The age-herald., 1899-01-10
The Massachusetts Senator Speaks
 Against Expansion.
CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENT
Maintains That Is Contrary to the Spirit of the Declaration of Independence to Appropriate Lands Whose Citi- zenS Are Hostile Toward the United States
 -PIatt Replies to the Speech

Washington, January 9.-This proved to be an interesting day in the senate, the prin- cipal subject under discussion being the constitutional right of the United States to carry into effect the policy of expansion. T ne leading speaker was MT. Hoar (rep) of Massa achusetts, who delivered a speech in support of the resolution introduced by MT. Vest (dem.) of Missouri, declaring it to be in opposition to the constitution for this country to acquire foreign territory to be governed permanently as colonies. MT. Hoar was accorded the unusual compl- ment of close and undivided attention by his colleagues on the floor and a large audi ence in the galleries. He maintained that it was in violation of the constitution and the declaration of independence, "the great expounder of the constitution" for this country to acquire foreign territory to be held and governed as colonies.
 MT. Caffery concluded his speech in oppo- sition to the Nicaragua canal bill, but an effort to fix time for a vote upon it failed. The senate had not been long in session when Mr Hoar called up the Vest reso- lution and began his speech against ex- pansion.
 
 of the United States entering upon ex- pansion of it's territory, except in a general and indirect manner, MT. Hoar entered upon a discussion of the constitutional phases of the question involved in the reso- lution under consideration, prefacing his gument with a statement of his personal position the subject.
 Mir. Hoar's Speech
 "I am quite sure," said he in beginning. 'that no man who will hear what l say today will doubt that anyth ng could n- duce me to say it but commanding sense of public duty. l dislike to differ from the president, whose election I hailed with such personal satisfaction and such ex- ulting anticipations for the republic. l dislike to differ from so many of my party associates in this chamber with whom I have for so many years trod the same path and sought the same goal. l am one of those men who believe that little that is great or good or permanent for free peo- pie can be accomplished without this n- strumentality or party. And l believed religiously, in the great doctrines and prn- cipies of the republican party. SI stood in humble capacity by it's cradle. 1 do not mean if l can help it. to follow it's hearse. I am sure to protect and prolong the life
 
 do anything to keep it from forsaking the great principles and doctrines in which alone it must live or bear no life.
 Spoke for Ills Country
 q am to speak for my country, for it's whole past and for its whole future. I am to speak to a people whose fate is bound up in the preservation of our great doc Urine of constitutional liberty. l am to speak for the dead soldier, who gave his fa fnr ,iobt n seal upon his country's historic glory. to speak for the republican party, all of whose great traditions are at stake and all of whose achievements are in peril.
 "Certainly, Mr. President, no man can ever justly charge me with a lack of faith in my countrymen or a lack of faith in the principles on which the republic is founded. l have in the fullest measure that which stands as the central figure in the m ghty group which the apostle says is forever to abide-hope. I thank God that as my eyes grow dim they look out on a fairer country, better people, brighter future. ''It is not my purpose, of course to dis cuss the general considerations which af- feet any acquisition of sovereignty by the American people over the Philippine islands which has or may be proposed. l am speak ing today only of the theory of constitu- tional interpretation propounded by the sen- ator from Connecticut (Mr. Plato. If at any time hereafter the senator shall seek to put his theories into practice by reducing to subjection a distant people dwelling in the tropics, aliens in blood, most of them Moslem in faith, incapable to speak comprehend our language, to whom the tra- dltions and the doctrines of civil liberty are unknown, it will be time to point out what terrible results and penalties this departure from our constitutional principles will bring upon us.''
 Wise Builders of State
 Mir. Hoar said that our fathers who framed the constitution were the wisest builders of states the world has yet seen. They had studied ancient history and had learned that while there is little else that a democracy cannot accomplish, 1t cannot rule over vast states or subject peoples without bringing the elements of death into it's own constitution. Our fathers, he said, learned two lessons from the history of Greece-the danger of disunion and domes- tic strife and indulgence in the greed and lust of empire, and he hoped we might avert the latter danger as we had aversed the former. In this connection he quoted Pro- lessor Greasy as saying in his Fifteen De- cisive Battles of the World: There has never been republic yet in history that acquired dominion over another nation that did not rule it selfshly and progressively. There is no single exception to this rule either in ancient or modern times.
 "L hope not to weary the senate by re- iteration," said MT. Hoar, in concluding his preface, but this is the greatest question, of the power and authority of our consti- tuition in this matter. I had almost said that it had been discussed among man. kind from the beginning of time. Certainly 1t is the greatest question ever discussed in this chamber from the beginning of the government"
 MT. Hoar believed he said, this country to be nation-a sovereign nation. He he- lieved congress possessed all the powers necessary to accomplish the great objects