The record-union., 1899-04-08
THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.

It is to be replied to Senator Hoar's
latest effusion upon the Philippine ques-
ton that he misapprehends the declara-
tons of the fathers concerning the
ity. The author of the declaration,
when he wrote, was a lave-holder, and
so remained to his death He did not
declare that the right to liberty ex-
all the same.
Mr.. Jefferson. in pronouncing the
right of men to freedom, did not say
that it included the right to vote, nor
the right to citizenship. Both We're rec
ognized by him as privileges, to be ex-
ercised and enjoyed only under certain
restrictions. All men are not born with
the equal right to politically govern,
says the "Oregonian," and that is put
ting the question into a nutshell
The Filipinos have the right to free
don, and all liberty under law-but al
ways under law, its clear restrictions
and its well-defined metes and bounds
For without restrictions. safeguards
exceptions, penalties and bounds, lib
erty is simply license, which inevitably
degenerates into anarchy
The savages of our plains had perfect
liberty until our law demanded of them
certain obedience to orderly regulation
and racrec+ for tho r;orb+~ of 1;fo o,5
property. When they denied these we
made war upon them, and will do so
again if the necessity for it arises.
The liberty of the Apache gave him,
when he was supreme, power to bore
out the eyes of his prisoners, to perfor-
ate them with hot irons, and to use
his victims as targets for the practice
Of his young bowmen But it will
scarcely be contended that he demand
ed more under unrestrained freedom
than does Aguinaldo, who ties Amer
lean surgeons, snatched from their off,
ces of mercy, to convenient trees, dis
lemboweis them and then tortures them
until life is extinct .@&s
Aguinaldo and the Apache alike
claimed that the consent of the gov
erned had not been obtained when re-
straint was imposed by arms upon
them. Nevertheless civilization always
has and always will impose it, consent
or no consent. No one would have ven
tured to suggest that the Apache
should have been left to establish a
government for himself We knew well
enough what that would have meant.
So, too, we know perfectly we'll what
sort of a free Government the Malays
Iof Luzon who still cling to Aguinaldo's
standard, would set up.
The "Oregonian'' well says, in pur-
suing this now much debated subject
raised by the contention of Senator
Hoar:
Our limitations of the suffrage by
property, or poll tax. by sex or color, is
complete answer to Senator Hoar's
rhetoric. This Senator Hoar has over
and over again voted for legislati ton in
Congress in regard 10 the Indian
tribes that was a complete confession
that we have always governed without
the consent of all the governed. The
world has never yet been governed by
phrases, and never viii be. The tools
belong to those who can use them, and
no plea Of absaract rights to birth
place, a den, or a lair. will ever deter
civilization from making the wilderness
blossom like the rose, without the con-
sent of the human or inhuman wild
beasts that inhabit it. If the worlds
progress had waited to consider the alb
stract right of wild beasts and wild men.
to their forests, our city of:Washington
would to-day be the wigwam of the
Susquehannas, Chicago the grand lodge