The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-30

oAAtRAJ tQAltE " taot tO dt tAkttffA I StE3 t&t< facts of history, when It declares as it now does that there are peoples and tribes that are not equal % she white man. and that there are peoples who are not equal to the task of self-Kov- ernment, as we understand 1t. MT. Lodge, a Republican leader. some twelve or fourteen months ago demon strated in the Senate from history the falsity of both the basic propositions for which his party had contended m 1860. He showed that the Declaration of Independence in speaking of all just governments as founded on the consent of the governed, did not apply and was not intended to apply, to negroes or to Indians. and that It did not apply tp many other classes of peoples who were in the colonies when the Declaration was promulgated.
 It occurred to me that Southern neo- pie ought Cat once to have) con- graduated MT. Lodge. saying. We re- joice, sir, that you have. even at this late day, spoken the truth of history as our fathers contended for it. and we congratulate ourselves that you and your party will hereafter find. at least in the Declaration of Independence nothing to prevent us from reforming our suffrage as may seem to us to be just and fair"
 But now comes the strange part of this performance. In assaulting the position of this Republican Senator and the Republican party on- ex- pansion, the Democrats in Congress and out of Congress. taking care always to- quote them from MT. I.n.- coin, fairly made the welkin ring with the words of the old time Aboliti on'sts. about the consent of the governed. confess. MT. President, that have an antipathy 10 these words. the con- sent of the governed" because when used as a catch phrase they are always misapplied. That phrase in the fifties was the parent of fallacies that were we'll nigh fatal to the Republic. Re- vived now. it is likely to beget e'rcrs equally as pestilential. As I'ar y shibboleth, for us or for anybody. 1t will always be misleading and ms chieyous. See how 1t was applied when the measure to give civil goverri- ment to Porto Rico was up for ccn-- sideration. The bill did not give to the inhabitants. a mixed population, utterly inexperienced in self-govern- ment-the right to vote for members of the upper House of the Legislature, and 1t was opposed by our friends. for that reason they planting themselves on 'the consent of the governed" Mo- body proposes to surrender Porto Rico; If we retain 1t we are responsible for its good government, and l fail to see why the Porto Ricans have any more rights under the Declaration of Inde- pendence than have the same classes in these Southern States.
 Mr. President. would 1t nor be well for Alabama lawyers to give some att tention to these questions. and is 1t not true that these old cast off Abolition cries are not just now serving any good purpose?
 The Insular Cases.
 To me it seems that the main decis- ion in the insuiar cases is fortunate, and that 1t is unfortunate that the de- cision was not unanimous. Certainly the fathers. when they framed the Constitution, did not believe that all men were capable of f-government. Many of them doubted the capacity of the white people of that day; and so the powers granted to the new gov- ernment were hedged around with many safeguards. Surely the framers never for moment contemplated that these powers should be exercised by savage tribes, such as inha5it the HUlllpplHSs. 1hOy SdNC tie hC" 61S ernment the right to make war, which involves the right of conquest, and the right to make treaties, which is held to imply the right to take territory; but to hold that our flag carries our form of government to every tribe Of barba- rians that may come under our domin- ion, and that all such peoples are nec- essarily entitled to jury trials and to every other right that we enjoy, would have been marvel to statesmen who did not take into their scheme of Gov- ernmert and did not make all tue pro- visions of the constitution applicable to even the negroes or the IndiSns within their own borders.
 MT. President, if we should conclude. as 1t seems to me we must, that, after paying $200O0,O00 for the Philippines and waging a blody war with them. these Anglo-Saxon people will not give them up, is 1t not the wiser course for us to ask ourselves. in what direction. then, considering our new situation, lies the least danger to our liberties? We in the South have seen enough l think to satisfy Us of the deep and last ing attachment of the people of this country to the government of the fathers. It is true that as the result of bloody civil war we saw our State governments overthrown: it is true that we have. often seen military officers order a judge off the Bench and take his seat; it is true that We have seen, in the Busteed, a tyrant as arbitrary as Jeffries. But after all this, we have seen our States one after another resume their functions, with rights in the Union equal to the rights of the other States. This resurrection of TnannlaG hn nf military despotism into life again as free and co-equaI States in the Union, ought to be sufficient to convince us that if there be peril to be apprehend- ed from the spirit of imperialism, the peril Is not to our institutions at home, but that the danger lies in exactly the opposite direction. The danger is that by insisting on liberties for the tn- habitants of our insular possessions, greater than they are fitted for, we shall degrade our standards of self government ard endanger our own liberties: that politicians opposing the party in power. whatever that party may be. may in some evil hour by means of the sentimental cry about $he consent of tine governed, bring into the Union of these States peoples who are utterly unfitted to govern themselves or to help govern us.
 The Constitution of 17S9 made fitness the standard of the electorate and that fitness was to be judged of by the States each for itself. So the matter stood until reconstruction introduced a sem timental standard with which fitness had nothing to do. We of the South have witnessed, nay we have eXpe- rienced. the horrors of that system. Our State convention is here today for that