The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-09-15
OUR TROPICAL COLONIES.

The United States has other business than opening
kindergarten in the tropics to train eighteen mil
lions of mongres Malays, pirates and. cutthroats in
the ways of sef-government
One reads the several propositions made by the
imperalists with amazement
1t is proposed that we take all these tropical
islands and either trade them off or hold them de-
tendencies This raises the question of what sort of
government we have, what its powers and whence
their derivation?
The constitution creates this government, and
only one kind of government and grants all of the
powers and functions it exercise. Our govern
ment cannot govern anywhere except in the exercise
OF the granted powers given to it by the constitution.
1t has power given it to administer dependencies,
to send civil and military Governors to conquered
provinces, to hold them indefinitely subject to our
government and without voice representation. The
constitution gives Our government power to admit
States into the Union. 1t grants no other power
to enlarge borders, hold distant dependencies
to trade them off other countries regardless of
the cries of the people This is republican govern
ment which derives its powers and all of its powers
from the consent of the governed for which the con
stitution provides by giving the people the franchise
1t cannot govern democratically at home and auto
cratically abroad. 1t exercise over seventy
eight millions of people the powers granted to it by
OF people in the tropics powers not granted to it by
the constitution 1t be constitutional gov
eminent in place and unconstitutional govern
ment in another place.
We that derivation of the powers pro-
posed to be exercised asserted in what is known as
the general welfare" clause of the constitution
which recites that Congress shall provide for paying
the debts of the United States, dispose of its prop
erty and provide for the general welfare But up to
this time latitudinaran in construction has ever
pretended that these things may be done in any
manner repugnant to the powers granted in the sub
sequent clauses. For instance Congress can only
pay me debts of the United States by levyng taxes
on the people in the manner granted to it. 1t can
not pay them by conhscaton, by seizure of the pub
lie property Of the States nor by levying unequal
taxes.
AS for the general welfare, suppose, under this new
construction, Congress should decide that the gen
era welfare required the erection of monarchy, or
annexation to Russia or the division of the country
into two more nations, why can it not be done
that clause give to Congress powers not limited by
the constitution itself?
The men who made the constitution had recently
revolted against the exercise them by the Eng
ish Government OF powers not given to it by the
unwrltten constitution of England That constitution
consists OF principles with their radix in Magma
Charta in the habeas corpus act and the other ma
tonal expressions which entrench the rights of man
and limit the powers of government Because the
application OF these principles the American colo
MES was refused they took up arms and founded
nation based on the consent of the governed Hay-
ing endured the evils of colonial government hav-
ing been taxed without representation they did not
confer upon the government they made the power
to inict the same wrongs upon others against which
they had revolted. They avoided comforting upon
the United States any power to hold dependencies
under extraconstitutional authority. They limited
the powers OF this government by grant, not by de-
NAL; by affirmation, not by negation. Having in
detail rected in the constitution the powers to be ex
ercsed by the government, they made the system
perfectly plain by the clause: "Al powers not herein
granted to the United States are reserved to the
States or the people thereof"
These reserved powers in the possession of the
States are then defined by negation by prohibition
The constitution recites specifically what the States
shall not do; so system created in which the
United States shall do what is not granted to it
and the States shall not do what is prohibited to
them Nowhere in it is there line on which to base
the proposed imperial colonial policy. ---
Men are in the habit of pointing to the success Of
Great Britain in governing the crown colonies con-
sisting Of many She can do this without viola
ton of the principles which compose her unwritten
constitution Our foreathers were born subjects of
Great Britain, with birthrght in the English con-
stitution, upon which they based their demand for
extension of its principles to them The alien popua-
ton OF most OF the crown colonies had that BIRTH
right, and the Dominion of Canada and the Australian
and New Zealand colonies make no contribution to
the imperial budget The difference between the
English constitution and is organic, frnda-
mental, in that derives its principles from the
Declaration of Independence and grants specifically
the powers necessary to carry them into effect
This statement of the principles of constitution
will be tolerated by our readers, since they in
terested in government according to the constitu-
ton which is the only security of their rights of per-
son and property.
The application of this statement will follow, de-
veloping the only way in which this government can
govern in the proposed tropical colonies
SENTENCES HIMSELF TO DEFEAT.