual increased expenditure of $200,000,000 means a con-
tinuance of existing "war taxes" and the imposition of new
taxes, or borrowing by the Government to meet current expenses.

The total revenue from the great and reg^ar sources of mcome
for the fiscal year 1898 was —

Prom internal reyenne $170,900,641

From customs 149,575,062

From miscellaneons sonrces 20,000,000

Total 340,»I5,703

The amounts derived from the sales of the Pacific roads, a
windfall not to be repeated, brought the total income to $405,-
821 ,835. Compared with the appropriations for 1898, there would
have been a deficit of $27,748,405, or, excluding the sums received
from the Pacific roads, one or $92,499,629. Tms on a peace basis.

An average deficit of $100,000,000 will be below rather than
above the actual to be expected. This means the taking each
year from productive industry of a sum representing the interest
(at 8 per cent) on a capital of $8,888,000,000, and, as a standing
charge, is equivalent to adding that sum to the capital of the na*
tional debt, with this difference — ^the bonds of the national debt
are redeemable after a certain number of years, but this new
charge rejjresentsa perpetual debt.

The capital of the debt of the United States at the end of 1898
was $1 ,047,820 ,000. The new expenditure will be equivalent to in-
creasing it to $4,880,000,000. The debt of France is $6,218,871 ,841 ;
Great Britain, $8,208,868,895. This gives us the second larg:est
public debt in the world. In 1898 the per capita rate of taxation
for national purposes was $4.84 a year.

But let us look at the cost other than in money. We are to
give up many of the ideals (I had almost said every ideal) of the
Republic. We must give up our great, priceless possessions;
more precious than jewels or ^old, more precious than land or
power. The counsels of Washmgton are for us no longer; the
truths of the Declaration of Independence are no longer our
maxims of government; the Monroe doctrine, to which one hem-
isphere owes its freedom, is gone. The counsels of Lincoln, to
give effect to which he repeatedly declared he would welcome
assassination itself, are not to be listened to hereafter, or, if lis-
tened to, it will be by other ears than ours.

Another thing we have lost by last winter's terrible blunder.
We lost the right to speak with authority in favor of peace at The
Hague. The world took, I hope and believe, a forward step in
that great conference. But think what might have been I We
have lost the right to offer our sympathy to the Boer in his won-
derful and gallant struggle against terrible odds for the republic
in Africa.

** O Freedom dear, if ever man was free,
In all the ages, earned thy favorins smile,
This patient man has earned it. In his cause
Pleads all the world to-day "—

all the world, except the nation that is engaged in crushing out
a republic in the Philippines.

We have lost our power to speak with authority in behalf of
the disarmament of nations. We must prepare ourselves for a
great standing army. We already hear the demand for a large

4348

77

BtaxLdin^ army, and a navy eqnal to that of England. The Amer-
ic£kxx cliild hereafter mnst be bom with a mortgage round his
neols:. The American laborer hereafter mnst stagger through life
vri-tli a soldier on his back.

-A^lready we hear the doctrine preached in high places that
tlie Constitution was intended for a small people and not for a
large one.

Mr. President, a republic without a constitution is like a man

vrittioxit a conscience. In it is the ^eat principle of the equality

of men and manhood; from it, citizenship gets its value and

lalK>r its dignity. You have lost now the character of the great

liberator, and are to take for the future the character of the great

ezislaTer. Now, what have you to show for all this? You have

iiiiI)orted two or three cargoes of hemp from Manila and you have

"benevolently assimilated the Sultan of Sulu. If you refuse to

admit their products as from a part of the United States, you

bave got hereafter to govern them not for their interest, but for

your own. Where you used to talk of liberty you are henceforth

to talk only of tobacco. Your diplomacy with other nations must

be not for their interest, buffer yours. Will you let them make

their own trade arrangements with England or with China?

Your currency laws must be made hereafter, not for their inter-
est, but for yours, as England regulates the currency of India.

Mr. President, I can not conceal my sense of the ridiculousness,
the pettiness, the vulgarity, of talking about trade and money
getting, and exports and imports, and what we are to gain,
m what should be the sublime hour of a people's liberation.
Think of the conqueror, the liberator, the hero, saying to the
world, " I shall sutler be unto the camp, and profits will ensue."
It is said that it is not a sordid argument, or a sordid nation,
that considers the advantage of trade and commercial inter-
course, and that is true if ttie argument be used in its proper
place. The consideration becomes a sordid, a base, and ignoble
argument when we use it to determine the question whether we
shaU do justice.

When you are tempted to take what belongs to another, to
crush out the liberties of a people, then the suggestion that you
are to make money by the transaction becomes as sordid and
base a suggestion as ever was wluspered into a covetous and
greedy ear.

When you are asked to abandon your cherished principles,
your lofty ideals, your benignant influence on mankind, to turn
your polar star, your morning star, into a comet, the suggestion
of money getting seems to me infinitely pitiful.

Mr. President, another thing you have got to think of. You
have got to meet squarely, and to look squarely in the face, the
great question of church and state. We must decide, and decide
pretty soon, whether the larger part of the resJ estate in those
islands is to be held by the religious orders, or whether we must
follow the example of our English ancestors, with statutes of
mortmain and trust, or whether we shall exert a power not given
to Congress by the Constitution, of confiscation and despoliation.
I liave been somewhat impressed by the desire of some of our
imperialistic friends to avoid any responsibility for themselves
in this matter and to place it all on God. I suppose these gentle-
men think that every successful act of tyranny is to be charged
to the Deity; certainly it is a very convenient method of getting
rid of resposibility.
4818

78

Is God guilty, in the opinion of these gentlemen, of the parti-
tion of Poland? Did God keep the fair isles of Greece under the
feet of Turkey? Did God plunder our missionaries and torture
Christians in Armenia? Did God enact the fugitive slave law?
It must needs be that offenses come, but woe unto that man and
woe unto that natidn from whom the offense cometh.

"An impious, evil man," said the Greek orator Isocrates,
** might get off if he chanced to die before he paid the penalty
for his crimes; but the immortality of a State leaves it no escape
from the vengeance of men or of the gods."

The President says: " I will bear your banner to a triumphant

Eeace? " What a triumphant peace would have been ours if we
ad dealt with the Philippines as we dealt with Cuba.

I said last year that our commissioners came back from Paris
bringing with them the cast-off clothing of the pinchbeck Napo-
leon, and asked us, who have seen his fate, to mscard for it the
spotless robes in which our fathers arrayed the beautiful genius
of America.

Mr. President, it is worse than that. If we take these islands
to govern as despots govern their subjects, Spain will have re-
venged herself upon us. Spain will be the victor, and we the
vanquished. She will have revenged herself upon us as the dying
monster Nessus revenged himself upon Hercules when he per-
suaded the beautiful Dejanira to ffive to the conqueror the gar-
ment steeped in his own poisoned blood. The garment stuck to
his flesh, the poison entered his pores, and the hero, who had
borne the world on his shoulders, and to whom nothing was
impossible, cried for death in his agony —

*'es:o sum indefessns agendo,
Sed nova pestis adest, cui nee virtute resist!
Nee telis, armiave potest."

Wherever the Eepuplic has gone thus far, wherever her name
is known, it is an example of the equality of manhood and the
freedom^of man. This has made her the great benefactor in the
Western Hemisphere. But if you have your way, she is to appear
in the East to set an example of caste. Do you think with her
great problem unsolved, with ten millions of her own people,
now thirty-six years after the emancipation proclamation, still
waiting for the promise of their perfect freedom to be fulfilled,
you are asked to subject ten millions more, of an alien race, to a
govermnent in which they have no share, and an authority in
which they have no voice. The people which were seventy mil-
lions are to be eighty millions — eighty millions, and every fourth
man a serf — eighty millions, every fourth man practically an
inferior — ^at the end of the nineteenth century, twenty millions
(near seven times the number with which the nation began) prac-
tically without the rights of citizenship.

I think the American people will conclude in the end that we
shall get no trade advantage either in the Philippine Islands or
in China by the forcible subjugation of this people. On the con-
trary, we injure our trade prospects when we alienate the affec-
tion of those people by an unjust attack upon their independence.
But there is no space to argue this point now.

Dr. Franklin said:

To me it seems tliat neither the obtaining or retaining any trade, how vain-
able soever, is an object for which men may justly spill each other's blood. That
the trne and sure means of extending ana securing commerce are the goodness
and cheapness of commodities, and thnt the profits of no trade can ever be equal
to the expense of compelling it and holding it by fleets and armies.
434S

70

The Doctor, I suppose, was a traitor and a little American.

But we are told if we oppose the policy of our imperialistic
and expanding friends we are bound to suggest some policy of
our own as a substitute for theirs. We are asted what we would
do in this difficult emergency. It is a question not difficult to
answer. I for one am ready to answer it.

1. I would declare now that we will not take these islands to
govern them against their will.

2. I would reject a cession of sovereignty which implies that
sovereignty may be bought and sold and delivered without the
consent of the people. Spain had no rightful sovereignty over
the Philippine Islands She could not rightfully sell it to us. We
could not rightfully buy it from her.

3. I would require all foreign governments to keep out of these
islands.

4. I would offer to the people of the Philippines our help in
maintaining onder until they have a reasonable opportunity to
establish a government of their own.

o. I would aid them by advice, if they desire it, to set up a free
and independent government.

6. I would invite all the great powers of Europe to unite in an
agreement that that independence shall not be interfered with
by us, by themselves, or by any one of them with the consent of
the others. As to this I am not so sure. I should like quite as
well to tell them it is not to be done whether they consent or not.

7. I would declare that the United States will enforce the same
doctrine as applicable to the Philippines that we declared as to
Mexico and Haiti and the South American Republics. It is tnie
that the Monroe Doctrine, a doctrine based largely on our regard
for our own interests, is not applicable either in terms or in prin-
ciple to a distant Asiatic territory. But undoubtedly, having
driven out Spain, we are bound, and have the right, to secure to
the people we have liberated an opportunity, undisturbed and iu
peace, to establish a new government for themselves.

8. I would then, in a not distant future, leave them to work out
their own salvation, as every nation on earth, from the beginning
of time, has wrought out its own salvation. Let them work out
their own salvation, as our own ancestors slowly and in long cen-
turies wrought out theirs; as Germany, as Switzerland, as France,
in briefer periods, wrought out theirs; as Mexico and the South
American Itepublics have accomplished theirs, all of them within
a century, some of them within the life of a generation. To
attempt to confer the gift of freedom from without, or to impose
freedom from without on any people, is to disregard all the lessons
of history. It is to attempt

"A gift of tliat wliicb is not to be jriven
By all the blended powers of earih and heaven."

9. I would strike out of your legislation the oath of allegiance
to us and substitute an oath of allegiance to their own country.

Mr. President, if you once get involved and entangled in this
policy of dominion and empire, you have not only to get the
assent of three powers — House, Senate, and President — to escape
from it, but to the particular plan and scheme and method of
such escape.

My friends say they are willing to trust the people and the
future. And so am I. I am willing to trust the people as our
fathers trusted them. I am willing to trust the people as they

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80

have, so far, trusted themselves; a people regulated, governed,
constrained by the moral law, by the Constitution and by the
Declaration. It is the constitutional, not the unconstitutional,
will of ttie American people in which I trust. It is Philin sober
and not Philip drunk to whom I am willing to commit we des-
tiny of myself and my children. A people without a constitution
is, as I just said, like a man without a conscience. It is the least
trustwortiiy and the most dangerous force on the face of the
earth. The utterances of these gentlemen, who, when they are
reminded of moral and constitutional restraints, answer us that
we are timid, and that they trust the people, are talking in the
spirit of the French, not of the American revolution; tiiey are
talking in the spirit which destroys republics, and not in the
spirit that builds them; they are talking m the spirit of the later
days of Rome, of the later days of Athens, and not in the spirit
of the early days of any republic that ever existed on this side of
the ocean or on the other.

I love and trust the American x)eople. I yield to no man in my
confidence in the future of the Republic. To me the dearest
blessiuj^s of life, dearer than property, dearer than home, dearer
than kindred, are my pride in my country and my hopQ for the
future of America. But the people that I trust is the people that
established the Constitution ana which abides by its restraints.
The people tiiat I trust is the x)eople that made the great Declara-
tion, ana tiieir children, who mean forever to abide by its princi-
ples. The country in whose future I have supreme and unbounded
confidence is the Republic, not a despotism on the one hand, or
an unchecked and unlicensed democracy on the other. It is no
mere democracy. It is the indissoluble union of indestructible
States, I disavow and spurn the doctrine that has been more
than once uttered by the advocates of this i)olicy of imperialism
on the floor of the Senate, that the sovereignty of the American
people is inferior to any omer because it is restrained and confined
within constitutional boundaries. If that be true, the limited
monarchy of England is inferior to the despotism of Russia; if
that be true, a constitutional republic is inferior to an unconsti-
tutional usurpation; if that be true, a man restrained by the
moral law, and obeying the dictates of a conscience, is inferior
to the reckless, hardened, unrestrained criminal.

Two years ago we would have been bi^ enough, and strong
enough, and brave enough to utter our opinion about the Boer
war. Are we enough of a world power to dare to do it to-day?
This Philippine Island possession of ours is nothing but a strait-
jacket.

When President Cleveland sent in his message about Venezuela,
where England made a claim which has been almost wholly sux)-
ported after arbitration, our friends of the Committee on Foreign
Relations almost tumbled over one another in their zeal to get
into the Senate Chamber to express their symi)athy for Venezuela.
They couldn't let a resolution go over from one morning hour to
another. Where are they now? They are bound over to keep
the peace; and they are bound over to hold their peace— the open
door and the shut mouth.

The -vratchraan's clarion voice is still;
The warder silent on the hill.

Ah, Mr. President, if this is being a world power, for my part
I would rather be a world weakness. It is asked what other

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nations will think of ns if we withdraw from a place where we
have no ri^ht to be. Does not that question savor somewhat of
little Americanism? I never have observed that the great nations
of the world were much in the habit of putting that question.
Does England ever stop to think or to ask what other nations
think of her? Did Rome ever do it? Did Greece ever do it?
Great nations do not brag; they are not vain; they are not think-
ing of the impression they make on the small ones. When we
^et to be the greatest nation on earth we shall stop talking about
it and bragging about it.

We hear a great deal nowadays of " Little America,** of ** Little
Americans." Little America! Why, Mr. President, as my late
colleague said, if we can not say of the United States, as Webster
or his predecessor said of England, that her *' morning drumbeat
followmg the sun, keeping company with the hours, circles the
earth in an unbroken strain of tne martial airs of England," we
can at least say that before the sun sets upon Alaska he has risen
upon Maine.

"Little Americans!" Little George Washington! Little
Thomas Jefferson! Little Benjamin Franklin! Little Abraham
Lincoln! Little Daniel Webster!

Well, I know our friends have the names of great Americans
they are willing to contrast with these. I will not presume to
enter into particulars. They are all around us. The bushes are
full of them.

I do not think we are much of a world power when a brave and
manly Senator can say, as one said in my hearing not long ago,
that he sympathized with the Boers, but would not say so pub-
licly because of our obligation to Great Britain, who had kept
the Continent from meddling with us in the late war. If two
years ago such a motive for silence had been imputed to that
Senator, how the indignant answer would have flashed out, " Is
thy servant a dog ? "

Mr. President, there lies at the bottom of what is called im-
perialism a doctrine which, if adopted, is to revolutionize the
world in favor of despotism. It directly conflicts with and con-
tradicts the doctrine on which our own revolution was founded,
and with which, so far, our example has revolutionized the world.
It is the doctrine that when, in the judgment of any one nation or
any combination of nations, the institutions which a people set
up and maintaii\ for themselves are disapproved they have a right
to overthrow that government and to enter upon and possess it
themselves. That is the doctrine upon which intelligent En^sh-
men put the right of England to make war upon the Boers. They
say:

You tax, yon impoae unreasonable restrictions upon dtizensbip and upon
naturalization. You tax a certain class unjustly, and therefore England pur-
poses to interfere. Yoa do not let Englishmen partake of your franchises on fair

Why, Mr. President, when an Englishman offers himself for
naturalization elsewhere he renounces his allegiance to the Queen,
and if he be an honest man he is to use any newly acquired fran-
chises in the interest of his adoi)ted country and without a
thought of the interest of Great Britain. It becomes, therefore,
none of England's business on what terms other countries choose
to admit him. If she have any interest in the matter it is to pre-
vent his being naturalized at all and to keep him from throwing
off his old allegiance. The doctrine so founded is, in substance,

4348-^

the doctrine of the Holv Alliance — ^a doctrine in which England
herself, under the lead of Canning, repudiated after the over-
throw of Napoleon.

Now, Mr. President, somebody must be the judge whether a
people make a proper use of their own territory or their own
property or no, and from the necessity of the case, under the rule
of this moralist, the strong nation that desires the territory and
property of the weak nation must of course judge of its own
rights and duties in the premises. I think that when England
and Russia and Gtermany and the United States get fairly em-
barked in the crusade for the application of that principle you
will find it complicated by another one, which I have heard of
already in relation to the Philippine Islands. If we do not take
possession some other strong power will think they are not mak-
mg good use of their own territory and property, and they will
t{£e possession. You will, I think, always nnd that David will
conclude that Naboth is not cultivating his vineyard to the best
advantage. You will always find that anybody who wants the
widow's ewe lamb will conclude that the widow's notions of rais-
ing it or of cooking it are not the best.

Our imperialistic friends seem to have forgotten the use of the
vocabulary of liberty. They talk about giving good government.
** We shall give them such a government as we thmk they are
^tted for." ** We shall give them a better government than they
had before." Why, Mr. President, that one phrase conveys to a
free man and a free people the most stinging of insults. In that
little phrase, as in a seed, is contained the germ of all despotism
and of all tyranny. Government is not a gift. Free govern-
ment is not to be given by all the blended powers of eaxth and
heaven. It is a birthright. It belongs, as our fathers said and
as their children said, as Jefferson said and as President McEinley
said, to human nature itself. There can be no good government
but self-government.

Spain, when she was overrun by Napoleon, was at a far lower
point than the people of the Philippine Islands have ever reached.
They are much more fit for self-government to-day than she ever
was. And yet the great EngliSi poet— greatest since Milton —
speaks of the ofter or Napoleon to give them good government as
the last affront, more stmging and insulting than any blow ever
struck by his armies, intolerable beyond devastation or death.

We cmi endure that he should waste our lands,
Despoil onr temples, and by sword and flame
Betum us to the dost from which we came,

Such food a tyrant's appetite demands;

And we can brook the thonght that by his hands

Spain may be overpowered, and he possess,

For Ills delight, a solemn wilderness

Where all the brave lie dead. But when of bands

Which he will break for ns he dares to speak,

Of benefits, and of a future day.

When oar enlightened minds shall bless his sway.

Then the strained heart of fortitude proves weak,

Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare

That he has power to Inflict what we lack strength to be«r.

Already the old language of freedom, independence, self-con-
trol; self-government is passing away. You hear in many high
quarters expressions of gratitude to England; that it is by her favor
tnat we have been able to accomplish our policies without inter-
ference from foreign powers. I have the most friendly and kindly

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feelings for the people of Great Britian. It is a noble stock. It
is made np of noble strands. The sturdy Saxon, the hardy,
adventurous Scotsman, the brave and generous Irishman make
up a people never surpassed in the quality that makes true great-
ness by any nation in the Eastern Hemisphere. I shall be glad in
every proper way to lielp to draw the bonds of friendship and of
kinship wnich happily now exist in such strength. But I confess
I am humiliated when an American talks of gratitude to any other
country for affording the United States its countenance or protec-
tion in the pursuit of any course this country may deem it her duty
pursue. I am not willing to be dependent on the power of Eng-
land, either for defense or for protection. Certainly I desire no
entangling alliances with her. Still less am I willing to have
my countrymen accept the Chinese estimate— "American No. 2
Englishman."

Ihave failed to di>3Cover in the speech, public or private, of the
advocates of this war, or in the press which supports it and them,
a single expression anywhere of a desire to do justice to the people
of the Philippine Islands, or of a desire to make known to the
people of the United States the truth of the case. Some of them,
like the Senator from Indiana and the President of the Senate,
are outspoken in their purpose to retain the Philippine Islands
forever, to govern them ourselves, or t^o what they call giving
them such share in government as wS hereafter may see fit,
having regard to our own interest, and, as they sometimes add,
to theirs. The others say, * ' Hush! We will not disclose our pur-

Sose' just now. Perhaps we may," as they phrase it, '* give them
berty some time. But it is to bis a long time first."

The catchwords, the cries, the pithy and pregnant phrases of
which all their speech is full, all m^an dominion. They mean
perpetual dominion. When a man tells you that the American
flag must not be hauled down where it has once floated, or
demands of a shouting audience, '* Who will haul it down? '* if he
mean anything, he means that that people shall be i^der our
dominion forever. The man who says, "We will not treat with
them till they submit; we will not deal with men in arms against
the flag," says, in substance, the same thing. One thing there has
been, at least, given to them as Americans not to say. There is
not one of these gentlemen who will rise in his place and affirm
that if he were a Filipino he would not do exactly as the Filipinos
are doing; that he would not despise them if they were to do
otherwise. So much, at least, they owe of respect to the dead
and buried history— the dead and buried history, so far as they
can slay and burjr it— of their country.

Why, the tariff schemes which are proposed are schemes in our
interest and not in theirs. If you propose to bring tobacco from
Porto Rico or from the Philippine Islands on the ground that it
is for the interest of the people whom you are undertaking to
govern, for their best interests to raise it and sell it to you, every
imperialist in Connecticut will be up in arms. The nerve in the
pocket is still sensitive, though the nerve in the heart may be
numb. You will not let their sugar come herei to compete with
the cane sugar of Louisiana or the beet sugar of California or
the Northwest, and in determining that question you mean to
think not of their interest but of yours. The good government
you are to give them is a government under which their great
productive and industrial Interests, when peace comes, are to be

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84

jotally and absolutely disregarded by their government. Yon are
not only proiKJsing to do that, bnt ypn expect to put another strain
on the Constitution to accomplish it.

Why, Mr. President, the atmosphere of both legislative cham-
bers, even now, is filled with measures proposing to govern and
tax these people for our interest, and not for theirs. Your men
who are not alarmed at the danger to constitutional liberty are up
in arms when there is danger to tobacco. As an eloquent Bepul^
lican colleague said elsewhere, " Beware that you do not create
another Ireland under the American flag." Beware that you do
not create many other Ireland*— another Ireland in Porto Rico;
another Ireland in Cuba; many other Irelands in the Philippines !
The great complaint of Ireland for eight centuries was that Eng-
land framed her taxation and regulated her tariff, not for Ireland's
interest, but for her own. That when she dealt with the great
industries of that beautiful isle she was thinking of the Eng-'
lish exchequer and of the English manufacturer and of the Eng-
lish land-owner; and she reduced Ireland to beggary. Let us
not repeat that process.

Is there any man so bold as to utter in seriousness the assertion
that where the American flag has once been raised it shall never
be hauled down? I have heard it said that to haul down or to

Sropose to haul down this national emblem where it has once
oated is poltroonery. Will any man say it was poltroonery
when Paul Jones landed on the northeast coast of England that
he took his flag awav with him when he departed? Was Scott a
poltroon, or was Polk a poltroon? Was Taylor a poltroon? Was
the United States a nation of poltroons when they retired from
the City of Mexico or from Vera Cruz without leaving the flag
behind them? Were we poftroons when we receded from Canada?
If we had made the attacK on the coast of Spain, at one time con-
templated during this very war, were we pledged to hold and
govern Spain forever or disgraced in the eyes of mankind if we
failed to do it? Has England been engaged in the course of pol-
troonfery all these years when she has retired from many a neld
of victory? According to this doctrine, she was bound to have
held Belgium forever after the battle of Waterloo and Spain for-
ever after Corunna and Talavera. She could not, of course, have
retired with honor from Venezuela if the arbitration had not
ended in her favor.

Mr. President, this talk that the American flag is never to be
removed where it has once floated is the silliest and wildest
rhetorical flourish ever uttered in the ears of an excited popu-
lace. No baby ever said anything to another baby more foolish.

Now, what are the facts as to the Philippine Islands and the
American flag? We have occupied a single city, part of one of
four hundred islands, and with a population of 120,000 or there-
abouts out of 10,000,000. The Spanish forces were invested and
hemmed in by the people of those islands, who had risen to assert
their own freedom when we got there. Now, what kind of
Americanism, what kind of patriotism, what kind of love of
liberty is it to say that we are to turn our guns on that patriot
people and wrest from them the freedom that was almost within
their grasp and hold these islands for our own purposes in subjec-
tion and by right of conquest because the American flag ought
not to be hauled down where it has once floated, or, for the baser
and viler motive still, that we can make a few dollars a year out
of their trade?
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Mr. President, this is the doctrine of purest mfi^nism and
tyranny. There is nothing of the Declaration of Independence in
it. There is nothing of the Constitution of the United States in it.
There is nothing of the fathers in it. There is nothing of G-eorge
Washington in it, or of Thomas Jefferson. There is nothing in it
of the old Virginia or of the old South Carolina or of the old Mas-
sachusetts. If every territory over which the flag of a country has
once floated must be held and never shall be yielded again to the
nation to which it belonged, every war between great and power-
ful nations must be a war of extermination or a war of dishonor
alike to the victor and to the vanquished.

We expected, did we not, at the time of our declaration of war
that we would not wrest Cuba from Spain for any purpose of our
own aggrandizement, but only that there might be estabushed there
a free government for the people thereof, and that the people of
Cuba were, and of right ought to be, a free, independent state;
that our flag would float in Cuba while the operation of the war
was going on as it has floated in glory and in honor. Was that
a pleage to a course which should dishonor and degrade the flag
of our country in the face of mankind? Who shall haul it down
when the time comes? The man who signed his name to that
promise, a man with whose name no thought of dishonor or deg-
radation to his country's flag was ever associated, will keep his
own honor and that of the country and that of the flag unstained
by hauling it down himself.

I tell my friends who apx)eal to the flag of the country, and who
say that no matter what question of righteousness, or justice, or
constitutional i)ower may be up, they stand with the fl^ag, and
follow the drum, and listen to nothing but the sound of the trum-

S3t, and care only for the men in mmorm, and postpone all ques-
ons of liberty or of humanity till the martial music is silent
and the clash of arms is oVer and the flaj^ is furled. I tell these
friends of mine that the American flag is a higher and a more
sacred thing to me than it is to them. I love the flaj?, not as a bit
of colored bunting, not for its bright colors or its floating folds,
but as a holy and as a sacred symbol. The American flag is dear
to my heart because it seems something more, and something
loftier, and something nobler than is represented by the flag of any
other country. I mean, if I can, to keep its pure folds free from
stain. In the old days of slavery the great English poet Campbell
excited the anger of the American people by a stinging satire:

"TTnited States, your banner wears

Two emblems— one of fame ;
▲las, the other that it bears

Beminds ns of year shame."

" Your standard's constellation types

Wliite freedom by its stars ;
But what's the meaning of the stripes f

They mean your negroes' scars.''^

What said the liberty-loving leaders of those great generations?
Did they say: " If the flag typify slavery, we are for slavery; if
the flag stand for oppression, we are oppressors forever more."
No, They said: " If the flag shall wave over the great territory
between the Mississippi and the Pacific, it shall wave over a free
territory."

When the authority of the United States, in the days of Frank-
lin Pierce and James Buchanan, undertook to subjugate the free
men of Kansas and Nebraska, they stood for their freedom.

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They denied the right of James Buchanan or of Franklin Pierce
to make this holy symbol the emblem of the government of man,
or any race of men, against its will.

Now, Mr. President, it seems to me that these are grave ques-
tions. They are things worth thinking of by American Senators
and American statesmen. They go down to the roote of our
niational life. They are not of yesterday, of to-day, or to-morrow
alone. They were thought of when our countiy was settled.
They were debated during the century's long strife that preceded
the Revolution. The minds of the Fathers were full of them.
Their answer to them was written in the imperisable lines of the
Declaration of Independence, and in the constitutions of the
States and of the nation. We have been brought up to think of
them through the whole of our first century of greatness and of
glory. We reafiGbrmed our doctrine about them again when we
celebrated otq: centennial in 1876. They were daily and nightly
on the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sunmer. K
Lincoln and Sumner should repeat what they thought of them
now, they would be denounced as "little Americans," as "squaw
men," and blacklisted as traitors.

Now, what is the answer we get when we repeat the old doc-
trine, not in our own language, but in the language of the Fathers,
and of Lincoln, and of Sumner? Why, the answer— there are some
creditable exceptions— but in general the answer we get is that
there is a soldier in uniform somewhere shooting somebody; that
the American flag is flying, and some poor devils, who run when
they come in sight of it, half armed, half disciplined, half clad,
half fed, have got these ideas into their heads also, and are fight-
ing for them and dying for them, and thinking we are invading
them and are firing at our flag. Are you afraid of them? No.
Are they formidable? No. Does the condition, according to your
theory, of foreign war exist? No. But so long as the flag of
of the United States, standing for seventy million people— the
richest, strongest, brightest, as we claim, on the face of the earth,
anywhere the wide world over, is resisted there can be no ques-
tion of liberty, honor, constitutional liberty, or national obliga-
tion considered throughout this broad continent. Why, Mr. Presi-
dent, if this be true, and there is nothing to be t^ked about but
uniforms and flags and drums and trumpets till the last Filipino
is dead in the last ditch, Aguinaldo has beaten you already. He
has driven you to eat the bravest word you ever spoke. He has
driven you to spit on the memory of your Fathers; to trample on
your oaths to support the Constitution; to substitute an empty
drum for your brains, and a fife for your conscience; and to do
your thinking from this time forward, not with your head, but
with your heels.

Certainly the flag should never be lowered from any moral
field over which it has once waved. To follow the flag is to
follow the principles of freedom and humanity for wmch it
stands. To claim that we must follow it when it stands for
injustice or oppression is like claiming that we must take the
nostrums of the quack doctor who stamps it on his wares, or
follow every scheme of wickedness or fraud, if only the flag be
put at the head of the prospectus. The American flag is in more
danger from the imperialists than there would be if the whole of
Christendom were to combine its p)wer against it. Foreign
violence at worst could only rend it. But these men are trying
to stain it.

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It is claimed->wliat I do not believe— tliat these appeals have the
sympathy of the American people. It is said that tne statesman
who will lay his ear to the ground will hear their voice. I do
not believe it. The voice of the American people does not come
from the ground. It comes from the sky. It comes from the free
air. It comes from the mountains, where liberty dwells. Let the
statesman who is fit to deal with the question of liberty or to
utter the voice of a free people lift his ear to the sky— not lay it
to the ^ound.

Mr. President, it was once my good fortune to witness an im-
pressive spectacle in this Chamber, when the Senators answered
to their names in rendering solemn judgment in a ^eat State
trial. By a special provision each Senator was permitted, when
he cast his vote, to state his reason in a single sentence. I have
sometimes fancied that the question before us now might be
decided not alone by the votes of us who sit here to-day, out of
the great men who have been our predecessors in this Chamber
and in the Continental Congress from the beginning of the
Republic.

Would that that roll might be called. The solemn assembly
sits silent while the Chair puts the question whose answer is so
fraught with the hopes of hberty and the destiny of the Republic.

The roll is called. George Washington: "No. Why should we
quit our own, to stand on foreign ground?"

Alexander Hamilton : ** No. The Declaration of Independence
is the fundamental constitution of every State."

Thomas Jefferson: *'No. Governments are instituted among
men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Every people ought to have that separate and equal station among
the nations of the.world to which the laws of nature and of nature^
God entitle them."

John Adams : '' No. I stood by the side of Jefferson when he
brought in the Declaration ; I was its champion on the floor of
Congress. After our long estrangement, I come back to his side
again."

James Madison: " No. The object of the Federal Constitution
is to secure the union of the thirteen primitive States, which we
know to be practicable, and to add to them such other States as
may arise in their own bosoms or in their neighborhood, which
we can not doubt will be practicable."

Thomas Corwin: '* No. I said in the days of the Mexican war:
* If I were a Mexican, as I am an American, I would welcome you
with bloody hands to hospitable graves '; and Ohio to-day honors
and loves me for that utterance beyond all her other sons."

Daniel Webster: * * No. Under our Constitution there can be no
dependencies. Wherever there is in the Christian and civilized
world a nationality of character, then a national government is
the necessary and proper result. There is not a civilized and in-
telligent man on earth that enjoys satisfaction with his condition
if he does not live under the government of his own nation, his
own country. A nation can not be happy but under a govern-
ment of its own choice. When I depart from these sentiments
I depart from myself."

William H. Seward: "No. The framers of the Constitution
never contemplated colonies or provinces at all. They contem-
plated States only; nothingless than States— perfect States, e^ual
States, sovereign States. There is reason, there is sound political

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witfdom, in this provision of the> Constitntion— excluding colonies,
which are always snbject to oppression, and exclnoin^ prov-
inces, which always tend to corrupt and enfeeble and ultimately
to break down the parent State. "

John Marshall: " No. The power to declare war was not con-
ferred upon Congress for the purpose of aggression or aggran-
dizement. A war declared by Congress can never be presumed
to be waged for the purpose of conquest or the acquisition of
territory, nor does the law declaring the war imply an authority
to the President to enlarge the limits of the United States by sub-
jugating the enemy's country."

John Quincy Adams: * * No. The territories I helped bring into
the nation were to be dwelt in by free men and made into free
States."

Aaron Burr: ** Yes. You are repeating my buccaneering expe-
dition down the Mississippi. I am to be vindicated at last!"

Abraham Lincoln: ** No. I said in Independence Hall at Phila-
delphia, just before I entered upon my great office, that I rested
upon the truth Thomas Jefferson has just uttered, and that I was
ready to be assassinated, if need be, in order to maintain it.
And I was assassinated in order to maintain it."

Charles Sumner: **No. I proclaimed it when I brought in
Alaska. I sealed my devotion with my blood, also. It was my
support and solace through those many long and weary hours
when the red-hot iron pressed upon my spine, the very source and
origin of agony, and I did not flincn. He knows our country
little, little also of that great liberty of ours, who su][>poses that
we could receive such a transfer. On each side there is impossi-
bility. Territory may be conveyed, but not a people."

William Mcmnley — ^William McKinley: "There has been a
cloud before my vision for a moment, but I see clearly now; I go
back to what I said two years ago: ^ Forcible annexation is crim-
inal aggression; governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed, not of some of them, but of all of them.*
I will stand with the Fathers of the Republic. I will stand with
the founders of the Republican party. No."

Mr. President, I know how imperfectly I have stated this argu-
ment. I know how feeble is a single voice amid this din and
tempest, this delirium of empire. It may be that the battle for
this day is lost. But I have an assured faith in the future. I
have an assured faith in justice and the love of liberty of the
American people. The stars in their courses fight for freedom.
The Ruler of the heavens is on that side. If the battle to-day
go against it, I appeal to another day, not distant and sure to
come. I appeal n:om the clapping of hands and the stamping of
feet and the brawling and the shouting to the quiet chamber
where the Fathers gathered in Philadelphia. I appeal from the
spirit of trade to tiiie spirit of liberty. 1 apx>eal from the Empire
to the Republic. I appeal from the millionaire, and the boss, and
the wire-puUer, and tne manager to the statesman of the elder
time, in whose eyes a Ruinea never glistened, who lived and died
poor, and who left to nis children and to his countrymen a good
name far better than riches. I appeal from the Present, bloated
with material prosperity, drunk with the lust of empire, to
another and a better age. I appeal from the Present to the
Future and to the Past. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Visitors in the galleries will

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please remember that nnder the mles of the Senate no expressions
of approval or disapproval are permitted, and if there is a repeti-
tion of the applause the Sergeant-at- Arms will be required to clear
the galleries at once.

APPENDIX.

The GoTemmeait of fhe Filipinos has considered it its dnty to expound hefore
the civilized nations the happenings which caused a rnptnre oiits formerly
Ariendly relations with the army of the United States in these islands in oitler
that they should come to he convinced that on my side everything has heen done
to avoid said rupture, even at the cost of nuuiy nghts which were thus sacrificed
without use.

After the naval hattle, which had taken place on the Ist of May, between the
American and the Spanish squadron the commanding officer of the latter con>
sented to my return from Hongkong to this beloved soil, and distributed even
amongst the Filipinos a number of rifles found in the arsenal at Cavite, with-
out duubt for the purpose that I should again start the revolution, which, owing
to the treaty of Biak-na-Bato, had become extinct to some extent, and in order to
secure thus the help of the Filipinos.

At the outbreak of the hostilities between America and Spain the inhabitantb
had fully comprehended that now the moment had come to take up again the arms
in behalf of their struggle for liberty, they being sure that the latter nation
wonld be vanquished anawould never again be in a position to lead them on to
the way of prosperity and progress ; they, therefore, n^joiced at my arrival, and I
had the honor to be chosen their chief, owing to the services which I had been
able to render in the previous revolution. Therenpon all Filipinos, without
distinction of rank and claKses, took up arras, and each province hastened to drive
the Spanish troops from within its boundaries. Thus it it explained how it is
possible that, after so short a time, my Government dominates to-day over the
whole of Luzon, in the Visayan Islands, and in a part of Mindanao.

Although the Americans have not had any share whatever in the military
operations that have cost so much blood and money, my Government is ready to
acknowledge that the destruction of the Spanish squadron and the turning over
to us of a number of rifles from the arsenal has nad a certain influence on the
progress of our army. Besides that, it seemed a matter of certainty that the
American troops would needs have to sympathize with a revolution which thev
fomented, and which has saved them so much blood and fatigues, and, above all,
I had such unbounded confidence in the history and the traditions of a nation
which had fought for independence and against slavery, and which appeared as
the champion of liberty of the oppressed and downtrodden nations.

Seeing the Filipinos thus friendly disi>osed toward them, the Americans dis-
embarked their forces at Parafiaqne and took positions along the whole line
oconpied by my troops as far as Maytubig, taking hold by means of astuteness
not free from force of a great many trenches coustructea by my sappers ; they
caused the garrison of Manila to surrender, which, owing to its oeing hedged in
by my forces, had to surrender after the first attack, in which I took a most
active part, although I had not been notified of its date, my troops advancing as
far as Malate, Ermita, Pako, Sampalok, and Tondo, all parts of Manila.

Notwithstanding these services, and although the Spaniards would surely not
have surrendered had not my troops cut ofi; fdl possioility of a retreat to the
interior, the American generals not only did not even mention me when stipu-
lating the details of the capitulation, but they moreover demanded the withdrawal
of my troops from the port of Cavite, and from the suburbs of Manila.

I submitted to the American generals that I had not been treated Justly, and I
asked them in courteous terms that they should acknowledge at least to some
extent my cooperation, but they were deaf to my entreaties.

Being all the same desirous of showing friendship and good feeling toward
those who pronounced themselves the liberators of the Philippine nation, I with-
drew my troops f^m the port of Cavite, and from the suburbs of Ermita, Malate,
Sampalok, and Tondo, only retaining a part of the suburb of Pako.

In spite of these concessions, it lasted but a few days before Admiral Dewey,
without anv given motive, took away our launches, which with special consent
of his had been stationed in the Bay of Manila. Almost at the same time I
received a letter firom General Otis, commander in chief of the American army of
occupation, demanding that I should withdraw my troops firom the territory
which he had pointed out in apian accompanying said letter, the territory inclua-
ing even the township of Pandakan ana the quarter of Singalong, whxch had
never belonged to the city limits.

In view oi this unqualinable proceeding of the two American chiefs I held a war
council, and consulted also the opinion of my privy council, and in agreement
with the opinion given by them I nominated commissioners, who were to come to
an understanding with the above.
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AlthoQfi)! the reception aooorded by Admiral Dewey to my commissioners was
anything out pleasant, he not even allowing them to speak to him, I nevertheless
concedea to the friendly entreaties of General Otis, withdrawing my army to the
territorv pointed ont by him, in order to avoid ail contract-^thnis troops— a
matter that had come to canse a good deal of trouble ; when doing this I confi-
dently hoped that, the conference at Paris having come to an end, my people would
obtain the fireedom promised to them by Mr. Pratt, the consul-general at Singa-
pore, and that then the firiendship which so often had been expressed in the mani-
festations and speeches of the American generals who had come to these parts
would be definitely insured.

Matters, however, did not turn out that way: The generals referred to consid-
ered tiie delegates which I had sent to them in the behalf of peace as a proof of
my Weakness; and thus it happened that, their ambitious designs increasing,
they sent a force to Doilo on the 26th of December last in order to sei^ as con-
querors that part of the Philippines which also belomged to my government.

Such a proceeding which is so far removed from the line of action followed by
the civilized nations, entitles me to proceed without any further consideration.
But nevertheless, in order to be correct in my actions up to the end, I sent com-
missioners to General Otis, asking him to desist from so temerarious an under-
taking. The same were, however, not listened to.

My government can not remain indifiierent in view of a violent and aggressive
nsurpation of a part of its territory by a nation which has styled itself the cham-
pion of the oppressed people; and it is, therefore, ready to start hostilities, should
the Americans try to carry out the occupation of the Bisayan Islands.

I denounce these actions before the whole world, in order that the public con-
science should, by its inflexible Judgment, clearly designate those who really are
the oppressors and the hangmen of humanity.

On their heads may fall sSl the blood which will be spilled.

BMILIO AGUINALDO.

Malolos, January 6, 1899.

" Revolucion " of the 19th of January, 1900.
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