The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-10
His Great Reply to
Senator Platt
AGAINST EXPANSION
No Constitutional Right to
Acquire Foreign Territory.


the. Senate yesterday a carefully pre-
pared speech on the acquisition of ter
ritory, in which he replied to an address
recently delivered in the Senate by Mr..
PIatt of Connecticut. The basis of the
speech was the Vest resolution, read
ing as follows;
Resolved by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of
America, in congress assembled, that I'M
der the constitution of the United States,
no power is given to the federal govern
ment to acquire territory to be held and
Soverned permanently as colonies
The colonial system of European ma
tions cannot be established under our
present constitution but all territory ac-
quired by the government, except such
small amount as may be necessary Tor
coaling stations, correction of boundaries
and similar governmental purposes, must
be acquired and governed with the pur-
pose of ultimately organizing such terri
tory into states suitable for admission
into the Union
MI. Hoar said;
Mr.. President: | am quite sure that
no man who will hear or who will read
what ! say today will doubt that moth
ing could induce me to say il but a
commanding sense of public duty. |
differ from men with whom l have so
long and so constantly agreed. | dis
like to differ from the president. whose
election l hailed with such personal
Satisfaction and such eXultine antici-
pations for the republic | dislike to
differ from so many of my party assO-
cfates in this chamber, with whom I
q have for so many years tr0d the same
path and sought the same goal ! am
one of those men who believe that lit
tie that is great or good or permanent
for free people can be accomplished
- without the fundamentally of party.
And 1 have believed religiously, and
from my soul, for half a century. in
the great doctrines and principles of the
republican party. | stood in a humble
capacity by its cradle. I do not mean.
II can help it, to follow its hearse.
am sure ! render it a service: / am sure
l help to protect and to pr0long the life
of that great organization. if I can say
or can do anything TO keep it from for
saking the great principles and doc
trines in watch alone it must live or
bear no life, | must, in this great
crisis, discharge the trust my beloved
commonwealth has committed to ME
according to my sense of duty as l see
1t. However unpleasant may be that
duty, as Martin Luther said, God help
me. L can do no otherwise.
| am to speak for my country. for its
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 doctrine Of constitutional liberty
] am to speak for the dead soldier who
gave his life for liberty, that his death
might set a seal upon his country's his
toric glory. | am to speak for the re-
publican party, all of whose great ira
ditions are at stake, and all of whose
great 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 re-
public is founded. If during thirty years
service within these walls. or during
nrty years of constant active, and alb
sorbed interest in public affairs, there
mas ever come from my lips an utter
ance showing lack of faith in the peo-
pie, in the republic, in country, in lib
erty, or in the future, let them be silent
now. l thank God that if I have no
other Christian virtue, 1 have at least
IN the fullest measure that which
stands as the central figure in the
mighty group which the apostle says is
forever to abide-Hope. l thank Col
that as my eyes grow dim they look out
on fairer country, better people.
brighter future
have in my humble way. poor
enough know, but it was my best, de-
fended the character of the American
people, their capacity for self govern
ment, the character of the great legisla-
live bodies through which that govern
mont is exercised, whenever and bv
wnomsoeVer assailed. | do not .distrust
them now But the strongest frame
may get mortal sickness from one ex-
posure' the most vigorous health or life
may be destroyed by a single drop Of
poison, and what poison is to the hu-
man frame the abandonment of our
great doctrine of liberty will be to the
republic.
1t is not my purpose, Of course. to
discuss the general considerations
which affect any acquisition of SOW
ereignty by the American people over
the Philippine Islands, which has been
or may be proposed. l am speaking to-
oay only OF the theory of constitutional
Interpretation propounded by the SEN
atGr from Connecticut. If at any time
hereafter the senator shall seek to put
ms theories into practice by reducing
10 subsection a distant people dwell
ing in the tropics, aliens in blood. most
OF them Moslem in faith, incapable to
speak or comprehend our language or
10 read or to write any language to
whom the traditions and the doctrines
ef civil liberty are unknown, il will be
Tune TO point out what terrible results
ana penalties this departure from our
constitutional principles will bring
upon us.
After all, l am old-fashioned enough
TO think that our fathers, who won the
revolution and who framed the consti-
tuition, We're the wisest builders of
states the world has yet seen. 1 think
that they knew where 70 seek for the
best lessons of experience and they
knew how to lay down the rites which
should be the best guides for their
descendants. They did not disdain to
study ancient history. They knew what
caused the downfall Of the mighty
Roman republic. They read as Chat
ham said he did, the history Of the
freedom, of the decay and the enslave-
ment of Greece. They knew to what
she owed her glory and to what she
owed her ruin. They learned from her
the doctrine that while there is little
else that a democracy cannot accom-
plish ii cannot rule over Vassal states
or subject peoples without bringing i'm
the elements. Of death into it's own con-
stitution. The Americans have been
aptly called the Greeks of modern
times. The versatile, enterpiisng. adj
Venturous Yankee has been likened to
the people Of Athens, VINO were Of the
.Ionian race, and the brave, constant,
innexible men of the south to the brave
constant and infexible Sparta whose
people were Dorians.
There are two lessons our fathers
learned from the history OF Greece
which they hoped their children would
renember-the danger OF disunion and
domestic strife and an indulgence in
the greed and lust of empire. The
Greeks stood together against the pow
er of Persia as the American states
stood together against the tyranny of
England. For us the danger Of dis
union has happily passed by. Oi~
Athenians and our Spartans are bound
and welded together again, each lend
ing 70 the other the strength of their