Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-01-09
MR.HOAR'SARGUMENT
No Constitutional Power to Acquire
Colonies.
OF THE DECLARATION OF '76
Should Not Seize Control of Another
People.
RESPECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

| Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts
| delivered a carefully prepared speech in
| the Senate this afternoon, with the view of
showing that the government was without
| power, under the Constitution, to acquire
| and hold territory as colonies or dependen-
! cles. The resolution under consideration
| was:
| Resolved, by the Senate and House of
| Represe natives of the United States of
, America iE Congress assembled, That under
J the Constitution of the United States no
power is given to the federal government
to acquire territory to be held and gov
| erned permanently as colonies.
| THE colonial system of European nauorss
| cannot be established under present
| Constitution, but all territory acquired by
the government, except such small amount
| as may be necessary for coaling stations,
! correction of boundaries, and similar gov
ernmental purposes, must be acquired and
| governed with the purpose of ultimately
| organizing such territory into states suit
able for admission into the Cnlon.
Mr.. Hoar said:
Mr. President: l am quite sure that no
! man who will hear or who will read what l
| say today will doubt that nothing could in
| duce to say it but a commanding sense
of public duty. 1 think I dislike more than
| most men to differ from m n with whom l
have so long and so constantly agreed. L
dislike to differ from the President, whose
election l hailed with such personal salts
faction and such exulting antcipationS for
the republic. l dislike to differ from so
many of my party associates in this cham
Der, with whom l 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 perma-
nent for free people can be accomplished
without the inStrumentality OF party. And
I nav ha1io ra1i
soul, for half a century, in the great doc
trines and principles of the republican
party. | stood in a humble capacity by its
cradle. / do not maan if l can help 1t, to
follow it's hearse. 1 am sure 1 render it a
service; l am sure l help to protect and to
prolong the life of that great organization,
if l can say or can do anything to keep it
from forsaking the great principles and
doctrines in which alone it must live or
bear no life. l must, in this great crisis,
discharge the trust my beloved common
| wealth has committed to me according to
nv sense of duty as | see it. However ur-
pleasant may be that duty, as Martin
Luther said, God help me, can do no
otherwise
There are said Mr.; Hoar. two les
sons our fathers learned from the history
of Greece, which they hoped their children
would remember-the danger of disunion
and domestic strife and an Indulgence in
the greed and lust of empire.
Mr. HOar, after declaring himself no
strict constructonist of the Constitution,
proceeded to reply TO the statements made
by Senator Platt of Connecticut, fol-
lows:
Mr.. Hoar's Stand on the Constitution.
The senator from Connecticut says AS
to every matter the United States as a ma
ton possesses sovereign power, except only
where sovereignty has been reserved to the
states and the people
He says again: AS nation it possesses
every sovereign power not reserved in its
! Constitution to the states or to the people.
| The right to acquire territory was not re-
served and is therefore an inherent, SOW
ereign right. In the right to acquire terri
tory is found the right to govern ii. and
as the right to acquire is z sovereign, IN
| herent right, the right to govern is a SOW
ereign right not limited in the Constitu-
ton
He says again: "A sovereign right can
not be limited
He would like any senator to point out
to him the language in which the Consti-
tuition places any limit upon a sovereign
inherent power, or prescribes the mode and
manner in which it would be exercised
Now, Mr.. President, these propositions
of the senator from Connecticut | deny. |
deny them, not as strict constructonist,
but as liberal constructionist; not as a
states rights man. but as federaiist;
not a disciple of Madison or Calhoun
but as a disciple of Alexander Hamilton
| and Daniel Webster and Charles Sumner
Il. ! affirm that every constitutional
ereisnty or of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of which
phrases is found in terms in the Constitu-
uon-or whether 1t be d power expressly
declared and named therein, is limited to
the one supreme and controlling purpose
declared as that for which the Constitution
itself was framed: In order to form more
perfect union, establish justice, insure DO
nestle tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and to our posterity. Now, the liberal
cGn is &c claim that everything
which Is done TO accomplish either of these
purposes, unless expressly prohibited NAV
be cOnstitutionaly done by the Iawmaiting
power. Ana in that agree with them.
The strict constructionist claims and has
claimed from the time of Madisou that
these objects can only be ACCOMPLISHED
after ways and fashions expressly described
in the Constitution or necessa riIv imr,Iie1
there1n And in that ] disagree with him
But when the senator from Connecticut
undertakes to declare that we may do such
| th.ngs not for the perfect union, the com
mon defense. the general welfare of the
people of the United States or the secur-
! ing of liberty to ourselves and our chill
dren but for any fancied real Cbliga-
ton to tai Ike care of distant peoples be-
yond our boundaries, not people of the
| United States, then / deny his proposition
and tell him he can find nothing either
| in the text of the Constitution or the ex-
| position of the fathers, or the Judgments of
| courts from that day to this, to warrant or
support his doctrine
| urlhef, the nrSt article of the COnSti-
! tuition declares: All legislative powers here
! In granted Shall be vested in a Congress of
| the United States What becomes in the
| light of that language, of the senator's re-
| peated assertion that powers not denied
may be so exercised? Is not legislative
power power of sovereignty? Therefore,
| according to the senator's logic, every
| power of legislation that any foreign gov
| ernment-legislative, constitutional, limit ed
| or despotic-may exercise may be exercised
| by us. We have heard of limited monar-
| chies constitutional monarchies, despotisms
| tempered by assassination; but the logic of
| the senator from Connecticut makes a pure
! unlimited untempered despotism without
| any relief from assaSsins.
! Distribution of Powers
! Il repeat, Mr.. President the first article
| or the Constitution section 1, SAYS: All
| legislative powers herein granted shall be
vested in Congress of the United States
So, certainly, there are legislative powers
that are not herein granted All legisla-
| tive powers are powers of sovereignty. So
| the senator's whole argument Seems to me
| to topple over when the first article of the
| Constitution is Ruf