ple for mineral deposits or vegetable growths, or even of larger possessions which could never be extensively peopled, or, if so, only spasmodically or intermittently, as militating against that declaration. Every proposition must have its reasonable limitations. The arguments ab inconvenienti and reductio ad absurdum, which are always founded on such limitations, are insuperable obstacles in the path of the unthinking. But ordinarily they never stop the resolutions of wisdom, and they ought not to do so. They are not valid arguments unless they lead to conclusions which, making due allowances for the infirmity of all human prevision and foresight, show conclusively the falsity and impossibility of the proposition they are brought forward to combat.

The fathers may well have determined against the system of colonization and yet have contemplated the necessity for foreign acquisitions of limited extent and meager population for national purposes, which would always require to be governed by the legislation of Congress. I wish to say in this connection that I do not consider the Hawaiian Islands in this category, and did not so consider them at the time of their acquisition. While they are essential undoubtedly to the defensive power of the nation, they are yet capable of supporting a large Anglo-Saxon population and are sufficiently alluring to attract such a population. The native population is insignificant and fast disappearing. They are sufficiently near our shores to permit easy communication, and the same intimate trade relations that subsist among our own people will always prevail with them. These facts will assure to them at no distant day the political privileges of statehood, either as an independent State or by connection with one or the other of the great Pacific

coast States, which have already furnished so large a part of their present American population.

I am not a strict constructionist of the Constitution by any means. My training, such as it is, has all been in the other direction. I would give the nation every power which by any reasonable construction it may have and ought to have. I am the last man to limit its just powers by a strained construction. I am, I believe, a liberal nationalist. But there are bounds to my liberality. I draw the line at that vain and boastful spirit which seems to be abroad in the land, that we of this day and age and generation are entirely sufficient unto ourselves; that there are no problems which we can not solve unaided; that there is no danger which it is not cowardly and un-American for us to fear, and that reverence for the wise and prescient admonitions of the fathers, even when incorporated in the organic law of the land or when spoken in the great instrument which the organic law was framed to carry out, by which it is interpreted, and which it was formed to interpret, is contrary to the progressive spirit of this age and this people.

It is well enough to hug the pleasing thought that we are a great people and that there is no responsibility that can be thrust on us which we can not meet and face and accept with safety. That this is true all may well believe, else our fathers fought and wrought in vain, and we of this day are degenerate. children. But it is the height of quixotism and is the reverse of the teachings of the fathers to go around in the world hunting responsibilities and courting dangers because we are able to meet them.

The American people are not lacking in the faith and the courage of the fathers. They have sometimes, however, for a brief period, been lacking in the wis

dom of the fathers. But in every case the aberration has been temporary. When the excitement or passion or interest which led them astray has subsided or gone by, they have returned to that wisdom and conservatism, always tempered with faith and courage, which, like our free institutions, is the birthright they inherit from the fathers. I would therefore amend the invocation of the distinguished Senator, confident that it will not fall on dulled ears, and say, "Oh, for the courage and the faith and the wisdom of the fathers!"

OUR NEW COLONIAL POLICY.

BY HON. JOHN L. McLAURIN,

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA.

The manifold and serious questions growing out of the war with Spain are now absorbing the attention of the American people.

As a Senator, representing, in part, the State of South Carolina, it is my duty to express my convictions in no uncertain terms upon a question so vitally affecting the interests of my State and the destiny of this nation. In this crisis every Senator must decide for himself; he is responsible to none save his State, his nation, and his God.

The experience of the South for the past thirty years with the negro race, is pregnant with lessons. of wisdom for our guidance in the Philippines. It is passing strange that Senators who favored universal suffrage and the full enfranchisement of the negro should now advocate imperialism.

In other words, that territory can be acquired by conquest, held as a colony, and its inhabitants treated as vassals rather than citizens-governed by military rule or legislation not authorized by the Constitution. There is a glaring inconsistency in these. positions. If they are sincere in their views as to the Philippines, they should propose an amendment to the Constitution which will put the inferior races in

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