their duty and patriotism as a result of extraordinary acts of heroism.

Art. XXIV. The acts of congress shall not take effect until the president of the government orders their fulfillment and execution. Whenever the said president shall be of the opinion that any act is unsuitable or against public policy or pernicious, he shall explain to congress the reasons against its execution, and if the latter shall insist on its passage the president shall have power to oppose his veto under his most rigid responsibility.

CHAPTER III.-OF MILITARY COURTS AND

JUSTICE.

Art. XXV. When the chiefs of military detachments have notice that any soldier has committed or has perpetrated any act of those commonly considered as military crimes, he shall bring it to the knowledge of the commandant of the Zone, who shall appoint a judge and a secretary, who shall begin suit in the form prescribed in the instructions dated the 20th of the present month. If the accused shall be of the grade of lieutenant or higher, the said commandant shall himself be the judge, and if the latter shall be the accused the senior commandant of the province shall name as judge an officer who holds a higher grade, unless the same senior commandant shall himself have brought the suit. The judge shall always belong to the class of chiefs.

Art. XXVI. On the conclusion of the preliminary hearing the senior commandant shall designate three officers of equal or higher rank to the judge, and the military court shall consist of the said officers, the judge, the councilor, and the president. The latter shall be the commandant of the zone if the accused be of the grade of lieutenant or higher. The court shall conduct the trial in the form customary in the provincial courts, but the judgment shall be appealable to the higher courts of war.

Art. XXVII. The superior court shall be composed of six members, who shall hold rank not less than brigadier-generals, and the judge-advocate. If the number of generals present in the capital of the revolutionary government shall not be sufficient, the deficiency shall be supplied by representatives designated and commissioned by congress. The president of the court shall be the general having the highest rank

of all, and should there be more than one having equal rank the president shall be elected from among them by absolute majority of votes.

Art. XXVIII. The superior court shall have jurisdiction in all cases affecting the higher commandants, the commandants of zones and all officers of the rank of major and higher.

Art. XXIX. Commit military crimes: First, those who fail to grant the necessary protection to foreigners, both in their persons and property, and those who similarly fail to afford protection to hospitals and ambulances, including persons and effects which may be found in possession of one or the other, and those engaged in the service of the same, provided always they commit no hostile act; second, those who fail in the respect due to the lives, money, and jewels of enemies who lay down their arms, and of prisoners of war; third, Filipinos who place themselves in the service of the enemy, acting as spies or disclosing to them secrets of war and the plans of the revolutionary positions and fortifications, and those who present themselves under a flag of truce without justifying properly their office and their personality; and, fourth, those who fail to recognize a flag of truce duly accredited in the form prescribed by international law.

Will commit also military crimes: Those who conspire against the unity of the revolutionists, provoking rivalry between chiefs, and forming divisions and armed bands; second, those who solicit contributions without authority of the government and misappropriate the public funds; third, those who desert to the enemy, or are guilty of cowardice in the presence of the enemy, being armed; and, fourth, those who seize the property of any person who has done no harm to the revolution, violate women, and assassinate or inflict serious wounds on unarmed persons, and who commit robberies and arson.

Art. XXX. Those who commit the crimes enumerated will be considered, as declared, enemies of the revolution, and will incur the penalties prescribed in the Spanish Penal Code, and in the highest grade.

If the crime shall not be found in the said code, the offender shall be imprisoned until the revolution triumphs, unless the result of this shall be an irreparable damage, which, in the judgment of the tribunal, shall be a sufficient cause for imposing the penalty of death.

ADDITIONAL CLAUSES.

The government will establish abroad a revolutionary committee composed of a number, not yet determined, of persons most competent in the Philippine Archipelago. This committee will be divided into three delegations: One of diplomacy, another of the navy, and another of the army.

The delegation of diplomacy will arrange and conduct negotiations with foreign cabinets with a view to the recognition of the belligerency and independence of the Philippines.

The delegation of the navy will be charged with the studying and organizing of the Philippine navy and preparing the expenditures which the necessities of the revolution may require.

The delegation of the army will study military tactics and the best form of organization for the general staff, artillery, and engineers, and whatever else may be necessary in order to fit out the Philippine army under the conditions required by modern progress.

Art. XXXII. The government will issue the necessary instructions for the proper execution of the present decree.

Art. XXXIII. All the decrees of the dictatorial government in conflict with the foregoing are hereby annulled. Given at Cavite, the 23d of June, 1898.

EMILIO AGUINALDO.

E.

INSTRUCTIONS.

Desiring to bring about a proper execution of the decree dated the 23d of the present month, and to provide that the administrative measures shall not result hereafter in the paralysis of public business, but that, on the contrary, it shall constitute the best guaranty of the regularity, promptitude and fitness in the transaction of public business, I give the following instructions and decree:

(Then follow ten rules concerning the details of installing the government.)

Cavite, the 27th of June, 1898.

EMILIO AGUINALDO.

F.

MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT

OF THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION.

If it is true, as it is true, that political revolutions properly understood are the violent means which people employ to recover the sovereignty which naturally belongs to them, usurped and trampled upon by a tyrannical and arbitrary government, no revolution can be more righteous than that of the Philippines, because the people have had recourse to it after having exhausted all the pacific means which reason and experience could suggest.

The ancient kings of Castile felt obliged to consider the Philippines as a brother people, united to the Spanish in a perfect participation of aims and interests, so much so that when the constitution of 1812 was promulgated at Cadiz, on account of the war of Spanish independence, these islands were represented in the Spanish Cortes; but the interests of the monastic corporations, which have always found unconditional support in the Spanish Government, overcame this sacred duty and the Philippines remained excluded from the Spanish constitution and the people at the mercy of the discretionary or arbitrary powers of the Governor-General.

In this condition the people claimed justice, begged of the metropolis the recognition and restitution of their secular rights by means of reforms which should assimilate in a gradual and progressive manner the Philippines to the Spaniards; but their voice was quickly throttled and their sons received as the reward of their self-denial deportation, martyrdom, and death. The religious corporations with whose interests, always opposed to those of the Philippine people, the Spanish Government has been identified, scoffed at those pretensions and answered with the knowledge of that government that Spanish liberties had cost blood.

What other recourse then remained to the people for insisting as in duty bound on regaining its former rights? No alternative remained except force, and convinced of that, it has had recourse and revolution.

And now it is not limited to asking assimilation to the

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Spanish political constitution, but it asks a definite separation from it. It struggles for its independence in the firm belief that the time has arrived in which it can and ought to govern itself.

There has been established a revolutionary government under wise and just laws, suited to the abnormal circumstances through which it is passing, and which in proper time will prepare it for a true republic. Thus taking as a sole model for its acts reason, for its sole end justice, and for its sole means honorable labor, it calls all Filipinos its sons without distinction of class, and invites them to unite firmly, with the object of forming a noble society, not based upon blood nor pompous titles, but upon the work and personal merit of each one; a free society, where exists neither egotism nor personal politics, which annihilate and crush; neither envy nor favoritism, which debase; neither fanfaronade nor charlatanism, which are ridiculous.

And it could not be otherwise. A people which has given proofs of suffering and valor in tribulation and in danger and of hard work and study in peace is not destined to slavery; this people is called to be great, to be one of the strongest arms of Providence in ruling the destinies of mankind. This people has resources and energy sufficient to liberate itself from the ruin and extinction into which the Spanish Government has plunged it, and to claim a modest but worthy place in the concert of free nations.

Given at Cavite the 23d of June, 1898.

EMILIO AGUINALDO.

G.

To Foreign Governments:

The revolutionary government of the Philippines on its establishment explained through the message dated the 23d of June last the true causes of the Philippine revolution, showing according to the evidence that this popular movement is the result of the laws which regulate the life of a people which aspire to progress and to perfection by the sole road of liberty.

The said revolution now rules in the provinces of Cavite, Batangas, Mindoro, Tayabas, Laguna, Morong, Bulacan, Bataan, Pampanga, Nueva-Ecija, Tarlac, Pangasinan, Union,