man heart have actuated these men, resistance to tyranny. This great Republic has reached its arm across the waste of water and helped these people to their feet, given them the opportunity to organize a government and to run the race for freedom according to their capacity.

Instead of that, shall we be the ministers of injustice? Shall we be the deterrent forces to discourage. the uprising for freedom elsewhere on the globe? Is the flag no longer to be the beacon that invites the people of an oppressed race everywhere to our shores, or is it to be the "balefire on the rock warning the world that approach is danger and contact is death?"

Are we to be the great exemplars of human liberty, or are we to join the ranks of the monarchs of the world in the lust for territory, the greed for conquest, for aggrandizement, and depart from that simplicity of liberty, of freedom, of the rights of man as set forth in our Declaration of Independence, as guaranteed by our Constitution? The fate of millions of people in the Philippines, of untold millions in America, rests upon the decision of the Senate.

CHAPTER xxiv.

UNIVERSAL LIBERTY

BY HON. WILLIAM E. MASON,

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS.

It is easy to drift with the tide, but not always safe. It is pleasant to remain within the harbor when the storm is on without. But sometimes the storm within, the inner conscience, is more dangerous to peace of mind than the storm without may be to human life.

The simple resolution which I have introduced, and which I shall ask a vote upon before the final passage of any material legislation or treaty upon this subject, does not have necessarily anything to do with the treaty. I do not intend to speak upon that subject.

The remarks of the Senator from Louisiana went to the suggestion that we have no constitutional power to acquire territory except under certain conditions, and the remarks of the Senator from Connecticut in answer showed that both gentlemen had been diligent in searching for conflicting authorities, and they have convinced the Senate, I think, that the question still is and always will be unsettled.

The proposition, however, followed by the Senator from Massachusetts, and to which I wish to invite the attention of my distinguished friend from Ohio, is to the effect, first, that we have no right to acquire territory for an unconstitutional purpose; second, that the Constitution must be interpreted in the light of the Declaration of Independence, and, therefore, third, that we have no right under the Constitution to acquire

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territory for the purpose of governing a people without their consent.

The resolution which I have offered does not involve a question of law. If I believe at any time in the future I can add to anything suggested by distinguished gentlemen, I shall have the temerity to enter that field of discussion. The resolution I offer involves a question of policy to be pursued by this Republic and requires no learned discussion of constitutional law.

Understand me, I am not apologizing for the resolution nor for my speech. I regret its necessity; but that it is necessary that this treaty-making body of the United States should declare itself, one side or the other, upon the fundamental principles of our Government I could demonstrate to you in a moment's reading of the current literature of the day. Could I show its necessity better than reading one or two extracts from leading journals describing the situation of our troops about the town of Iloilo? One of the great papers of this country says:

In any case the insurgent flag at Iloilo will have to come down and give place to the Stars and Stripes. The fact that no American troops were present at the surrender of the town has nothing to do with the case. The American forces have taken the whole Philippine group and concluded a treaty of peace with Spain by which the islands have all come under the American flag. * But peace

and authority must be maintained; and if the Malay rebel factions can not realize this peaceably, they must be taught the fact in a way that they will understand.

In another place:

To raise any other flag than the Stars and Stripes over any town in the Philippine Islands will henceforth be an act of rebellion against the established power of the United States and will have to be dealt with accordingly.

From this morning's paper I read just one sentence. to show that we are entering upon a state of war with the natives of the island, whose only crime is a de