sciously held and publicly announced, was therefore an act of detestable piracy, bringing shame and dishonor upon the whole nation.

The administration and the imperialist press have striven to convince our people that the Filipinos are responsible for the war. This is one of the lies that we must tell each other to save a last remnant of our self-respect. But it is nevertheless a lie with no mitigation. McKinley declared war in his Proclamation, and the Filipinos began hostilities. The feeble McKinley doubtless honestly hoped that they would honestly submit to his declaration that they were to be as a conquered and subject people to the United States, without the sad necessity of being obliged to forcibly conquer them. The subterfuge did not work. They had never acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States: for the United States to declare sovereignty was therefore for the United States to declare war.

After the "criminal aggression" of McKinley's proclamation that a state of virtual war already existed, that they must submit or be killed, there was nothing for them to do but to fight. And every true American who resents this dastardly aggression by the president upon a harmless race of barbarians, should be deeply thankful that they did fight, and must hope that our arms will not be able to subdue them. No honorable American can uphold the criminal attempt of American potentates to deprive a weak race of its liberty in the name of liberty. As liberty-loving American citizens it is our duty to uphold the Filipinos in their righteous and patriotic attempt to keep our yoke from falling on them.

3. All Our Rights Forfeited.

For those who hesitate at this let us examine the president's rights when he proclaimed honest submission or kind but firm death to the Filipinos. I. There was no technical, formal, legal, or constitutional sanction for his proclamation. 2. There would have been no right or

sanction for it if the peace treaty had been ratified when he issued it.

Let us first consider what rights we had in the Philippines before the treaty was approved, remembering that its subsequent approval was not retroactive, and could not lend legality to anything that was done before. Now whether we had any after its ratification, we certainly had no status of authority in the Philippines before that act. We were there purely as opponents of Spain. We were not there as conquerors of the Filipinos, but as conquerors of Spain; the Filipinos had helped us drive Spain out. When hostilities ceased the islands were not ours except by temporary occupation. They were not ours either legally or morally. Spain had not ceded them and we had not decided to accept or even ask for them. The only power in America that could make our request for them legal and binding, or accept them if offered, was the Senate, and that had not done so. The propositions drawn up by the Peace Commissioners at Paris were merely an arrangement by which the United States, acting through the Senate as ordered in the Constitution, could request or demand the islands of Spain if it saw fit. The Senate had not acted on the treaty and had consequently not even decided to ask for the Philippines. Our rights even technically were therefore nil.

A proclamation of sovereignty from the president when the whole question whether we should take or claim the islands was pending, was justified by nothing but the arbitrary will of that ruler. It was no less an outrage than if he should proclaim our sovereignty over Canada, Ireland or the British Indies. The act was an insult to Spain and a profligate attack upon the Filipinos.

Having issued this unlawful proclamation and so declared war on the Philippine Islanders, we forfeited all further claims over them excepting such as we might win by force if our challenge to war were taken up. After that proclamation the ratification of the treaty was a dead letter, for by our unlawful action all possibility of obtain

ing the Philippines legally or morally was lost. The question was now between us and them and was one of force. Of course if they chose to accept the position of a people conquered by us without being conquered, that was their business; but legally and morally they ought not to have accepted that humiliation, and they did not do so. The president's impudent aggression also deserved anything but success.

To recapitulate: as we now stand we have no rights in the Philippines and can obtain none except by brute force. We ruled ourselves out by McKinley's act of usurpation. Spain would have been justified in resenting that act had she been able, and Spain being unable the natives were justified. Until the acceptance of the treaty by both nations our policy in the Islands could be only provisional. If Spain finally approved the treaty she tansferred to us such rights of sovereignty in the Phillipines as she possessed.

4. Could Spain Sell Us Sovereignty?

The two questions that next arise are, How much sovereignty did Spain possess to cede? and, Whether, even if she had any actual sovereignty, her cession of it to us gave us any true or moral rights over the Islands.

According to the theory of national rights established by our revolution against England, Spain had no sovereignty in the Philippine Islands. Her yoke was arbitrarily imposed and maintained against their will. When there was a gleam of hope of success they resisted. There was certainly no moral sovereignty in this—it was merely the sovereignty of an overpowering brutality.

But now for the legal sovereignty. Spain was unable to conquer Cuba before the war with us had destroyed her fleets and crippled all her resources. After that disaster is there any cause to believe that Spain could have quelled the insurgent Filipinos? None whatever. The Filipinos had seized the opportunity of our Spanish war to strike another blow for freedom. After the war the

weakened Spaniards could no more have conquered them than they previously could conquer Cuba. Hence Spain had no lawful sovereignty in the Philippines. We may grant her the same supremacy there that she had in Cuba when we took up Cuba's cause, and we then denied that she had any rightful supremacy there. We began war to compel her to take her unrighteous hands away from that property to which she had lost all right. For the same reasons Spain had no sovereignty over the Philippines to sell or give away, wherefore we could buy none of her.

We, then, have entered into the same relation to the Philippines that Spain stood in to Cuba-the relation that caused us to declare a war of liberation. Who will declare war against us to liberate the Philippines? What great philanthropic Power, in response to the claims of humanity, will rise to this great moral crisis and command us to evacuate the territory that we are subduing to our new greed? Either our war for Cuba was unjust, or, on the principles which we invoked to justify it, we ought to be driven out of the Philippines. If we continue our present Spanish policy there we condemn our war against Spain as groundless and iniquitous.

We have the answer to our first question. Spain had no sovereignty in the Asiatic group to cede. She could grant a parchment claim-she could also have given away as much of Cuba as that any time these years back.

As to whether we could acquire a moral right to this territory by Spanish cession, our historical actions settled. that question beyond a peradventure long ago. When we declared our independence of England we announced the principle that a people who were dissatisfied with the rule of a nation claiming them as a colony might declare that rule null and void and ended, and that if they so declared, it was at an end. This principle declares that a nation cannot extend its authority over a people that declines its authority. We may now find it convenient to repudiate these doctrines-we are repudiating them—but

we cannot do it without in the same act overthrowing the foundations of our own national life, of our history, and of our freedom.

We may be perfectly confident that whatever we now do to these helpless Islands is making new precedent for ourselves, and that if we pull down the bulwarks of justice and freedom by which we have thus far protected our own liberties, those liberties at home will next fall, and domestic tyranny will take the place of the independence established by the blood and courage and magnanimity of our forefathers. The time has come to choose, and we must do so with clear knowledge that the fate of all we have loved most in America is in our choice. choose for the Filipinos we choose for ourselves. disregard their rights and liberties such is the stern retribution of nature's laws that it is upon our own necks we shall be placing the servile yoke.

5. Our Great Debt to the Filipinos.

As we

If we

There is no doubt of the direction we have taken thus far. Our course toward the Filipinos has been one of the utmost perfidy. We had faithfully announced to the whole world that we harbored no designs of conquest or aggrandizement in going to war with Spain. The Filipinos took us at our word and welcomed us as deliverers. By our own declaration-addressed nominally to Cuba but universal in its terms and promises—we were pledged to the Filipinos not to violently subjugate them to ourselves. It was on this pledge that they received us. If they had believed our promise to be a lie, as it turned out to be, what would their course have been! It is most certain that they would not have co-operated with us. They had no knowledge whatever of us—most of them had never heard that we exist-and they could have had no reason to think that our tyranny would be preferable to Spain's. They were seeking freedom, freedom from all alien rule. When they learned anything about us they must have learned that we were a stronger