Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1899-01-19
HOlR on ExplIBIoH.


The cozstitutiona1 ~.
asis not my pnrpos course.
to discuss ths gensr1 - nr.tions
whieh affect any ae hi of SOW
He9eighits by the e5lz people
over the Philippine I4n ehich
has been o. may b pl pof | am
speaking today onI u " theory
Of constitutional iIl1 ><nfion
propeapasd 81 50 sens -
Connecticut. II at any time here
after the Senator shall seek to put
his theories into practice by reduc-
ing to subjecticn distant people,
dwelling in the Tropics, aliens in
blood, most of them Moslem in
faith, incapable to speak or CON-
prehend our language, or to read
or to write any language, to whom
the traditions and 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.
t.After all, am old fashioned
enough to think that our fathers,
who won the Revolution and who
framed the Constitution, were the
wisest builders of States the world
has yet seen. 1 think that they
knew where to seek for the best
lessons of experience, and they
knew how to lay down the rules
which should be the best guides for
their descendants. They did not
disdain to study ancient history.
They knew what caused the down.
fall of the mighty Roman Repnblic.
They read, as Chatham said he did,
the history of the freedom, of the
decay. and the enslavement of
Greece. They knew to what she
owed her glory aud to what she
owed her ruin. They learned from
her the doctrine that while there ia
IittIe else that d delksoef y can not
accomplish it can not rule over
yassal States or subject peoples
without bringing in the elements
of death into its own Constitution.
"The Americans have been aptly
called the Greeks of modern times.
The versatile, enterprising adven-
.tarous. Yankee has been likened to
the people Of Athens, who were of
the IOnian race, and the brave, con-
slant, infexible men of the South
to the brave, constant and inflex-
ible Sparta, whose people were Dor.
ians. There are two lessons our
fathers learned from the history of
Greece which they hoped their
children would remem berthe dam
ger of disunion and domestic strife
and an indulgence in the greed and
lust of empire.
81 hope not to weary the Senate
by reiteration. But this is the
greatest question, this question. of
the power and authority of our
Constitution ia this matter, had
almost said, that had been discuss
ed among mankind from the begin
ming of the Government. The ques-
tion is this : Have we the right,
as doubtless we have the physical
power, to enter upon the govern
ment of ten or twelve million sub
ject people without constitutional
restraint? OF that question the
Senator from Connecticut takes the
affirmative. And upon that ques-
ton desire to join issue.
Net Strict constructionist.
"Mr. President, | am no strict
coBstructionist. 1 am no alarmist.
1 believe this country to be o ma
tion, q sovereign nation. | believe
Congress to possess all the powers
which are necessary to accomplish
under the most generous and liberal
construction the great objects
which the men who framed the
Constitution and the people who
adopted it desired to accomplish by
its instrumentality. | was bred,
| might almost say | was born, in
the faith, which / inherited from
the men whose blood is in nv
veins, OF the party OF Hamilton and
Washington and Webster and Sum-
ner, and not in that Of Madison or
Calhoun or the strict construction
lists. The men By whose hands
Connecticut signed the Declaration
Of Independence, who in her behalf
helped frame the Constitution, who
represented her in either house of