Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs Volume II Part 27

It was in 1859, and in the article now under debate, that I used this language as a fair exposition of Mr. Douglas' plans:

"The people of a Territory have all the rights of the people of a State; and therefore there are no Territories belonging to the American Union, but all are by the silent negative operations of the Const.i.tution of the United States, converted into independent sovereign members of the North American Confederacy. We commend this system to the advocates of popular sovereignty. It offers many advantages. It will not be possible for the people or the Congress of the United States to resist the admission of new States, inasmuch as their consent will not be asked. It avoids all unpleasant issues. It provides for new slave States; it disposes of Utah; it settles, in antic.i.p.ation, all questions that may grow out of the annexation of the Catholic Mexican States; and it permits the immigrants from the Celestial Empire to re-establish their inst.i.tutions, and take their places as members of this Imperial Republic." This statement of Mr. Douglas' policy in the interest of slavery is not a far-away prophecy of the doings under President McKinley's administration.

I have reached a point in this discussion when this remark may be justified: No impartial reader of my article of 1859 can fail to discover that the discussion did not involve the question now raised.

The issue was this: Are the Territories bound by the Const.i.tution to become States in the American Union against the judgment of the people, and are the existing States bound to accept a new State and that without regard to its inst.i.tutions? This was the theory of Mr.

Douglas, and it was a theory designed to provide a certain way for the increase of slave States. My argument was aimed at that policy.

At the end of my article there is a summary by propositions which contains declarations that were outside of the controversy with Mr.

Douglas.

One of these has been quoted, and quoted in error as evidence of my inconsistency. I read the proposition: "The Const.i.tution of the United States may be extended over a Territory by the treaty of annexation, or by a law of Congress, in which case it has only the authority of the law; but the Const.i.tution by the force of its own provisions is limited to the people and the States of the American Union."

In this general proposition there are several minor and distinct propositions.

1. The Const.i.tution may be extended over a territory by a treaty of annexation. This is now my distinct claim in regard to Porto Rico and the Philippines, a position that I have uniformly maintained.

2. The Const.i.tution may be extended to a territory by law, _in which case it has only the authority of law._

As to this statement I can only say I may have had in mind instances of such legislation as may be found in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

When we say that the Const.i.tution of its own force, applies to the Territories, we refer to the parts that are applicable to the Territories as distinguishable from the parts that relate to States exclusively. It is a provision of the Const.i.tution that

"No State shall make any law impairing the obligation of contracts."

In terms this limitation does not extend to Territories. Congress might extend the limitation, but the Act of limitation would have only the force of law.

3. "The Const.i.tution by the force of its own provisions is limited to the _people_ and States of the American Union." This is only a declaration that the Const.i.tution does not apply to other states and communities. The word _people_ includes the inhabitants of the Territories as well as the inhabitants of the States. If there could have been a doubt in 1859 of the validity of this interpretation, the doubt has been removed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The inhabitants of Territories are thereby made citizens of the United States, are brought within the jurisdiction of the Const.i.tution, and as citizens they are put upon an equality with the citizens of the States. They are of the _people_ of the American Union, and as such they are under the Const.i.tution of the United States.

These are the opening words of the amendment:--

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

We have no subject cla.s.ses in America excepting only such as have been created, temporarily, as I trust, in Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, by the policy of President McKinley, and all in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, which reads thus:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

President McKinley claimed jurisdiction over the Philippine Islands and consequently the inhabitants are ent.i.tled to the benign protection of this provision of the Const.i.tution. There cannot be any form of involuntary servitude imposed upon any American citizen without a violation of this fundamental law. Hence it is that the administration is forced to deny citizens.h.i.+p to the inhabitants of the Island and to a.s.sert the claim that the President and Congress may govern the inhabitants of territories acquired by purchase, as in the case of the Philippine Islands, or by conquest, as in the case of Porto Rico, as they might be governed if the Const.i.tution did not exist. And this, we are told by the President and his supporters, is not imperialism, but a process of extending the blessings of liberty and civilization to the inferior races of the earth.

The claim of the President is the a.s.sertion of a right in Congress to establish a system of peonage or even of slavery in Alaska, Hawaii, and the rest. Your representative finds himself called to the defence of this doctrine. Thus is the amendment to the Const.i.tution made of no effect in the Territories.

The character of President McKinley's policy is set forth in his own words and they justify the charge of imperialism.

In his speech of acceptance he said:--"The Philippines are ours, and American authority must be supreme throughout the Archipelago. There will be amnesty, broad and liberal, but no abatement of our rights, no abandonment of our duty; there must be no scuttle policy." What is the meaning of this language? Is it not an a.s.sertion of absolute, unconditional, permanent supremacy over the millions of the islands?

Imperialism is not a word merely. It is a public policy.

The President denounces imperialism, and with emphasis he declares that we are all republicans in America. None of us are imperialists.

Our answer is this: In the language that I have quoted the President describes himself as an imperialist. The test of Republicanism is the Thirteenth Amendment. The President is subjecting ten million people to involuntary subserviency under his rule. This, by whatever name called, is the imperialism that we denounce.

We denounce it as a violation of a provision of our Const.i.tution that was gained at the cost of the lives of four hundred thousand men.

We denounce it as a violation of the rights of ten million human beings who owe no allegiance to us. Our t.i.tle! you exclaim. I answer, What is it? A t.i.tle to rule an unwilling, revolutionary people, who, at the time our t.i.tle was acquired, were demanding of Spain the enjoyment of the right of self-government. That right was well-nigh gained when we accepted the place of subst.i.tute for Spain. Through twenty months of war we have been engaged in a fruitless attempt to subjugate our purchased victims, and we have been cajoled, continually, by the declaration that the war was ended.

If we accept the theory of the President that our t.i.tle to Porto Rico and the Philippines is a good t.i.tle, then that t.i.tle can be exercised and enjoyed only in one of two ways under our Const.i.tution and the example that has been set in the case of Cuba. They should be held as Territories, on the way to Statehood, or as possessions ent.i.tled to self-government without delay by us. Mr. McKinley, Senator Lodge and Mr. Moody say neither way is acceptable--the lands and the people are ours. They have no rights under the Const.i.tution. We will hold them subject to our will until they accept our authority and recognize our right to rule over them, and beyond that we will hold them until, in our opinion, they are qualified to govern themselves.

The doctrine of imperialism is again set forth in the President's letter of acceptance of September 8. "The flag of the Republic now floats over these islands as an emblem of rightful sovereignty. Will the Republic stay and dispense to their inhabitants the blessings of liberty, education and free inst.i.tutions, or steal away, leaving them to anarchy or imperialism?"

Thus the President is engaged in dispensing liberty to conquered peoples instead of allowing them to enjoy liberty as a birthright. He is dispensing to them such education as he thinks they ought to have, instead of allowing them to decide for themselves as to the education which may be agreeable or useful for them. He dictates for them the "free inst.i.tutions" which in his opinion are best adapted to their condition, instead of allowing them the freedom to choose their own inst.i.tutions. Thus the President a.s.sumes authority to furnish systems of education and inst.i.tutions of government by force, denying to the people all freedom of action for themselves, and thereupon he declares that "empire has been expelled from Porto Rico and the Philippines."

Can the President show wherein his policy, in principle, differs from the policy of Spain?

Spain was engaged in war to compel the Filipinos to accept Spanish inst.i.tutions of education and liberty. We are attempting through war to compel the Filipinos to accept American inst.i.tutions of education and liberty. It is not an answer to say, what may be true, that American ideas and systems of education are superior to Spanish ideas and systems. In each case there is compulsion. In each case there is a denial of freedom. In each case, there is the same exercise of power.

In each case there is the same demand for a subservient cla.s.s. In each case there is gross undisguised imperialism. The difference is to the advantage of Spain. Spain was consistent. Her policy was a policy of imperialism;--a policy of centuries.

America was a republic. Self-government was at the basis of all her inst.i.tutions. It was a prominent feature of her history. Our accusation against President McKinley is this: He turned away from the history of America, he disdained our traditions, and he reversed the policy of a century.

Mark the consequences of the change. In other days we sympathized with Greece in its struggle for self-government; we denounced the suppression of liberty in Hungary, and in the opening years of this century we welcomed the provinces of Central and South America as they emerged, one by one, from a condition of imperial va.s.salage, and took their places in the galaxy of Republican States.

If in this year 1900, America had sent forth one word of official cheer to the States of South Africa, the act would have been an act of self- abas.e.m.e.nt that would have invited the contempt of all mankind.

When we charge imperialism upon the administration this question is put exultingly: "Where is the crown?" I answer from history. England waited a century, after the conquests by Clive and Hastings, for a Beaconsfield to crown Britain's Queen "Empress of the Indies." The crown is but a bauble. Empire means vast armies employed in ignominious service, burdensome taxation at home, and ruthless maladministration of affairs abroad.

In two short years of imperialism, these evils have ceased to be imaginative merely, and they have taken a place among the unwelcome realities of our national life.

Before I close this discourse I shall return to the subject that I have now introduced to your attention, and for the purpose of asking you to foster and preserve the quality of consistency in the history of the county of Ess.e.x.

Mr. Moody introduced two topics to the Ess.e.x Club of which I am to take notice. They concern me personally, but there is an aspect of one of them that may merit public attention.

With a kindliness of spirit, that I could not have antic.i.p.ated, Mr.

Moody attributes my failure to continue in the opinions that he claims were entertained by me in 1859, to the infirmities incident to advancing years. He thus raises a question that I am not competent to discuss.

I pa.s.s it by.

I trust that Mr. Moody may live to the age of two and eighty years; that his experience may be more fortunate than the fate that he attributes to me, and that at that advanced period of his life his ability to interpret the Const.i.tution of his country will not be less than it now is.

The speech of Mr. Moody, as it appears in the _Transcript_ of August 30, closes with this sentence: "He at least might spare the epithets to the party that has showered upon him every honor within its gift, except the presidency." If I have applied any disparaging epithet to the Republican Party, my error is due to my ignorance of the meaning of the word. The quotations which Mr. Moody has made from my speech at the Cooper Inst.i.tute contain a declaration in two forms of expression, which may have led Mr. Moody to charge me with the use of epithets. I find nothing else on which this allegation can be founded. I reproduce the quotations:

"President McKinley and his imperialistic supporters through two steps in an argument have deduced an erroneous conclusion from admitted truths.

"(1) Our government in common with other sovereignties has a right to acquire territory.

"(2) That right carries with it the right to govern territory so acquired.

"From these propositions they deduce the false conclusion that Congress may indulge a full and free discretion in the government of the territories so acquired. Herein is the error, and herein is the usurpation."

Again, "We have the right to acquire territory and we have the right to govern all territory acquired, but we must govern it under the Const.i.tution, and in the exercise of those powers, and those only, which have been conferred upon Congress by the Const.i.tution. Any attempt further is a criminal usurpation."

In the first quotation I make the charge that President McKinley, in his attempt to govern the Philippine Islands as though the Const.i.tution did not apply to them, was exercising powers not granted to him by virtue of his office.