The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-04-24
AN EXPANSIVE sUMMERsAULT.

rHE moral burden OF the expansionists, il they
! possess ordinary sensibility, be almost be-
] yond endurance To subsidize intelligence
in order to make the worse appear the better
is bad enough but deliberately perver the senti-
ments and even the expressions OF great statesmen
and 10 represent them holding opinions they uni
fornly repudiated will not admit even OF pallation.
A cogent example of this method of beling the
dead and the great of country is article in
issue OF the Chronicle directly inconsistent with
its former utterances on the topic, in which the
false Identification of Thomas Jefferson with the pres
doctrine OF expansion is repeated and he is also
falsely commended for having written sentences in
spect to Louisiana in which, simply because he did
mention and was not called upon to refer Them
he is treated having ignored and practically
ridden the constitution and the Declaration OF indie
pendence.
In the implications of this article any instructed
citizen well knows, there is not a single word OF truth
Thomas Jefferson was the chief author Of the Declara
ton OF independence. To the moment OF his death,
in all his published writings private official there
was not one line in which he suggested in any form
the government of men without their consent. He
close constructionist of the constitution, so
deeply convinced that it was, Mr.. Webster after
ward said, the palladium of our liberties, that even
as TO the contiguous necessary and almost unnhab-
tied territory of Louisiana in the very first of the
quotations published in the Chronicle he states that
IAN amendment to the constitution seems necessary
for this purchase"
To attempt to play upon the imaginary ignorance of
the people by placing Jefferson in the attitude Of
sanctoning the acquisition by force of arms Of
densely populated Asiatc territory not on this CONT
nent in condition to be converted into States,
is pos-mortem insult to the memory of one of the
national history by the common acquescence of man
kind upon concocted and spurious versions OF his
language and of his acts.
The disparagement of Jefferson is akin to the libel
upon William H Seward in the article to which we
have alluded In speaking of the protection ex-
tended to African slavery by the constitution, as it
existed before the Civil War, Mr.. Seward asserted
the existence of higher law-meanng simply that
slavery and freedom hostile to each other that
they could not permanently coexst. Mr.. Lincoln on
the point quoted the text that "a house divided
against itself will sand and declared that either
freedom or slavery must prevail Horace Greeley
Indignantly protested against the constitutional
foundation of the fugitive slave law and pronounced
ii "a covenant with hell" But he never denied that
there a covenant nor proposed to break it by
force otherwise than through the pressure of pub
lie opinion, expressed in amendment. None of
these men, OF the founders OF the Republican
party, none OF the great men Of the present gen
Grafton have pretended that the constitution did
bind every citizen that did not extend
every foot of territory acquired by the Government
Until now the Chronicle itself has opposed i'm
perial colonization and insisted that the Philippines
to be territoriay organized and that their in
habitants to become Asiatc fellow citizens
Truth, reason, precedent, sound policy, every ee-
of real and enduring prosperity, assailed by
the expansonists. But the people not fools, and
they can read between the lines. They fully compre-
bend the existing and urgent necessity of maintaining
their institutions they originally framed
and have been successfully applied.