It is now twenty years of more since I appeared before Judge Endicott of your city in a cause between a trustee and thecestui quetrust. The counsel for the trustee in an argument of considerable length, proceeded to demonstrate the unwisdom, the incapacity, indeed, of my administration of the Treasury Department. I made no attempt to meet the new issue, and the Judge gave no opinion upon it. I made an effort to satisfy the Judge that the trustee was withholding money that belonged to my clients, and Judge Endicott so held. My opponent had an opportunity to argue an issue that was not before the court, and his client was doomed to lose his case.
A cause is now pending before the American people. The issue is this: Is it wise and just for us, as a nation, to make war for the seizure and government of distant lands, occupied by millions of inhabitants, who are alien to us in every aspect of life, except that we are together members of the same human family? The seriousness of this issue cannot be magnified by the art and skill of writers and speakers, nor can it be dwarfed to the proportions of a personal controversy. Nor does it follow from any possible construction of the Constitution that it is wise and just for the American people to seize, through war, and to govern by force, the hostile tribes and peoples of the earth whether near to or remote.
The advocates of weak causes have two methods of defence to which they most frequently resort: epithets and a change of issues.
It was in this city that Mr. Webster made a remark that is applicable to the use of epithets and the avoidance of issues. Mr. Webster had come to this city to aid the Attorney-General in the trial of Frank and Joseph Knapp. His presence was disagreeable to the counsel for the accused, and they more than intimated that he had been brought to Salem to carry the court against the law, and to hurry the jury beyond the evidence. In reply, Mr. Webster referred to the Goodridge trial, in which he had appeared for the accused, and he said: "I remember that the learned head of the Suffolk Bar, Mr. Prescott, came down in aid of the officers of the government. This was regarded as neither strange nor improper. The counsel for the prisoners, in that case, contented themselves with answering his arguments, as far as they were able, instead of carping at his presence." This is, in substance, the demand that we make upon the supporters of the war in the Philippines. Let them cease to denounce us as traitors; let them explain the facts on which they are arraigned; and let them answer the arguments that we offer in defence of the Republic.
Causes may be lost by misinterpreting or misrepresenting the issues, or by undervaluing the character and ability of opponents, but causes are not often won by such expedients. The political issues in popular governments are the outcome of measures and policies, and the issues can be changed only by a change of policies and measures. President McKinley's administration has been an administration of new policies and new measures, and, consequently, it is an administration of new issues —issues that will remain until the measures and policies, to which they owe their origin, have been abandoned. Therefore, the struggle to change the issues, however made, or by whomsoever made, is a vain struggle.
If, in this year 1900, it could be proved beyond controversy that in the year 1859, I had maintained the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States did not apply to the Territories, and that in the year 1899 I had expressed the opposite opinion, would these facts, including the change of opinion, and whether considered together or considered separately, possess any value argumentative, or otherwise, as a justification of President McKinley in seizing the Philippine Islands through war, and in attempting to govern the inhabitants by force? Is it of any consequence when this country is dealing with a public policy of which war is the incident, and the continuing inevitable incident, whether the opinions that one man may have entertained one and forty years ago are acceptable opinions now that the one and forty years have passed away? Yet, my fellow-citizens, this is the argument which the representative of the ancient and honored county of Essex offers to you and to the country in justification of a policy of war degenerating at times into brutal massacres, carried on against ten million people, inhabitants of a thousand islands, ten thousand miles from our shores, and at a cost of four million dollars a week, and at the sacrifice each year of thousands of the youth of America, and the destruction of the health and happiness of tens of thousands more.
Such is the history of President McKinley's administration, and such is the defence offered by the representative of the county of Essex.
There may have been no sinister design in the attempt to demonstrate my inconsistency upon a question of constitutional law. I do not assume the existence of personal hostility. An end would be answered if you and others could be induced to believe that in 1859 I had so construed the Constitution as to justify President McKinley in governing the Philippine Islands as though the Constitution of the United States did not exist. Thus do my opinions receive more consideration from an opponent than they could command at the hands of a friend.
I am now to speak more directly in explanation of the opinion that I gave in 1859, with something of the history of the circumstances which led to the preparation of the paper of that year. It is an error to assume that the question whether or not the Constitution extends to the Territories, was a prominent question, in the period of the anti- slavery controversy. That question was not publicly and seriously discussed on either side.
The controversy was conducted upon the theory that the Territories were under the Constitution. The question was this: Can a slaveholder move from a slave State to a Territory and be protected under the Constitution in holding his slaves as property?
It was the theory of the Missouri Compromise Measure of 1820 and it was the theory of the compromise measures of 1850, that the Constitution neither authorized slavery anywhere nor prohibited it anywhere. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 recognized, as an admitted fact, the doctrine that the Constitution extended to the Territories, and it asserted as a conclusion of law and as a public policy, the doctrine that the Constitution "should have the same force and effect within the Territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States." Thus it was maintained by the friends of the compromise measures that the Constitution neither authorized slavery in the Territories nor prohibited it. This view of the Constitution was accepted by the opponents of slavery.
The Constitution did not authorize slavery in the States nor did it prohibit slavery in the States. Until the Dred Scott Decision, the controversy proceeded upon the idea that States and Territories were alike under the Constitution, and that by the Constitution slavery was neither authorized nor prohibited in any State, nor in any Territory of the Union.
Inasmuch as at that time slavery was not prohibited under the Constitution, there was a general agreement in the proposition that Congress might authorize slavery in the Territories and that Congress might prohibit slavery in the Territories. One party contended for its authorization, the other party demanded its prohibition. On this issue the contest was made up. From first to last the contest proceeded upon the theory, on all sides admitted to be a true theory, that the Constitution of the United States, by its own force, applied to all the Territories of the United States. In that opinion I concurred.
When Mr. Douglas concluded to become a Presidential candidate, he broached a theory of constitutional interpretation for which he may have found some support in the Dred Scott Decision.
His theory was this: The Constitution so applies to the Territories that they must take places as States in the American Union, and the Constitution also requires Congress to accept the Territories as States, and with such institutions as the Territories, when on their way to Statehood, might choose to establish.
Hence it was, that in the article in reply to Mr. Douglas, I made this statement: "But now under the new political dispensation, these thirty million can have no opinion concerning the admission of States which may have established Catholicism, Mohammadanism, Polygamy or even Slavery."
I interrupt the course of my remarks to say that already in thePhilippines we are tolerating and supporting slavery and polygamy,and preparing the way for the organization of Catholic and MohammedanStates, and their admission into the American Union.
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 Constitution 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 anticipation, 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 institutions, 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 Constitution 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 institutions? 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 Constitution 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 Constitution 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 Constitution 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 Constitution 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 Constitution of its own force, applies to theTerritories, we refer to the parts that are applicable to theTerritories as distinguishable from the parts that relate to Statesexclusively. It is a provision of the Constitution 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 Constitution by the force of its own provisions is limited to thepeopleand States of the American Union." This is only a declaration that the Constitution does not apply to other states and communities. The wordpeopleincludes 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 Constitution, and as citizens they are put upon an equality with the citizens of the States. They are of thepeopleof the American Union, and as such they are under the Constitution 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 classes 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 Constitution, 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 entitled to the benign protection of this provision of the Constitution. 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 citizenship to the inhabitants of the Island and to assert 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 Constitution 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 assertion 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 Constitution 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 assertion 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 Constitution 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 title! you exclaim. I answer, What is it? A title to rule an unwilling, revolutionary people, who, at the time our title 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 substitute 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 title to Porto Rico and the Philippines is a good title, then that title can be exercised and enjoyed only in one of two ways under our Constitution 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 entitled 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 Constitution. 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 institutions, 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 institutions" which in his opinion are best adapted to their condition, instead of allowing them the freedom to choose their own institutions. Thus the President assumes authority to furnish systems of education and institutions 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 institutions of education and liberty. We are attempting through war to compel the Filipinos to accept American institutions 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 class. 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 institutions. 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 vassalage, 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- abasement 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 Essex.
Mr. Moody introduced two topics to the Essex 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 anticipated, 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 pass 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 Constitution of his country will not be less than it now is.
The speech of Mr. Moody, as it appears in theTranscriptof 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 Institute 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 Constitution, and in the exercise of those powers, and those only, which have been conferred upon Congress by the Constitution. 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 Constitution did not apply to them, was exercising powers not granted to him by virtue of his office.
The President is the creature of the Constitution, and his jurisdiction is measured and limited by the jurisdiction of the Constitution.
When the President asserts that the Philippine Islands are not under the Constitution, he admits that the Philippine Islands are not within his jurisdiction. If, on the other hand, the islands are within his jurisdiction, it follows that his right of jurisdiction over them must have come from the presence of the Constitution itself.
Let there be no misunderstanding upon one point. I claim that the Philippine Islands are under the Constitution and that the President may exercise in and over the islands whatever powers the Constitution and the laws may have placed in his hands.
I claim further that as a right on the part of the Filipinos, and as a policy of justice and wisdom on our part, we should relinquish our title, whatever it may be, and allow the Filipinos to enter upon the work of governing themselves.
The President sets up the doctrine that the islands are not under the Constitution and that they may be governed by him outside of all constitutional restraints. This is the usurpation that I have charged upon him, but not upon the Republican Party of former days. Upon the basis specified the charge remains. It is not an epithet. Let the charge be answered, or otherwise, let the President and the supporters of his policy abandon the doctrine that we can seize, hold and govern communities and peoples who are not within the jurisdiction of our Constitution and, who, consequently, are not subject to our laws.
I have said that the President and his supporters are imperialists. If the word is descriptive of a policy then the word is not an epithet.
In the passage that I have quoted from the speech of Mr. Moody he charges me in fact, if not in form of words, with a violation of my obligations to the Republican Party, and upon the ground that the party "has showered upon me every honor in its gift except the Presidency." The consideration that I have received from the Republican Party merits acknowledgment, and that I accord without reserve, but it cannot exact subserviency from me.
On public grounds I ask this question: Are those who may hold office under the leadership of a party, to be held by party discipline to the support of measures and policies which they condemn? Freedom of opinion and freedom of speech are of more value than public office. The movement for the reform of the civil service is, in its best aspect, but an attempt to rescue the body of office holders from the tyranny and discipline of party and of party leaders. Thus much upon public grounds, but, for myself, I shall not seek protection under a general policy.
Never for a moment from my early years did I entertain the thought that I would enter public life, or that I would continue in public life, as a pursuit or as a profession. Hence, it has happened that I have never asked for personal support at the hands of any, and hence it has happened that I have never solicited a nomination or an appointment from or through the Republican Party or any member of it.
In 1860, a majority of the delegates to the Congressional Convention in my district, favored my nomination, but not through any effort by me. I attended the Convention and placed in nomination Mr. Train, who had been in Congress one term.
Without any effort on my part I was nominated in 1862-'64-'66 and '68. No aid in money or otherwise was given by the State Committee or the National Committee. Following my nomination in each case the District Committee asked me for a contribution of one hundred dollars. On one occasion the committee sent me a return check of forty-two dollars and some cents with a statement that the full amount had not been expended. If contributions of money were made by others the fact was not communicated to me.
I became a candidate for the Senate upon a request signed by members of the Legislature. When the second contest was on, in 1877, I declined a call by a telegraphic message to visit Boston and confer with my friends who were anxious for my election. I was a member of the Peace Congress of 1861 and I received several other appointments from Governor Andrew, but without solicitation by me. At his request I went to Washington for a conference with Mr. Lincoln and General Scott. I reached the city by the first train that passed over the road from Annapolis. Again, at his request, I went to Washington the Monday following the battle of Bull Run.
I received two appointments from President Lincoln, when, in each case,I had no knowledge that the place existed.
From General Grant I received the offer of the Interior Department and then of the Treasury Department, both of which I declined. When General Grant had taken the responsibility of sending my name to the Senate, I had no alternative as a member of the Republican Party and as a friend to General Grant.
Upon the death of Mr. Folger, President Arthur asked me to take the office of Secretary of the Treasury. I was then concerned with the affairs of another government and I declined the appointment.
When General Garfield had been nominated at Chicago in 1880 the nomination of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency was placed in the hands of the friends of General Grant. That nomination was offered to me.
In the forty years from 1856 to 1896, I made speeches in behalf of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana and in no instance did I receive compensation for my services. When I spoke in Ohio my expenses were paid on all occasions but one. That was a volunteer visit. My acquaintance with the politicians of Ohio was agreeable from first to last.
In my many trips through New York it was understood that my expenses were to be paid. When General Arthur was at the head of the committee his checks exceeded the expenses, perhaps by a hundred per cent.
On one occasion the State Committee asked me to make six or eight speeches upon their appointment. That service I performed; whether my expenses were paid I cannot say. If they were paid it is the exception in Massachusetts, unless local expenses may have been met where addresses were made.
If a mercantile account current could be written, it might appear that my obligations to the Republican Party are not in excess of the obligations of the Republican Party to me.
From my experience as a member of the Republican Party I add an incident to what I have said already.
In the month of July, 1862, and at the request of President Lincoln and Secretary Chase, I entered upon the work of organizing the Internal Revenue Office. That work was continued without the interruption of Sabbaths or evenings, with a few exceptions only, till March, 1863, when, as was said by Mr. Chase, the office was larger than the entire Treasury had been at any time previous to 1861. It was the largest branch of government ever organized in historical times and set in motion in a single year. The system remains undisturbed. Such changes only have been made as were required by changes in the laws. In the thirty-eight years of its existence the Government has received through its agency the enormous sum of five thousand and five hundred million dollars being twice the amount of all the revenues of the Government previous to 1860.
I have thus devoted many minutes of your time to the questions raised byMr. Moody.
The nature and the extent of my obligations to the Republican Party and the question of my consistency in the construction that I have given to the Constitution of the United States, are not matters of grave concern for you. They have come into the field of discussion through the agency of Mr. Moody.
I come now to ask your attention to a view of your relations to passing events which concerns the county of Essex.
Your county has a distinguished history—distinguished for its men and for its part in public affairs. Shall the history that you are now making be consistent with that which you have inherited and which you cherish? I mention one name only among your great names and I bring before your minds one event only.
In the order of time and in the order of events, the second mostimportant paper in the annals of America is the "Ordinance for theGovernment of the Territory of the United States Northwest of theRiver Ohio."
The chief value of that ordinance is in the sixth article which is in these words: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
By repeated decisions the Supreme Court has held that the stipulations and terms of the ordinance remained in force after the adoption of the Constitution, unless a conflict should appear, and in such a case the ordinance would yield to the Constitution. As the article in regard to slavery was not controlled by the Constitution, the exclusion of slavery became the supreme and continuing law of the Territories and States that were organized in the vast region covered by the Ordinance of 1787, and it may be assumed, fairly, that the character and power of those States made possible the extermination of the institution of slavery in all parts of the country. The parties to the ordinance of 1787 may have builded better than they knew, but their work is one of the four great acts or events in the history of the Republic—The Declaration of Independence, the Ordinance of 1787, the Constitution, and the amendment abolishing the institution of slavery.
Nathan Dane of the county of Essex, was the author of the Ordinance of 1787; and he was a delegate in the Continental Congress from 1785 to 1788. Of all the eminent men that you have sent forth into the service of the State and the country, he must be accounted the chief, when we consider the value of his contribution, historically, and on the side of freedom and civilization. His fame is in your hands and I have come to ask you to consider whether the policy of President McKinley in the Philippines is in harmony with the Ordinance of 1787 and the amendment to the Constitution of 1865.
By the Ordinance of 1787, freedom and full right to self-government were made secure to the coming millions who were to occupy the States northwest of the River Ohio. By the amendment of 1865 freedom and equality in government were guaranteed to all and especially to the negro race in America.
Shall the avoidance of the Amendment in States of this Union be tendered as a reason for a denial of equality and the right of self-government in the Philippine Islands? If the negroes in America are entitled to freedom from a state of subserviency, are not the colored races in the Philippines entitled to freedom, and that whether they are under the Constitution or beyond its jurisdiction?
You are called to a choice between the doctrines of Nathan Dane and Abraham Lincoln on one side and the doctrines and policy of President McKinley and his supporters on the other side. The point I make is this: The three propositions cannot stand together. Dane and Lincoln are in harmony. They guaranteed equality and self-government to all. President McKinley and his supporters demand subserviency of all who are not within the lines of the American seas.
They assert supreme authority over their fellow-men for an indefinite period of time, and they promise therewith good government. Here are the assertion of power and the promise of goodness that have attended the origin and movement of every despotism that has risen to curse mankind.
That you may see, as in one view, the doctrines of Dane, Lincoln andMcKinley, I read again the records that they have made.
"There shall be neither slavery "The Philippines are ours and nor involuntary servitude in the American authority must be su- said territory otherwise than in the preme throughout the Archipelago. punishment of crimes whereof the There will be amnesty, broad and party shall have been duly liberal, but no abatement of our convicted."—NATHAN DANE. rights, no abandonment of our duty. There must be no scuttle "Neither slavery nor involuntary policy."—WILLIAM McKINLEY. servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall "The flag of the Republic now have been duly convicted, shall floats over these islands as an exist within the United States, or emblem of rightful sovereignty. any place subject to their Will the Republic stay and jurisdiction."—ABRAHAM LINCOLN. dispense to their inhabitants the blessings of liberty, education and free institutions, or steal away leaving them to anarchy or imperialism?"—WILLIAM McKINLEY.
"Any slave in the Archipelago of Jolo shall have the right to pur- chase freedom by paying to the master the usual market price.— Article 10, of the McKinley treaty with the Sultan of the Sulu Isles.
I leave three questions with you.
Is a vote for President McKinley and his policy in the PhilippineIslands a vote in harmony with the teachings and examples of NathanDane and Abraham Lincoln?
Is the policy of President McKinley consistent with the history of the county of Essex?
Shall your representative stand for Nathan Dane and Abraham Lincoln and Freedom, or for William McKinley and Despotism?
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