The San Francisco call., 1899-03-05

( OdIl. L our correspondent, aeHTS
James, in The Call of last Sunday, dis
putes the soundness of my opposition
to expansion in Asia. May I trespass
on your space to the extent Of a reply?
Mr.. James does not contend that the
acquisition of the Philippines, either as
a colony or as national territory, is
within the terms or the implications of
the Federal constitution. Following the
! lead of Sir Boyle Roche in the Irish
Parliament, in referenceAto the unwrit
ten British constitution, Nhe recognizes
the conflict but coolly brushes the en-
tire instrument aside. THE constitu-
tion," he tells us, was formed under
stress Of circumstances which have
passed away, to meet the requirements
of people who have long been dust.
Wise and glorious as the document is
l do not see how it could at that time
have been so contrived as to fill the
needs of generations then unborn-to
deal with situations of which no states
man had the remotest dream" If this
be true then the constitution has been
'outgrown," and 1t would be interesting
to ascertain under what form of gov
ernment we live. The preamble says
that the constitution is ordained and
established, among other things, ''to
secure the blessings of liberty TO our
selves and our posterity." For one hun
dred and twelve years the American
people have supposed that our Federal
Government was a constitutional re-
public. The Civil War was waged upon
the theory that the more perfect
union" established by the constitution
could not be disrupted at the will of
one or more of the States, and that Sc
Cession had no legal justification.
The first official act of this Govern
ment, of which l am aware, that not
only disregarded the terms of the con-
stitution but the Declaration of Inde-
pendence was the acceptance of the
claim of Spain TO the Philippines, after
she had been diSpOSSeSSed, as Vesung
title in the United States and transfer
ring to US the allegiance of the Fflipi-
nos the natives, and in the substantial
occupation of the country. During our
Revolutionary War the rights of the in
habitants of the thirteen colonies to
government by their own consent, to
the cOrrelatives of taxation and repre-
Sentation, and to the enjoyment of life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
in their own way, were not only main
tanned by themselves on the land and
on the sea, but, in the face OF King
George and his ministry, with Lord
North as Premier, were proclaimed IN
the British Parliament by Chatham and
bv Burke whose devotion to liberty has
been wrought into the American mind
by our common schools and celebrated
on Independence Day in every state and
Territory of the Union. These are the
rights that were entrenched IN the FED
eral constitution and the soleclsm or
acknowledging them as inherent in
the whites and yet denying them TO the
blacks was the real cause of the blood
lest internal struggle that ever con-
vuIsed a nation. When that struggle
ended, with the preservation OF the
Union under the constitution, now nap
PLY cemented by the concurrence or
the whole people, it was our proudest
boast that in this continental repuDllc
freedom, equality before the law and
the representative principle existed IN
absolute uniformity, and that Wherever
the constitution extended and the nag
waved the sovereignty OF man, without
~distinction of color or race, was an ac-
complished and an unalterable fact:
The miserable pretense of some llloglcdl
expanSiOniSts that holding Wlthln the
Union our fellow citizens OF the South
against their temporary VIII Is a pre-
cedent for the coercion of ten mlll1ons
of alien FilipinOs into the acceptance
of our control is the use OF talse an
alogy that any school boy can expose
and could be employed to JUSTIFY the
arbitrary enforcement of our rule upon
Gus. upon the face of the glooe. 30
nonstrous a doctrine would convert our
Government into the freebooter Oh ma
tfons and would establish a tyranny,
resting on militarism, more lntoleraple
than any despotism that history mas
condemned ,
ment of the United States, most erect
ualIy proved by the statistics OF 1888,
has surpassed all the achievements or
the past And yet this is the lnStru-
ment that Mr.. James declares TO nave
been formed under the stress OF CIR
curns+ances" and to be impotent TO
meet the needs of generations then un-
horn or ito deal with situations, LOT
example. such as the snort war Win
Snain has produced. Like all otner eH-
pansionists of the present lmperlaIlstlc
fails 10 perceive the distinction between
iTnn,itab Bile principles and varying con-
ditionS The moral law is not penaI
code. but it has remained the Sdllie
since the days of Moses. Inc ArneTi-
cor constitution is not legislative Ql-
pest but a grant of power adapted TO
tba combined necessities of natlon,
and resting upon fixed principles thal
are as eternal as the soul OF man. II
the Declaration of independence was
not a tissue of falsehoods 1t apples aS
inexorably to the Ffltp1nos IN ASIA as
Kine George had no right TO lombard
the heroes of the Revolution into SUD
mission to his arbitrary authority Iifl tnen
we have no right to dominate the FIJI
pinos by shot and by shell. Indeed
the attitude of King George was more
nIausible than our own, because the
tbirtaen colonies sprang from British
stock and had been for generations
under the dominion of the British
crown. whereas the Filipinos are alien
to MS in race, in history and in govern
and the only pTeteff tbt PbpPnes M9 haes fGg @
tho+ We purchased them from Spain,
against whose authority, in exact cor,
respondence with our own political
theory. the Filipinos had persistently
rebelled. If the expansionists are right
the founders of this republic were
wrong and our constitutional system
ehouId be replaced by British expedi-
ency, that protects liberty at home and
administers Imperialism abroad.
But if it be true that our constitution
&c TOO circumscribed for the conditions
with which we are now confronted