There is an aspect of Mr. Lincoln's career, which must attract general attention and command universal sympathy. His loneliness in his office and in the performance of his duties is deeply pathetic. It is true that Congress accepted and endorsed his measures as they were presented from time to time, but there were bitter complaints on account of his delays on the slavery question, and not infrequently doubts were expressed as to the sincerity of his avowed opinions. There were little intrigues in Congress, and personal aspirations in the Cabinet in regard to the succession. Of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac from McDowell to Meade, each and all had failed to win victories, or they had failed to secure the reasonable advantages of victories won. There were divisions in the Cabinet which were aggravated by personal rivalries. On one occasion, leading Republican members of Congress engaged in a movement for a change in the Cabinet; a movement which was without a precedent and wholly destitute of justification under our system of government.

His want of faith in his Cabinet was shown in his preliminary statement when he proceeded to read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Mr. Lincoln was then about to take the most important step ever taken by a President of the United States and yet he informed the men, the only men whose opinions he could command by virtue of his office that the main question was not open for discussion; that the question had been by him already decided, and that suggestions from them would be received only in reference to the formalities of the document.

It may be the truth, and our estimation of Mr. Lincoln would not be lowered, if, indeed, it were shown to be the truth, that he chose to act upon his own judgment in a matter of the supremest gravity, and in which, from the nature of the case, the sole responsibility was upon him. On the great question of the abolition of slavery his mind reached a definite conclusion, a conclusion on which he could act, but neither too early nor too late. The Proclamation was issued at a moment when the exigencies of the war justified its issue as a military necessity, and when, as a concurrent fact, the public mind was first prepared to receive it, and to give to the measure the requisite support.

Mr. Lincoln prepared the way for the reorganization of the government. Under him the old order of things was overthrown and the introduction of a new order became possible. Through his agency the Constitution of the United States has been brought into harmony with the Declaration of Independence. The system of slavery has perished, the institutions of the country have been reconciled to the principles of freedom, and in these changes we have additional guarantees for the perpetuity of the Union.

A just eulogy of Mr. Lincoln is a continuing encomium of the Republican Party. By the election of 1860 he became the head of that party and during the four years and more of his official life he never claimed to be better nor wiser than the party with which he was identified. From first to last he had the full confidence of the army and of the masses of the voters in the Republican Party, and of that confidence Mr. Lincoln was always assured. Hence he was able to meet the aspirations of rivals and the censures of the disappointed with a good degree of composure. To the honor of the masses of the Republican Party it can be said that they never faltered in their devotion to the President and in that devotion and in the fidelity of the President to the principles of the party were the foundations laid on which the greatness of the country rests.

The measure of gratitude due to Mr. Lincoln and to the Republican Party may be estimated by a comparison of the condition of the country when he accepted power in March, 1861, with its condition in 1885, and in 1893, when we yielded the administration to the successors of the men who had well-nigh wrecked the Government in a former generation.

The Republican Party found the Union a mass of sand; it left it a structure of granite. It found the Union a by-word among the nations of the earth, it left it illustrious and envied, for the exhibition of warlike powers, for the development of our industrial and financial resources in times of peace, for the unwavering fidelity with which every pecuniary obligation was met; for the generous treatment measured out with an unstinted hand to the conquered foe; and, finally, for the cheerful recognition of the duty resting upon the Republican Party and upon the country to enfranchise, to raise up, to recreate the millions that had been brought out of bondage.

This work was not accomplished fully in Mr. Lincoln's time, but he was the leader of ideas and policies which could have no other consummation.

At the end it must be said of Mr. Lincoln that he was a great man, in a great place, burdened with great responsibilities, coupled with great opportunities, which he used for the benefit of his country and for the welfare of the human race. Among American statesmen he is conspicuously alone. From Washington to Grant he is separated by the absence on his part of military service and military renown. On the statesmanship side of his career, there is no one from Washington along the entire line who can be considered as the equal or the rival of Lincoln.

And we may wisely commit to other ages and perhaps to other lands the full discussion and final decision of the relative claims of Washington and Lincoln to the first place in the list of American statesmen.

XLIV SPEECH ON COLUMBUS

DELIVERED AT GROTON, MASS., OCTOBER 21, 1892

We celebrate this day as the anniversary of the discovery of the American continent.

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome. And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew."

Of these lines of Emerson, the last three are as true of Columbus, as of

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,"

for he, too,

"Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew."

And shall we therefore say that he is not worthy of praise, of tribute, of memorials, of anniversary days, of centennial years, of national and international gatherings and exhibitions, that in some degree mankind may illustrate and dignify, if they will, the events that have followed the opening of a new world to our advanced and advancing civilization?

In great deeds, in great events, in great names, there is a sort of immortality, an innate capacity for living, a tendency to growth, to expansion, and thus what was but of little comment in the beginning is seen, often after the lapse of years, possibly only after the lapse of centuries, to have been freighted with consequences whose value can only be measured by the yearly additions to the sum of human happiness.

Franklin's experiments in electricity were followed at once by the common lightning-rod, but a century passed before the electrical power was utilized, and made subservient, in some degree, to the control of men.

Every decade of three centuries has added to the greatness of that one immortal name in the literature of the whole English speaking race. The security for the world that the name of Shakespeare and the writings of Shakespeare cannot die may be found in the selfishness, the intelligent selfishness of mankind, which will struggle constantly to preserve and to magnify a possession which if once lost, could never be regained.

After four centuries of delay we have come to realize, with some degree of accuracy, the magnitude of the event called the Discovery of America. Identified with that event, and as its author, is the man Columbus. Involved in controversies while living, the object of the base passions of envy, hatred and jealousy, consigned finally to chains and to prison, and in death ignorant of the magnitude of the discovery that he had made, there seemed but slight basis for the conjecture that his name was destined to become the one immortal name in the annals of modern Italy and Spain.

As if accident and fate and the paltry ambitions of men had combined to rob Columbus of his just title to fame, the name of the double continent that he discovered was given to another. To that other the name remains, but the continent itself has become the continent of Columbus. In connection with the event no other name is known, and so it will ever be in all the centuries of the future.

In these years we are inaugurating a series of centennial anniversary celebrations in honor of Columbus, and in testimony of the importance of the discovery that he made. This we do as the greatest of the states that have arisen on the continent that he discovered, and I delay what I have to say of Columbus and of the discovery that I may express my regret and the reasons for my regret, that the celebration and the ceremonies have not been made distinctively and exclusively national. In this I do not disparage, on the other hand I exalt, the public spirit, the capacity for large undertakings, the will and the courage of the city and the citizens of Chicago in assuming burdens and responsibilities from which any other city on this continent would have shrunk.

My point is this: If the people and Government of the United States were of the opinion that the discovery of a continent—a continent in which one of the great governments of the world has found an abiding place—was worthy of a centennial celebration, then the conduct of the celebration ought not to have been left to the care of any community less than the whole. Nor is it an unworthy thought that something of dignity would have been added to the celebration if the nations of the earth could have been invited to the capital which bears the name of the discoverer of the continent and the founder of the Republic.

There are occasions which confer greatness upon an orator. Such are revolutionary periods, the overthrow of states, radical changes in a long-settled public policy, struggles for power, empire, dominion. These and kindred exigencies in the affairs of men and states, seem to create, or at least to furnish opportunity and scope for, statesmen, orators, poets and soldiers.

This peaceful ceremony in peaceful times, of which we now speak, will not produce orators like Patrick Henry and James Otis at the opening of our Revolutionary struggle, like Mirabeau in France, or Cicero in Rome, pleading for a dying republic, or Demosthenes in Athens contending hopelessly against the domination of one supreme will.

An orator for this occasion was not to have been waited for, he was to have been sought out and found if possible.

If Webster were living and in the fullness of his powers, the country might have looked to him for an oration that would have so linked itself with the anniversary that it would have been recognized in every succeeding centennial observance.

Turning from this thought, which at best, can only serve as a standard to which our hopes aspire, I venture the remark, that there is not one of our countrymen who, by the studies of his life, by the philosophical qualities of his mind, by the possession in some large measure of that Miltonian power of imagination which Webster exhibited, is qualified for the supreme task which I have thus imperfectly outlined.

For one day the rumor was voiced that Castelar of Spain had been invited to deliver the oration at the more formal opening of the exhibition in May next. That rumor has not been affirmed nor denied, but from the delay, we cannot hope that its verification is now possible.

Historical knowledge, due to long and laborious studies, and the spirit of historical inquiry, are not often found in the same person, combined with argumentative power and the quality of imagination stimulated by an emotional nature. From what we know of Emilio Castelar of Spain, it may be said that he possesses this rare combination in a degree beyond any other living man.

In the year 1856 when he was only twenty-four years of age, he was appointed, after a competitive contest, to the chair of philosophy and history in the University of Madrid. During his professorship, in addition to other work, he delivered lectures on the history of civilization.

The political disturbances, in which as a republican, he had taken an active part, led to his exile for four years, but upon his return to Spain he resumed his place in the University. In 1873 he was prime minister during the brief existence of the republic. Of his published works, the best known in this country is the volume entitled "Old Rome and New Italy." At present he is a member of the Cortes, where he gives support to the Government in its measures of administration without yielding his political principles or indorsing the monarchical system. If this country were to pass beyond its own limits in the selection of an orator, then, without question Spain has the first, and indeed, the only claim to consideration. Spain furnished the means for the expedition and the world is indebted to her enlightened patronage for the discovery. It may be assumed, reasonably, that Castelar would have brought from the archives of Spain fresh information in regard to the motives of Ferdinand and Isabella, trustworthy statements as to the character and conduct of Pinzon, the ally of Columbus, and at the end he might have been able to prove or disprove the theory that Columbus had knowledge of the existence of this continent, or that he had or had not reasons for believing that land in the west had been visited by Scandinavian voyagers in the tenth century.

As I pass to some more direct observations upon Columbus and the voyage of 1492, and to the expression of some thoughts as to the future of the country, I wish to say that I limit my criticism to our representative men, whose estimate of the importance of the anniversary was quite inadequate. They failed to see its connection with the past, its relations to what now is, and more important than all else they failed to realize that this celebration is the first of a long line of centennial celebrations, each one of which will mark the close of one epoch, and the beginning of another.

I cannot imagine that in a hundred years this anniversary, in its organization and conduct, will be thought worthy of imitation. Let us imagine, or rather indulge the hope that then all the States of the south and the north, from the Arctic Seas to Patagonia, will be united in a national and international celebration in recognition of an event that has increased twofold the possibilities, comfort and happiness of the human race.

Passing from these criticisms, at once and finally, it is yet true that in this centennial celebration the two Americas, Southern Europe and the Catholic churches throughout the world are united as one people, and for the moment differences in religion and diversities of race are forgotten. Italy was the birth-place of Columbus; Spain, after long years of doubt and vexatious delays lent its patronage to the scheme of the "adventurer" as he was called; and the church, of which Columbus was a devoted, and perhaps a devout disciple, bestowed its blessing upon those who staked their lives or their fortunes in the undertaking. It is not probable that Columbus looked to that posthumous fame of which he is now the subject. His vision and his hopes extended not beyond the possession of new lands where he might rule as a potentate and enjoy power; where Spain might found an empire, and where the church might establish its authority over millions of new converts. Spain gained new empires, and maintained her rule over them for three centuries and more; the church enlarged its power by the acquisition of half a continent, in which its ecclesiastical authority remains, even to the close of the nineteenth century. For a moment, and but for a moment in the annals of time, Columbus was permitted to realize the dream of his life. After a brief period, however, instead of place, power, gratitude, wealth, he was subjected to chains, and consigned to prison. Of the three great parties to the undertaking, Columbus alone, seemed to have been unsuccessful, but at the end of four centuries he reappears as the one personage to whom the gratitude of mankind is due for the discovery of the new world. Nor do we enter into any inquiry as to the manner of man that Columbus was on the moral side of his character. We know that he was an enthusiast, that he was richly endowed with the practical virtues of patience, of perseverance, of continuing fortitude under difficulties, and we know that neither Spain, nor the Church, nor Pinzon the ship-builder and capitalist, nor all of them together would have made the discovery when it was made. To Columbus they were essential, but without Columbus they were nothing.

To the wide domain of history may be left the inquiry as to the truth of his visit to Iceland in the preceding decade, his knowledge of the expeditions of the Scandinavian voyagers to Greenland and the coasts of New England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and his theories or beliefs concerning the spherical figure of the earth.

Whatever might have happened previous to the voyage from Palos, and whatever might have been the extent of Columbus' knowledge, the discovery of America for the purposes of settlement and civilization, was made by Columbus himself at eight o'clock in the evening of October 11, O. S., when he saw the shimmer of fire on the Island of San Salvador. That fact being established, the fact of the existence of land near by was established also. The sight of land at three o'clock next morning was not the discovery; it was evidence only of the reality of the discovery made by Columbus the evening before.

In these four hundred years the empires that Spain founded in the New World have slipped from her grasp; the church has lost its temporal power, but the fame of Columbus has spread more and more widely and his claims to the gratitude of mankind have been recognized more generally.

At the end of each coming century, and for many centuries, no one can foresay how many, millions on millions in the Americas and in Europe will unite in rendering tribute of praise to the enthusiast and adventurer whose limited ambitions for himself were never realized, but who opened to mankind the opportunity to found states freed from the domination of the church and churches freed from the domination of the state.

We do not deceive ourselves, when we claim for the United States the first place among the states on this continent. We are the first of American states in population, in wealth, in our system of public instruction, in our means of professional and technical education, in the application of science to the practical purposes of life, and finally, in experience and success in the business of government.

It should not be forgotten by any of us, nor should the fact be overlooked or neglected by the young that these results have been gained by the labors and sacrifices of our ancestors, and we should realize that the task of preserving what has been won, is the task that is imposed upon the generations as they succeed each other in the great drama of national life. Vain and useless are all conjectures as to the future. The coming century must bring great changes—equal, possibly, to those that have occurred since 1792. At that time our territory did not extend beyond the Mississippi River, our population was hardly four million, our national revenues were less than four million dollars annually, manufacturing industries had not gained a footing, for agricultural products there was no market, the trade in slaves from Africa was guaranteed in the Constitution, the thirteen States had not outgrown the disintegrating influence of the Confederation, the Post-Office Department was not organized, and the National Government was not respected for its power, justice or beneficence, of which the mass of people knew nothing.

In this century our territory has been enlarged fourfold, our population is eighteen times as great as it was in 1792, our revenues have been multiplied by a hundred, and the convertible wealth of the people has been increased in a greater ratio even. The railway, the telegraphic, the telephonic systems have been created. The dream of Shakespeare has been realized—we have put a girdle round about the Earth in forty minutes.

More than all else, and as the culmination of all else, we have demonstrated the practicability of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. All this has been made possible by and through a system of universal public education—a system which taxes the whole people, and educates the whole people in good learning, and in the cardinal virtues which adorn, dignify and elevate the individual man and furnish the only security for progressive, successful, illustrious national life.

This is the inheritance to which the generations before us are born. A great inheritance—a great inheritance of opportunity, a great inheritance of power, a great inheritance of responsibility, from which the coming generations are not to shrink.

XLV IMPERIALISM AS A PUBLIC POLICY

This paper is introduced upon two grounds mainly. It sets forth with a reasonable degree of fulness the views that I have entertained for three years in regard to President McKinley's policy in the acquisition and control of the islands in the Caribbean Sea and in the Pacific Ocean, and it presents a history of my relations to political movements through a long half century.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT SALEM, MASS., OCTOBER 18, 1900, IN REPLY TO A SPEECH MADE BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. MOODY, M. C.

A truthful statement that I have been inconsistent in the opinions that I have held and advocated upon questions of public concern, would not disturb me by day, nor consign me to sleepless nights.

It is now sixty years since I first held public office by the votes of my fellow-citizens. In that long period of time my opinions have undergone many changes. When I have had occasion to address my fellow- citizens upon public questions I have not reviewed my previous sayings through fear that some critic might arraign me for inconsistency.

I have considered only my present duty in relation to the questions immediately before me.

In the first ten or fifteen years of my manhood I accepted political economy as a cosmopolitan science and free trade as a wise policy for every country. My views in favor of free trade for the United States are set forth in printed articles, which are now accessible. They are at the service of the critics and of the advocates of free trade. Consistency is not always a virtue, and inconsistency is not always a vice. Even courts of justice change their rulings and holdings when they find themselves in error.

The Supreme Court of the United States has reversed its first decision in the cases that have arisen under the confiscation acts of 1862, and in other cases the court has qualified its opinions from time to time. This authority is valuable as proving or as tending to prove, that inconsistencies in opinion may be consistent with integrity of purpose.

An attempt to change the issue while the trial is going on is not infrequently the weak device of misguided advocates who happen to be charged with the care of weak cases.

It is now twenty years of more since I appeared before Judge Endicott of your city in a cause between a trustee and the cestui que trust. 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 the Philippines we are tolerating and supporting slavery and polygamy, and preparing the way for the organization of Catholic and Mohammedan States, 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 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 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 the people and States of the American Union." This is only a declaration that the Constitution 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 Constitution, 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 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 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 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 by Mr. 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 most important paper in the annals of America is the "Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River 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 and McKinley, 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 Philippine Islands a vote in harmony with the teachings and examples of Nathan Dane 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?

THE END

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