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"IMPERIALISM" AND
"THE TRACKS OF OUR FOREFATHERS."

What the feast of the Passover was to the children of
Israel, that the days between the nineteenth of December
and the fourth of January — the Yuletide — are and will
remain to the people of New England. The Passover began
"in the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at
even," and it lasted one week, " until the one and twentieth
day of the month at even." It was the period of the sacrifice
of the Paschal lamb, and the feast of unleavened bread ; and
of it as a commemoration it is written, " When your children
shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service ? that
ye shall say. It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who
passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egj'pt,
when he smote the Egyptians. Now the sojourning of the
children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred
and thirty years." And thus, by their yearly Passover,
were _ the Jewish congregations of old put in mind what
farewell they took of the land of Egypt.
So our own earliest records tell us that it was on the
morning of Saturday, of what is now the nineteenth of
December, that the little exploring party from the Mayflower,
then lying at her anchor in Provincetown Harbor, after a
day and night of much trouble and danger, sorely buffeted
by wind and wave in rough New England's December seas,
found themselves on an island in Plymoutli Bay. It was a
mild, " faire sunshining day. And this being the last day of
the weeke, they prepared ther to keepe the Sabath. On
Munday they sounded the harbor, and marched into the land,
and found a place fitt for situation. So they returned to
their shipp againe [at Provincetown] with this news. On
the twenty-fifth of December they weyed anchor to goe to

the place they had discovered, and came within two leagues
of it, but were faine to bear up againe ; but the twenty-sixth
day, the winde came faire, and they arrived safe in this
harbor. And after wards tooke better view of the place, and
resolved wher to pitch their dwelling ; and the fourth day [of
January] begane to erecte the first house for commone use to
receive them and their goods." Such, in the quaint language
of Bradford, is the calendar of New England's Passover;
and, beginning on the nineteenth of December, it ends on
the fourth of January, covering as nearly as may be the
Christmas holyday period.
Is there any better use to which the Passover anniversary
can be put than to retrospection? " And when your chil
dren shall say unto you. What mean you by this service?
j'e shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, when
he smote the Egyptians, aud delivered our houses." So the
old story is told again, being thus kept ever green in memory ;
and, in telling it, the experiences of the past are brought
insensibly to bear on the conditions of the present. Thus,
once a year, like the Israelites of old, we, as a people, may
take our bearings and verify our coitrse, as we plunge oa out
of the infinite past into the unknowable future. It is a
useful practice ; and we are here this first evening of our
Passover period to observe it.
This, too, is an Historical Societ}', — thatof Lexington, "a
name," as, when arraigned before the tribunal of the French
Terror, Danton said of his own, "tolerably known in the
Revolution ; ' ' and I am invited to address you because I am
President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the most
venerable organization of the sort in America, perhaps in the
world. Thus, to-night, though we shall necessarily have to
touch on topics of the day, and topics exciting the liveliest
interest and most active discussion, we will in so doing look
at them, — not as politicians or as partisans, nor from the
commercial or religious side, but solely from the historical
point of view. We shall judge of the present in its relations
to the past. And, unquestionably, there is great satisfaction
to be derived from so doing ; the mere effort seeras at once to
take us into another atmosphere, — an atmosphere as foreign
to unctuous cant as it is to what is vulgarly known as

"electioneering taffy." This evening we pass away from
the noisy and heated turmoil of partisan poHtics, with its
appeals to prejudice, passion, and material interest, into the
cool of a quiet academic discussion. It is like going out of
some turbulent caucus, or exciting ward-room debate, and
finding oneself suddenly confronted by the cold, clear light
of the December moon, shining amid the silence of innumer
able stars.
Addressing ourselves, therefore, to the subject in hand, the
question at once suggests itself, — What year in recent times
has been in a large way more noteworthy and impressive,
when looked at from the purely historical point of view, than
this year of which we are now observing the close ? The
first Passover of the Israelites ended a drama of more than
four centuries' duration, for "the sojourning of the chil
dren of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and
thirty years ; and at the end of the four hundred and thirty
years all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land
of Egypt." So the Passover we now celebrate commem
orates the closing of another world drama of almost pre
cisely the same length, and one of deepest significance, as
well as unsurpassed historic interest. These world dramas
are lengthy affairs ; for, while we men are always in a hurry,
the Almighty never is : on the contrary, as the Psalmist
observed, so now, " a thousand years in his sight are but as
yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."
The drama I have referred to as this week brought to its
close, is that known in history as Spanish Domination in
America. It began, as we all know, on the twenty-first of
October, 1492 ; it has been continuous through six years over
four centuries. It now passes into history ; the verdict may
be made up.
So far as I personally am concerned, — a matter needless
to say of very trifling consequence, — this verdict was ren
dered a year ago. It was somewhat Rhadamanthine ; but a
twelve-month of further reflection has shown no cause in any
respect to revise it. In referring to what was then plainly
impending, in December, 1897, before the blowing up of the
battleship Maine, before a conflict had become inevitable, I
used this language in a paper read to the Massachusetts His-

torical Society : " When looking at the vicissitudes of human
development, we are apt to assume a certain air of optimism,
and take advancement as the law of being, as a thing of course,
indisputable. We are charitable, too ; and to deny to any
given race or people some degree of use in the economy of
Nature, or the plan of Creation, is usually regarded as indic
ative of narrowness of view. The fatal, final word "pessi
mist" is apt to be whispered in connection with the name of
one who ventures to suggest a doubt of this phase of the
doctrine known as Universalism. And yet, at this time
when, before our eyes, it is breathing its last, I want some
one to point out a single good thing in law, or science, or art,
or literature, — material, moral or intellectual, — which has
resulted to the race of man upon earth from Spanish domina
tion in America. I have tried to think of one in vain. It
certainly has not yielded an immortality, an idea, or a dis
covery ; it has, in fact, been one long record of reaction and
retrogression, than which few pages in the record of mankind
have been more discouraging or less fruitful of good. What
is now taking place in Cuba is historical. It is the dying
out of a dominion, the influence of which will be seen and felt
for centuries in the life of two continents ; just as what is
taking place in Turkey is the last fierce flickering up of
Asiatic rule in Europe, on the very spot where twenty-four
centuries ago Asiatic rule in Europe was thought to have
been averted forever. The two, Ottoman rule in Europe, and
Spanish rule in America, now stand at the bar of history ;
and, scanning the long four-century record of each, I have
been unable to see what either has contributed to the accumu
lated possessions of the human race, or why both should not
be classed among the many instances of the arrested civiliza
tion of a race, developing by degrees an irresistible tendency
to retrogression."
This, one year ago; and while the embers of the last Greco-
Turkish struggle, still white, were scarcely cold on the plain
of Marathon. The time since passed has yielded fresh proof
in support of this harsh judgment ; for, if there is one histor
ical law better and more irreversibly established than another,
it is that, in the case of nations even more than in the case
of individuals, their sins will find them out, — the day of

reckoning may not be escaped. Noticeably, has this proved
so in the case of Spain. The year 1500 may be said to have
found that country at the apex of her greatness. America
had then been newly discovered ; the Moor was just subdued.
Nearly half a century hefore (1453) the Roman Empire had
fallen, and, with the storming of Constantinople by the Sara
cens, disappeared from the earth. That event, it may be
mentioned in passing, closed another world drama continuous
through twenty- two centuries, — upon the whole the most
wonderful of the series. And so, when Roman empire
vanished, that of Spain began. It was ushered in by the
landfall of Columbus ; and when, just three hundred years
later, in 1792, the subject was discussed in connection
with its third centennial, the general verdict of European
thinkers was that the discovery of America had, upon the
whole, been to mankind the reverse of beneficent. This
conclusion has since been commented upon with derision ;
yet, when made, it was right. The United States had in
1792 just struggled into existence, and its influence on the
course of human events had not begun to make itself felt.
Those who considered the subject had before them, therefore,
only Spanish domination in America, and upon that their
verdict cannot be gainsaid ; for, from the year 1492 down,
the history of Spain and Spanish domination has undeniably
been one long series of crimes and violations of natural law,
the penalty for which has not apparently even yet been
exacted in full.
Of those national crimes four stand out in special promi
nence, constituting counts in a national indictment than
which history shows few more formidable. These four were :
(i) The expulsion, first, of the Jews, and then of the Moors,
or Moriscoes, from Spain, late in the fifteenth and early in
the sixteenth centuries ; (2) the annals of ' ' the Council of
Blood" in the Netherlands, and the eighty years of inter
necine warfare through which Holland fought its way out
from under Spanish rule ; (3) the Inquisition, the most in
genious human machinery ever invented to root out and
destroy whatever a people had that was intellectually most
alert, inquisitive, and progressive; and, flnally (4), the policy
of extermination, and, where not of extermination, of cruel

oppression, systematically pursued towards the aborigines of
America. Into the grounds on which the dififerent counts
of this indictment rest it would be impossible now to enter.
Were it desirable so to do, time would not permit. Sufiice it
to say, the penalty had to be paid to the uttermost farthing ;
and one large instalment fell due, and was mercilessly exacted,
during the year now drawing to its close. Spanish domina
tion in America ceased, — the drama ended as it was entering
on its fifth century, — and it can best be dismissed with the
solemn words of Abraham Lincoln, uttered more than thirty
years ago, when contemplating a similar expiation we were
ourselves paying in blood and grief for a not dissimilar viola
tion of an everlasting law, — "Yet, if God wills that this
mighty scourge continue until all the wealth piled by the
bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the
lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ' The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether ! ' "
But not only is this year memorable as witnessing the
downfall and complete extirpation of that Spanish rule in
America which began with Columbus, but the result, when it
at last came about, was marked by incidents more curiously
fitting and dramatic than it would have been possible for a
Shakspeare to have conceived. Columbus, as we all know,
stumbled, as it were, on America as he sailed west in search
of Asia, — Cipango he was looking for, and he found Cuba.
It is equally well known that he never discovered his mistake.
When fourteen years later he died, it was in the faith that,
through him, Europe had by a westward movement estab
lished itself in the archipelagoes of Asia. And now, at last,
four centuries afterward, the blow which did most to end the
American domination he established was struck in Asiatic
waters ; and, through it and the descendants of another race,
America seems on the threshold of realizing the mistaken
belief of Columbus, and by a westward movement establish
ing the European in that very archipelago Columbus failed to
reach. The ways of Providence are certainly not less singu
lar than slow in movement.
But the year just ending was veritably one of surprises, —

for the historical student it would, indeed, seem as if 1898
was destined to pass into the long record as almost the Year
of Surprises. We now come to the consideration of some of
these wholly unanticipated results from the American point
of view. And in entering on this aspect of the question, it is
necessary once more to remind you that we are doing it in the
historical spirit, and from the historical point of view. We
are stating facts not supposed to admit of denial. The argu
ment and inferences to be drawn from those facts do not belong
to this occasion. Some will reach one conclusion as to the
future, and the bearing those facts have upon its probable
development, and some will reach another conclusion ; with
these conclusions we have nothing to do. Our business is
exclusively with the facts.
Speaking largely, but still with all necessary historical
accuracy, America has been peopled, and its development,
up to the present time, worked out through two great stocks
of the European family, — the Spanish-speaking stock, and
the English-speaking stock. In their development these two
have pursued lines, clearly marked, but curiously divergent.
Leaving the Spanish-speaking branch out of the discussion, as
unnecessary to it, it may without exaggeration be said of the
English-speaking branch that, from the beginning down to
this year now ending, its development has been one long pro
test against, and divergence from, Old World methods and
ideals. In the case of those descended from the Forefathers,
— as we always designate the Plymouth colony, — this has
been most distinctly marked, ethnically, politically, indus
trially. America was the sphere where the European, as a colonist,
a settler, first came on a large scale in contact with another
race. Heretofore, in the Old World, when one stock had
overrun another, — and history presented many examples of
it, — the invading stock, after subduing, and to a great
extent driving out, the stock which had preceded in the occu
pancy of a region, settled gradually down into a common pos
session, and, in the slow process of years, an amalgamation
of stocks, more or less complete, took place. In America,
with the Anglo-Saxon, and especially those of the New Eng
land type, this was not the case. Unlike the Frenchman at

ID

the north, or the Spaniard at the south, the Anglo-Saxon
showed no disposition to ally himself with the aborigines, —
he evinced no faculty of dealing with inferior races, as they
are called, except through a process of extermination.
Here in Massachusetts this was so from the outset. Nearly
every one here has read Longfellow's poem, "The Court
ship of Miles Standish," and calls to mind the short, sharp
conflict between the Plymouth captain and the Indian chief,
Pecksuot, and how those God-fearing Pilgrims ruthlessly put
to death by stabbing and hanging a sufficient number of the
already plague-stricken and dying aborigines. That episode
occurred in April, 1623, only a little more than two 3-ears
after the landing we to-night celebrate, and was, so far as
New England is concemed, the beginning of a series of
wars which did not end until the Indian ceased to be an ele
ment in our civilization. When John Robinson, the revered
pastor of the Plymouth church, received tidings at Lej'den of
that killing near Plymouth, — for Robinson never got across
the Atlantic, — he wrote: " Oh, how happy a thing had it
been, if you had converted some before you had killed any 1
There is cause to fear that, by occasion, especially of provo
cation, there may be wanting that tenderness of the life of
man (made after God's image) which is meet. It is also a
thing more glorious in men's eyes, than pleasing in God's or
convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor, barbarous
people." This all has a very familiar sound. It is the refrain of
nearly three centuries ; but, as an historical fact, it is undeni
able that, from 1623 down to the year now ending, the Ameri
can Anglo-Saxon has in his dealings with what are known
as the "inferior races" lacked " that tenderness of the life
of man which is meet," and he has made himself "a terror to
poor, barbarous people." How we of Massachusetts carried
ourselves towards the aborigines here, the fearful record of
the Pequot war remains everlastingly to tell. How the
country at large has carried itself in turn towards Indian,
African, and Asiatic is matter of history. And yet it is
equall5? matte'r of history that this carriage, term it what
5'ou will, — unchristian, brutal, exterminating, — has been
the salvation of the race. It has saved the Anglo-Saxon
stock from being a nation of half-breeds, — miscegenates, to

II
coin a word expressive of an idea. The Canadian half-breed,
the Mexican, the mulatto, say what men may, are not virile
or enduring races ; and that the Anglo-Saxon is none of these,
and is essentially virile and enduring, is due to the fact that
the less developed races perished before him. Nature is unde
niably often brutal in its methods.
Again, and on the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon when he
came to America left behind him, so far as he himself was
concerned, feudalism and all things pertaining to caste, in
cluding what was then known in England, and is still known
in Germany, as Divine Right. When he at last enunciated
his political faith he put in the forefront of his declaration as
' ' self-evident truths, ' ' the principles ' ' that all men are created
equal;" that they are endowed with "certain inalienable
rights," among them " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi
ness ; " and that governments derived " their just powers from
the consent of the governed." Now what was meant here by
the phrase "all men are created equal? " We know they
are not. They are not created equal in physical or mental
endowment ; nor are they created with equal opportunity.
The world bristles with inequalities, natural and artificial.
This is so ; and yet the declaration is none the less true ; —
true when made ; true now ; true for all future time. The
reference was to the inequalities which always had marked,
then did, and still do, mark, the political life of the Old World,
— to Caste, Divine Right, Privilege. It declared that all men
were created equal before the law, as before the Lord ; ' and
' " obviously, men are not born equal in physical strength or in mental capacity,
in beauty of form or health of body. Diversity or inequality in these respects is the
law of creation. But this inequality is in no particular inconsistent with complete
civil or political equality.
"The equality declared by our fathers in 1776, and made the fundamental law of
Massachusetts in 1780, was Equality before the Law. Its object was to efface all polit
ical or civil distinctions, and to abolish all institutions founded upon birtk, ' All
men ^r^ created equal,' says the Declaration of Independence. *A11 men are born
free and equal,' says the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. These are not vain words.
Within the sphere of their influence, no person can be created, no person can be born,
with civil or political privileges not enjoyed equally by all his fellow-citizens ; nor
can any institutions be established, recognizing distinctions of birth. Here is the
GreatCharterof every human being drawing vital breath upon this soil, whatever
may be his conditions, and whoever may be his parents. He may be poor, weak,
humble, or black, — he may be of Caucasian, Jewish, Indian, or Ethiopian race, —
he may be born of French, German, English, or Irish extraction ; but before the
Constitution of Massachusetts all these distinctions disappear. He is not poor,
weak, humble, or black ; nor is he Caucasian, Jew, Indian, or Ethopian ; nor is he

12
that, whether European, American, Asiatic, or African, they
were endowed with an inalienable right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. And to this truth, as he saw it,
Lincoln referred in those memorable words I have already
cited bearing on our national crime in long forgetfulness of
our own immutable principles. The fundamental, primal
principle was indeed more clearly voiced by Lincoln than it
has been voiced before, or since, in declaring again and else
where that to our nation, dedicated ' ' to the proposition that
all men are created equal," has by Providence been assigned
the momentous task of " testing whether any nation so con
ceived and so dedicated can long endure," and " that govem
ment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth."
The next cardinal principle in our policy as a race — that
instinctive policy I have already referred to as divergent from
bid World methods and ideals — was most clearly enunciated
/by Washington in his Farewell Address, that " the great rule
for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our com
mercial relations, to have with them as little political connec
tion as possible;" that it was "unwise in us to implicate
ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of [Old
World] policies, or the ordinary combinations and collisions
of her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant situ
ation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. . . .
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establish
ments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust
to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."
Accepting this as firm ground from which to act, we after
wards put forth what is known as the Monroe Doctrine. Hav
ing announced that our purpose was, in homely language, to
mind our own business, we warned the outer world that we
did not propose to permit by that outer world any interference
in what did not concern it. America was our field, — a field
amply large for our development. It was therefore declared
French, German, English, or Irish ; he is a MAN", the equal of all his fellow-men.
He is oue of the children of the State, which, like an impartial parent, regards all its
offspring with an equal care. To some it may justly allot higher duties, according
to higher capacities ; but it welcomes all to its equal hospitable board. The State,
imitatins the divine justice, is no respecter of persons."— Il^orks of Charles Sumner,
Vol. II., pp. 341-2.

13
that, while we had never taken any part, nor did it comport
with our policy to do so, in the wars of European politics,
with the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity,
more intimately connected. " We owe it, therefore, to candor
to declare that we should consider any attempt [on the part
of European powers] to extend their system to any portion of
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety."
On these principles of govemment and of foreign policy we
have as a people now acted for more than seventy years.
They have been exemplified and developed in various direc
tions, and resulted in details — commercial, economic, and
ethnic — which have given rise to political issues, long and
hotly contested, but which, in their result from the purely
historical point of view, do not admit of dispute. Commer
cially, we have adopted what is known as a system protective
both of our industries and our labor. Economically, we
have carefully eschewed large and costly armaments, and.
expensive governmental methods. Ethnically, we have
avowed our desire to have as little contact as possible with
less developed races, lamenting the presence of the African,
and severely excluding the Asiatic. These facts, whether we
as individuals and citizens wholly approve — or do not ap
prove at all — of the course pursued and the results reached,
admit of no dispute. Neither can it be denied that our atti
tude, whether it in all respects commanded the respect of
foreign nations, or failed to command it, was accepted, and
has prevailed. Striking illustrations of this at once suggest
themselves. In one respect especially was our attitude peculiar, and in
its peculiarity we took great pride. It was largely moral;
but, though largely moral, it had behind it the consciousness
of strength in ourselves, and its recognition by others. In
great degree, and relatively, an unarmed people, we looked
with amaze, which had in it something of amusement, at the
constantly growing armaments and war budgets of the nations
of Europe. We saw them, like the warriors of the middle ages,
crushed under the weight of their weapons of offence, and their
preparations for defence. Meanwhile, fortunate in our geo
graphical position, — weak for offence, but, in tum, unassail
able, — we went in and out much as an unarmed man.

14
relying on his character, his recognized force, position, and
peaceful calling, daily moves about in our frontier settle
ments and mining camps amid throngs of men armed to
the teeth with revolvers and bowie knives. Yet, evidence
was not lacking of the consideration yielded to us when we
were called upon, or felt called upon, to assert ourselves. I
will not refer to the episode of iS66, when, in accordance
with the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, we intimated to
France that her immediate withdrawal from Mexico was
desired; for then we had not laid down the arms we had
taken up in the Rebellion. But, without remonstrance even,
France withdrew. In iSgr, under circumstances not with
out grounds of aggravation against us, a mob in Valparaiso
assaulted some seamen frora our ships of war. Instant
apology and redress were demanded ; and the demand was
complied with. Yet later, the course pursued by us in the
Venezuela matter is too fresh in memorj' to call for more than
a reference. These are all matters of history. When did our
I word fail to carry all desired weight ?
Such were our standing, our traditional policy, and our
record at the beginning of the year now ending. No propo
sition advanced admits, it is believed, of dispute historically.
Into the events of the year 1898 it is not necessary to enter
in any detail. They are in the minds of all. It is sufficient
to say that the primary object for w^hich we entered upon the
late war with Spain was to bring to an end the long and
altogether bad record of Spanish rule in America. In taking
the steps deemed necessary to effect this result. Congress
went out of its way, and publicly and formally put upon
record its disclaimer of any intention to enter upon a war of
conquest, asserting its determination, when Spanish domi
nation was ended, to leave the government of Cuba, and
presumably of any other islands similarly acquired, to the
people thereof. As an incident to our naval operations on
the Pacific, the island of Hawaii was then annexed to the
United States as an extra-territorial possession, or coaling
station, this being effected by a joint resolution of the two
Houses of Congress, under the precedent of 1S45 established
in the case of Texas, — a method of procedure the constitu
tionality of which was at the time formally called in question

15
by the State of Massachusetts, and against which Mr. Web
ster made vigorous protest in the Senate. In thus possessing
ourselves of Hawaii, the consent of the native inhabitants was
not considered necessary ; we dealt wholly with an oHgarchi-
cal de facto government, representing the foreign element,
mainly American, there resident.
Shortly after the acquisition of Hawaii, we, as the result
of brilliant naval operations and successes, acquired posses
sion of the harbor of Manila, in the Philippine archipelago,
aud finally the city and some adjacent territory were surren
dered to us. A treaty was then negotiated, the power of
Spain being completely broken, under which she abandoned
all claims of sovereignty, not only over the island of Cuba,
the original cause of war, but over various other islands in
the Philippine, as well as in the West Indian, archipelagoes.
These islands, in all said to be some 1,200 to 1,500 in number,
are moreover not only inhabited by both natives and for
eigners to the estimated number of ten to twelve million of
souls, but they contain large cities and communities speaking
different tongues, living under other laws, and having cus
toms, manners, and traditions wholly unlike our own, and
which, in the case of the Philippines, do not admit of assimi
lation. Situated in the tropics, also, they cannot gradually
become colonized by Americans, with or without the disap
pearance of the native population. The American can only
go there for temporary residence.
A wholly new problem was thus suddenly presented to the
people of the United States. On the one hand, it is asserted
that, by destroying Spanish government in these islands, the
United States has assumed responsibility for them, both to
the inhabitants and to the world. This is a nioral^obligation.
On the other hand, trade and cotnmgrciaLinducements are
held out which would lead us to treat these islands simply as
a commencement — the first instalment — in a system of un
limited extra-territorial dependencies and impeual.jexpansion.
With these responsibilities and obligations we here this even
ing have nothing to do, any more than we have to do with
the expediency or probable results of the policy of colonial
expansion, when once fairly adopted and finally entered upon.
These hereafter will be, but are not yet, historical questions ;

i6
and we are merely historical inquirers. We, therefore, no
matter what others may do, must try to confine ourselves to
our own proper business and functions.
My purpose, therefore, is not to argue for or against what
is now proposed, but simplV to test historically some of the
arguments I have heard mast commonly advanced in favor
of the proposed policy of expansion, and thus see to what
they apparently lead in the sequence of human, and more
especially of American, events. Do they indicate an his
toric continuity ? Or do they result in what is geologically
known as a " fault," — a movement, as the result of force,
through which a stratum, once continuous, becomes discon
nected ?
In the first place, then, as respects the inhabitants of the
vastly greater number of the dependencies already acquired,
and, under the policy of imperialistic expansion, hereafter to
be acquired. It is argued that we, as a people at once
dominant and Christian, are under an .-obligation to avail
ourselves of the opportunity the Almigiity, in his infinite
wisdom, has thrust upon us, — some ^y the plain call he
has uttered to us, — to go forth and impart to the barbarian
and the heathen the blessings of liberty and the Bible. A
mission is imposed upon us. Viewed in the cold, pitiless
light of histor}^ — and that is the only way we here can view
tbeiH7 — --."divine missions ' ' and ' ' providential calls ' ' are
questionable things ; things the assumption and fulfilment
of which are apt to be at variance. So far as the American
is concerned, as I have already pointed out, the historic
precedents are ..not encouraging. Whatever his theorfes,
ethnical, political, or religious, his practice has been as
pronounced as it was masterful. From the earliest days at
Wessagusset and in the Pequot war, down to the very last
election held in North Carolina, — from 1623 to 1898, — the
knife and the shotgun have been far more potent and active
instruments in his dealings with the inferior races than the
code of liberty~~or~fhe~output ot the Bi ble Socfety. The
record speaks for itself. So far as the Indian is concemed,
the story has been told by Mrs. Jackson in her earnest,
eloquent protest, entitled "A Century of Dishonor." It has
received epigrammatic treatment in the saying tersely enunci-

17
ated by one of our military commanders, and avowedly
accepted by the others, that ' ' the only good Indian is a
dead Indian." So far as the African is concemed, the
similar apothegm once was that "the black man has no
rights the white man is bound to respect ; " or, as Stephen
A. Douglas defined his position before an applauding audi
ence, " I am for the white man as against the black man,
and for the black man against the aUigator. ' ' Recent lynch
ing and shotgun experiences, too fresh in memory to call for
reminder, and too painful in detail to describe, give us at
least reason to pause before we leave our own hearthstone
to seek new and distant fields for missionary labors. It
remains to consider the Asiatic. The racial antipathy of the
American towards him has been more intense than towards
any other species of the human race. This!, as an historical
fact, has been recently imbedded in our statute-book, having
previously been illustrated in a series of outrages and mas
sacres, with the sickening details of some of which it was at
one time my misfortune to be officially familiar. Under these
circumstances, so far as the circulation of the Bible and the
extension of the blessings of liberty are concerned, history
affords small encouragement to the American to assume new
obligations. He has been, and now is, more than merely
delinquent in the fulfilment of obligations heretofore thrust
upon him, or knowingly assumed. In this respect his instinct
has proved much more of a controlling factor than his ethics,
— the shotgun has unfortunately been more constantly in
evidence than the Bible. As a prominent "expansionist"
New England member of the present Congress has recently
declared in language, brutal perhaps in directness, but
withal commendably free from cant : ' ' China is succumbing
to the inevitable, and the United States, if she would not
retire to the background, must advance along the line with
the other great nations. She must acquire new territory,
providing new markets over which she must maintain control.
The Anglo-Saxon advances into the ae w regiogs with a Bible
in one hand and a shotgun in the other. The inhabitants of
those regions that he cannot convert with the aid of the
Bible and bring into his markets, he gets rid of with the
shotgun. It is but another demonstration of the survival of

i8
the fittest. '' (Hon. C. A. Sulloway, Rochester, N. H.,
Nov. 22, 1898.)
Next as regards our fundamental principlefof equ^1*^^f
human rights, and the consent of the governed as the only-
just basis^oLidLsovernraerit. The presence of the inferior
races on our own soil, and our new problems connected with
them in our dependencies, have led to much questioning of
the correctness of those principles, which, for its outspoken
frankness, at least, is greatly to be commended. It is argued
that these, as principles, in the light of modem knowledge
and conditions, are of doubtful general truth and limited
application. True, when confined and carefulh' applied to
citizens of the same blood and nationality ; questionable,
when applied to human beings of different race in one nation
ality ; manifestly false, in the case of races less developed, and
in other, especially tropical, countries.^ As fundamental prin-
I Historically speaking, the assertion in the Declaration cf Independence has
been fruitful of dspute. The very evening the present paper was read at Lexiug"-
ton the Mayor of Boston, in a public address elsewhere, alluded to the " imprudent
generalizations of our forefathers," referring, doubtless, to what Rufus Choate,
forty-two years before, described as " the glittering" and sounding generalities of
natural right" to be found in the Declaration, "that passionate and eloquent
manifesto." Mr. Calhoun declared C1S4S) that the claim of human equaUty set forth
in the Declaration was "the most false aud dangerous of all political errors,"
which, after resting a long time "dormant," had, in process of time, begun "to
germinate aud produce its poisonous fruits." Mr. Pettit, a Senator from Indiana,
prououuced it in 1S54, "a self-evident lie." In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debate
in Illinois (1S60) the questioti reappeared. Mr. Douglas contending that the Declara
tion applied only to "the white people of the United States; " ¦while Mr. Lincoln,
in reply, asserted that "the entire records of the world, from the date of the
Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain
for oue single affirmation, from oue single man. that the negro was uot included in
the Declaration." The contention of Mr. Douglas had recently again made its
appearance iu the press as something too indisputable to admit of discussion. It is
asserted that, in penning the Declaration, Mr. Jefferson could not possibly have
intended to include those then actually held as slaves. On this point Mr. Jefferson
himself should, it would seem, be accepted as a competent witness. Referring to
the denial of his " inalienable rights " to the African, he declared at a later day, "I
tremble for my couutry, when I reflect that God is just." What he meant will,
however, probably continue matter for confident newspaper assertions just so long
as anybody in this country wants to make out, as did Stephen A. Douglas in 1S60, a
plausible pretext for subjugating somebody else, —Indian, African, or Asiatic. As
Mr. Lincoln expressed it, " The assertion that all raen are created equal was of no
practical use iu effecting our separation frora Great Britain, aud it was placed in
the Declaration, not for that but for future use. Its author meant it to be, as,
thank God, it is now proving itself, u. stumbling block to all those who, in after
times, might seek to turn a free people back into the paths of despotism. They
knew tlie proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant, when such.
should reappear iu this fair land, and commence their vocation, they should find
left for them at least oue hard nut to crack." — li^orks, Vol. I., p. 233.

19
ciples, it is admitted, they were excellent for a young people
struggling into recognition and limiting its attention narrowly
to what onh^ concerned itself; but have we not manifestly
outgrown them, now that we ourselves have developed into
a great World Power ? For such there was and necessarily
always will be, as between the superior and the inferior races,
a manifest common sense foundation in caste, and in the rule
of might when it presents itself in the form of what we are
pleased to call Manifest Destiny. As to government being
conditioned on the consent of the governed, it is obviously
the bounden duty of the superior race to hold the inferior
race in peaceful tutelage, and protect it against itself ; and,
furthermore, when it comes to deciding the momentous ques
tion of what races are superior and what inferior, what dom
inant and what subject, that is of necess^y a question to be
settled between the superior race and its own conscience ;
and one in regard to the correct settleqient of which it indi
cates a tendency at once unpatriotic/and "pessimistic," to
assume that America could by any chance decide otherwise
than correcth'. Upon that score we must put implicit
confidence in the sound instincts and Christian spirit of the
dominant, that is, the stronger race.
It is the same with that other fundamental principle with
which the name of Lexington is, from the historical point of
view, so closely associated, — I refer, of course, to the revolu
tionary contention that representation is a necessary adjunct
to taxation. This principle also, it is frankly argued, we
have outgrown, in presence of our new responsibilities ; and,
as between the superior and inferior races, it is subject to
obvious limitations. Here again, as between the policy of
the " Open Door " and the Closed-Colonial-Market policy, the
superior race is amenable to its own conscience only. It will
doubtless on all suitable and convenient occasions bear in
mind that it is a " Trustee for Civilization."
Finally, as respects entangling foreign alliances, andtheir
necessary consequents, costly—aad— bmrtfensome armaments
and large standing armies, we are again a3visea~that7iiaving
ceased to be children, we should put away childish things.
Having become a great World Power we must become a
corresponding War Power. We are assured by high author-

20

ity that, were Washington now alive, it cannot be questioned
he would in all these respects modify materially the views
expressed in the Farewell Address, as being obviously inap
plicable to existing conditions. Under these circumstances,
and in view of the obligations we have assumed, the Presi
dent, and Secretaries of War and the Na-vT, recommend an
establishment the annual cost of which ($200,000,000), exclu
sive of military pensions, is in excess of the largest of those
European War Budgets, over the crushing influence of which
we have expressed a traditional wonder, not unmixed with
pity for the unfortunate tax-payer.
Historically speaking, I believe these are all facts, sus
ceptible of verification. I xio not mean to say that the
arguments developing obvious limitations in the application
of the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution have
been avowedly accepted by our representatives, or officially
incorporated into our domestic and foreign policy. I do
assert as an historical fact that these arguments have been
advanced, and are meeting, both in Congress and with the
press, a large degree of acceptance. And hence comes a
singular and most significant conclusion from which, histori
cally, there seeras to be no escape. It may or it may not be
fortunate and right ; it may or it may not lead to beneficent
future results ; it may or it may not contribute to the good
of mankind. Those questions belong elsewhere than in the
rooms of an historical society. Upon them we are not called
to pass, — they belong to the politician, the publicist, the
philosopher, not to us. But, as historical investigators, and so
observing the sequence of events, it cannot escape our notice
that on every one of the fundamental principles discussed, —
whether ethnic, economical, or political, — we abandon the
traditional and distinctively American grounds and accept
those of Europe, and especially of Great Britain, which here
tofore we have made it the basis of our faith to deny and
repudiate. With this startling proposition in mind, consider again the
several propositions advanced ; and first, as regards the so-
called inferior races. Our policy towards them, instinctive
and formulated, has beeu either to exclude or destroy, or to
leave them in the fullness of time to work out their own

21

destiny, undisturbed by us ; fully beheving that, in this way,
we in the long run best subserved the interests of mankind.
Europe, and Great Britain especially, adopted the opposite
policy. They held that it was incumbent on the superior to
go forth and establish dominion over the inferior race, and to
hold and develop vast imperial possessions and colonial de
pendencies. They saw their interest and duty in developing
systems of docile tutelage ; we sought our inspirations in the
rough school of self-government. Under this head the result
then is distinct, clean cut, indisputable. To this conclusion
have we come at last. The Old World, Europe and Great
Britain, were, after all, right, and we of the New World have
been wrong. From every point of view, — religious, ethnic,
commercial, political, — we cannot, it is now claimed, too soon
abandon our traditional position and assume theirs. Again,
Europe and Great Britain have never admitted that men were
created equal, or that the consent ofthe governed was a con
dition of government. They have, on the contrary, emphat
ically denied both propositions. We now concede that, after
all, there was great basis for their denial ; that, certainly, it
must be admitted, our forefathers were hasty at least in reach
ing their conclusions, — they generalized too broadly. We
do not frankly avow error, and we still think the assent
of the governed to a government a thing desirable to be
secured, under suitable circumstances and with proper lim
itations ; but, if it cannot conveniently be secured, we are
advised on New England senatorial authority that ' ' the
consent of some of the governed" will be sufficient, we
ourselves selecting those proper to be consulted. Thus
in such cases as certain islands of the Antilles, Hawaii, and
the communities of Asia, we admit that, so far as the princi
ples at the basis of the Declaration are concerned, Great
Britain was right, and our ancestors were, not perhaps wrong,
but too general, and of the eighteenth century, in their state
ments. To that extent, we have outgrown the Declaration
of 1776, and have become as wise now as Great Britain was
then. At any rate we are not above learning. As was long!
ago said, — " Only dead men and idiots never change ; " audi
the people of the United States are nothing unless open-
minded.

So, also, as respects the famous Boston "tea-party," and
taxation without representation. Great Britain then affirmed
this right in the case of colonies and dependencies. Taught
by the lesson of our War of Independence, she has since
abandoned it. We now take it up, and are to-day, as one of
the new obligations towards the heathen imposed upon us by
Providence, formulating systems of imposts and tariffs for our
new dependencies, whollj' distinct from our own, and directly
inhibited by our constitution, in regard to which systems
those dependencies have no representative voice. They are
uot to be consulted as to the kind of door, "open" or
"closed," behind which they are to exist. In taking this
position it is difficult to see why we must not also inciden
tally admit that, in the great contention preceding our War
of Independence, the first armed clash of which resounded
here in Lexington, Great Britain was more nearly right than
the exponents of the principles for which those ' ' embattled
farmers" contended.
' Again, consider the Monroe Doctrine, entangling foreign
jalliances, and the consequent and costly military and naval
/establishments. The Monroe Doctrine had two sides, the
abstention of the Old World from interference in American
affairs, based on our abstention from interference in the
affairs of the Old World. But it is now argued we have out
grown the ii'Ionroe Doctrine, or at least the latter branch of
it. It is certainly so considered in Europe ; for, only a few
days ago, so eminent an authority as Lord Farrar exultingly
exclaimed in addressing the Cobden Club, — "America has
burned the swaddling clothes of the Monroe Dgctrine." In
deed we have, in discussion at least, gone far in advance of
the mere burning of cast-off infantile clothing, and alliances
with Great Britain and Japan, as against France and Russia,
are freely mooted, with a view to the forcible partition of
China, to which we are to be a party, and of it a beneficiary.
For it is already avowed that the Philippines are but a
' ' stopping-place ' ' on the way to the continent of Asia ; and
China, unlike Poland, is inhabited by an " inferior race," in
regard to whom, as large possible consumers of surplus prod
ucts. Providence has imposed on us obvious obligations,
material as well as benevolent and religious, which it would

23
be unlike ourselves to disregard. It is the mandate of duty,
we are told, — the nations of Europe obey it, and can we do
less than they ? "Isolation " it is then argued is but another
name for an attention to one's own business which may well
become excessive, and result in selfishness. It is true that
the nations ot the Old World have not heretofore erred con
spicuously in this respect; and as the " Balance of Power"
was the word- juggle with which to conjure up wars and
armaments in the eighteenth century, so the ' ' Division of
Trade" may not impossibly prove the similarconjuring word-
juggle of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, "isolation"
is not compatible with the policy of a Great Nation under a
call to assert itself as a World Power. Then follows the
familiar argument in favor of costly military and naval es
tablishments. But, upon this head it is needless to restate our
traditional policy, — our jealousy as a people of militarism
and large standing armies, to be used, if occasion calls, as a
reser\-e police. Our record thereon is so plain that repetition
grows tedious. The record of Europe, and especially of Great
Britain as distinguished from other European powers, has been
equally plain, and is no less indisputable. In this respect,
also, always under compulsion, we now admit our error.
Costly armies are necessary to the maintenance of order.
Heaven's first law ; and World Powers cannot maintain peace,
and themselves, without powerful navies and frequent coaling
stations. Finally, even on such matters as the Protective System and
the encouragement of American Labor, as against the
" Pauper Labor" of Europe and of the inferior races. Great
Britain has for half a century now advocated the principle of
unrestricted industry and free trade, — that is the "Open
Door" policy logically carried to its final results. We have
denied it, establishing what we in time grev/ to call the dis
tinctive American system. It is, however, now asserted that
" Trade follows the Flag," and that, as respects dependencies
at least, the "Open Door" policy is the best policy. If
"Trade follows the Flag" in dependencies, and, by so do
ing, affords the American producer all needful protection
and every fair advantage in those dependencies, it is not at
once apparent why it fails so to do at home. Is it less docile

24
to the flag, less in harmony with and subsen^ient to it, in the
United States, within our own limits, than in remote lands
under that flag beyond the seas ? And, if so, how is such an
apparent anomaly accounted for ? But with this question we
are not concerned. That problem is for the economist to
solve, for in character it is commercial, not historical. The
point with us is that again, as regards the "Open Door,"
— free trade and no favor, so far as all outside competition
is concerned, American labor and "pauper" labor beirig
equally outside, — on this long and hotly contested point, also,
England appears on the face of things to have had after all
much" the best of the argument.
As regards " Pauper Labor," indeed, the reversal contem
plated of established policy in favor of European methods is
specially noteworthy. The labor of Asia is undeniably less well
paid even than that of Europe ; but it is now proposed, by a
single act, to introduce into our industrial system ten millions
of Asiatics, either directly, or through their products sold in
' open competition with our own ; or, if we do not do that, to
/ hold them, ascribed to the soil in a sort of old Saxon serfdom,
with the function assigned them of consuming our surplus
•¦ products, but without in return sending us theirs. The
great counterbalancing consideration will not, of course, be
forgotten that, like the English in India, we also bestow on
them the Blessings of Liberty andthe Bible ; provided, always,
that liberty does not include freedom to go to the United
States, and the Bible does include the excellent Old Time and
Old World precept (Coloss. 3: 22), "Servants, obey in all
things your masters."
It is the same in other respects. It seems to be admitted
by the President, and by the leading authorities on the im
perialistic policy, that it can only be carried to successful
results through the agency of a distinct governing class.
Accordingly administration through the agency of military
or naval officers is strongly urged both by the President and
by Captain Mahan. Other advocates of the policy urge its
adoption on the ground, very distinctly avowed, that it will
necessitate an established, recognized Civil Service, modelled,
they add, on that of Great Britain. If, they then argue,
Great Britain can extend — as, indeed, she unquestionably

25
has extended — her system of dependencies all over the
globe, developing them into the most magnificent empire the
world ever saw, it is absurd, unpatriotic, and pessimistic to
doubt that we can do the same. Are we not of the same
blood, and the same speech? This is all historically true.
Historically it is equally true that, to do it, we must em
ploy means similar to those Great Britain has employed. In
other words, modelling ourselves on Great Britain, we must
slowly and methodically develop and build up a recognized
and permanent governing and official class. The heathen
and barbarian need to be studied, and dealt with intelligently
and on a system; they cannot be successfully managed on
any principle of rotation in office, much less one which as
cribes the spoils of office to the victors at the poUs. What
these advocates of Imperialism say is unquestionably true:
The political methods now in vogue in American cities are
not adapted to the government of dependencies.
The very word " Imperial " is, indeed, borrowed from the
Old World. As applied to a great sj-stem of colonial dominion
and foreign dependencies it is English, and very modem Eng
lish, also, for it was first brought into vogue by the late Earl
of Beaconsfield in 1S79, when, by Act of Parliament introduced
by him, the Oueen of England was made Empress of India.
It was then he enunciated that doctrine of imperium et liber
tas, the adoption of which we are now considering. While it
may be wise and sound, it indisputably is British.
Thus, curiously enough, whichever way we tum and
however we regard it, at the close of more than a century of
independent existence we find ourselves, historically speaking,
involved in a mesh of contradictions with our past. Under a
sense of obligation, impelled by circumstances, perhaps to
a degree influenced by ambition and commercial greed, we
have one by one abandoned our distinctive national tenets,
and accepted in their place, though in some modified forms,
the old-time European tenets and policies, which we supposed
the world, actuated largely by our example, was about forever
to discard. Our whole record as a people is, of course, then
ransacked and subjected to microscopic investigation, and
every petty disregard of principle, any wrong heretofore
silently, perhaps sadly, ignored, each unobserved or disre-

26
garded innovation of the past, is magnified into a precedent
justifying anything and everj-thing in the future. If we
formerly on some occasion swallowed a gnat, why now, is it
asked, strain at a camel? Truths once accepted as "self-
evident," since become awkward of acceptance, were ever
thus pettifogged out of the path, and fundamental principles
have in this way prescriptively been tampered with. It is
now nearly a century and a quarter ago, when Great Britain
was contemplating the subjection of her American dependen
cies, that Edmund Burke denounced "tampering" with the
"ingenuous and noble roughness of truh* constitutional
materials," as " the odious vice of restless and unstable
minds." Historically speaking it is not unfair to ask if this
is less so in the United States in 1S9S than it was in Great
Britain in 1775.
What is now proposed, therefore, examined in connection
with our principles and traditional policy as a nation, does
apparentl}' indicate a break in continuity, — historically, it will
probably constitute what is known in geologj' as a " fault."
Indeed, it is almost safe to say that history hardly records
any change of base and system on the part of a g^eat people
at once so sudden, so radical, and so pregnant with conse
quences. To the optimist, — he who has no dislike to "Old
Je^iy^," as the proper receptacle for worn-out garments, per
sonal or political, — the outlook is inspiring. He insensibty
recalls and repeats those fine lines of Tenn3-son :
' ' To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
"An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk : from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
" He dried his wings : like gauze they grew :
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew."
To others, older perhaps, but at any rate more deeplj- im
pressed with the difference apt to develop between dreams
and actualities, the situation calls to mind a comparison,
more historical it is true, but less inspiriting so far as a com
mitment to the new policy is concemed. At the risk, possi-

27
bly, of offending some of those present, I will venture to
institute it. In the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to
St. Matthew, I find this incident recorded: "The devil
taketh him [the Saviour] up into an exceeding high mountain,
and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the
glory of them ; and saith unto him. All these things will I
give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith
Jesus unto him. Get thee hence, Satan. Then the devil leaveth
him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."
Now, historically speaking, and as a matter of scriptural exe
gesis, that this passage should be accepted hterally is not
supposable. Satan, on the occasion referred to, must not be
taken to have presented himself to the Saviour in propriA
persona, with his attributes of horns, tail, and cloven hoof, and
made an outright proposition of extra-territorial sovereignty.
It was a parable. He who had assumed a lofty moral attitude
was tempted by worldly inducements to adopt a lower attitude,
— that, in a word, common among men. It was a whisper
ing to Christ of what among nations, is known as " Manifest
Destiny ; " in that case, however, as possibly in others, it so
chanced that the whispering was not from the Almighty, but
from Satan. Now if, instead of recognizing the source whence
the temptation came, and sternly saying, " Get thee hence,
Satan," Christ had seen the proposition as a new Mission, —
thought, in fact, that he heard a distinct call to Duty, — and
so, accepting a Responsibility thrust upon him, had hurried
down from the ' ' exceeding high mountain, ' ' and proceeded at
once to lay in a supply of weapons and to don defensive armor,
renouncing his peaceful mission, he would have done exactly
— what Mohammed did six centuries later !
I do not for a moment mean to suggest that, as respects the
voice of " Manifest Destiny," there is any similarity between
the case of the Saviour and that which we, as a people, are
now considering. I am not a prophet, nor do I claim pro
phetic insight. We are merely historical investigators, and,
as such, not admitted into the councils of the Almighty.
Others doubtless are, or certainly claim to be. They know
every time, and at once, whether it is the inspiration of God
or the devil ; and forthwith proclaim it from the house-tops.
We must admit — at any rate no evidence in our possession

28
enables us to deny — the confidential relations snch claim to
have with either *or both of the agencies in question, — the
Divine or the Infernal. All I now have in mind is to call
attention to the obvious similarity of the positions. As com
pared with the ideals and tenets then in vogue, — principles
of manhood," equality before the law, freedom, peace on earth
and good- will to men, — the United States, heretofore and seen
in a large way, has, among nations, assumed a pectiliar, and,
from the moral point of view, unquestionably a lofty attitude.
Speaking historicallj- it might, and with no charge of levity,
be compared with a similar moral attitude assumed among
men eighteen centuries before by the Saviour. It discoun
tenanced armaments and warfare ; it advocated arbitrations,
and bowed to their awards ; spreading its arms and protection
over the New World, it refused to embroil itself in the
complications of the Old ; above all, it set a not unprofit
able example to the nations of benefits incident to mind
ing one's own business, and' did not arrogate to itself
the character of a favorite and inspired instrument in the
hands of God. It even went so far as to assuine that, in
working out the inscrutable ways of Providence, character,
self-restraint, and moral grandeur were in the long run as
potent in effecting results as iron-clads and gatling-guns.
Those who now advocate a continuance of this poUcy are,
as neatly as 'n-ittily, referred to in discussion, " for want of a
better name," as " Little Americans," just as in history the
believers in the long-run efficacy of the doctrines of Christ
might be termed " Little Gospellers," to distinguish them
from the admirers of the later, but more brilliant and imperial,
dispensation of Mohammed. That the earlier, and less im
mediately ambitious, doctrine was, in the case of the United
States, only temporary', and is now outgprown, and must,
therefore, be abandoned in favor of Old World methods, es
pecially those pursued with such striking "success bj' Great
Britain, is possible. As historical investigators we have long
since learned that it is the unexpected which in the devel
opment of human affairs is most apt to occur. Who, for
instance, in our own recent history could ever have foreseen
that, in the inscrutable ways of the Almighty, the great tri
umph of Slavery in the annexation of Texas, and the spolia-

29
tion of that inferior race which inhabited Mexico, was, within
fifteen years only, to result in what Lincoln called that
"terrible war" in which every drop of blood ever drawn
by the lash was paid by another drawn by the sword?
Again, in May, 1856, a Representative of South CaroHna
stmck down a Senator from Massachusetts in the Senate-
chamber at Washington; in January, 1865, Massachusetts
battalions bivouacked beside the smoking ruins of South
Carolina's capital. Verily, as none know better than we, the
ways of Providence are mysterious, and past finding out.
None the less, though it cannot be positively asserted that
the world would not have been wiser, more advanced, and
better ordered had Christ, when on that " exceeding high
mountain, ' ' heard in the words then whispered in his ear a
manifest call of Duty, and felt a Responsibility thrust upon
him to secure the kingdoms of the earth for the Blessings of
Liberty and the Bible by so small a sacrifice as making an ap
parently meaningless obeisance to Satan, yet we can cer
tainly say that the world would now have been very different
from what it is had he so done. And so in the case of the
United States, though we cannot for a moment assert that
its fate and the future of the world will not be richer, better,
and brighter from its abandonment of New World traditions
and policies in favor of the traditions and policies of the Old
World, we can say without any hesitation that the course of
history will be greatly changed by the so doing.
In any event the experiment will be one of surpassing
interest to the historical observer. Some years ago James
Russell Lowell was asked by the French historian, Guizot,
how long the Republic of the United States might reasonably
be expected to endure. Mr. Lowell's reply has always been
considered peculiarly happy. ' ' So long, ' ' said he, ' ' as the
ideas of its founders continue dominant. ' ' In due course of
time we, or those who follow us, will know whether Mr.
Lowell diagnosed the situation correctly, or otherwise. Mean
while, I do not know how I can better bring to an end this
somewhat lengthy contribution to the occasion, than by re
peating, as singularly applicable to the conditions in which
we find ourselves, these verses from a recent poem, than
which I have heard none in the days that now are which

30
strike a deeper or a truer chord, or one more appropriate to
this New England Paschal eve :
" The tumult and the shouting dies.
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
"Far-called our navies melt away.
On dune and headline sinks the fire —
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre !
Judge of the nations, spare us yet.
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
"If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee iu awe,
Such boasting as the_ Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law —
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet.
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
" For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard —
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
Aud guarding calls not Thee to guard —
For frantic boast and foolish word.
Thy mercy on thy people. Lord !
Amen."

31

Taken in connection with the foregoing paper, the following
letter, addressed to the Hon. Carl Schurz, is self-explanatory :
Boston, December 21, 1898.
My Dear ]^r. Schurz :
In a recent letter you kindly suggest that I submit to you
a sketch of what, I think, should be said in an address such
as it is proposed should now be put forth by the Anti- Impe
rialist League to the people of the United States.
I last evening read a paper before the Lexington Histori
cal Societ}', in which I discussed the question of extra-terri
torial expansion from the historical point of view. A copy
of this paper I hope soon to forward you. Meanwhile, there
is one aspect, and, to my mind, the all-important aspect of the
question, which, in addressing an historical society, was not
germane. I refer to the question of a practical policy to be
pursued by us, as a nation, under existing conditions. That
Spain has abandoned all claim of sovereignty over the Phil
ippine islands admits of no question. Whether the United
States has accepted the sovereignty thus abandoned is still
an open question; but this I do not regard as material.
Nevertheless, we are confronted by a fact ; and, whenever we
criticise the policy up to this time pursued, we are met with
an inquiry as to what we have to propose in place of it. We
are invited to stop finding fault with others, and to suggest
some feasible alternative policy ourselves.
To this we must, therefore, in fairness, address ourselves.
It is, in my judgment, useless to attempt to carry on the dis
cussion merely in the negative form. As opponents of an
inchoate policy we must, in place of what we object to, pro
pose something positive, or we must abandon the field. Ac
cepting the alternative, I now want to suggest a positive
policy for the consideration of those who feel as we feel. I
wish your judgment upon it.
There has, it seems to me, been a great deal of idle
" Duty," " Mission," and " Call " talk on the subject of our
recent acquisition of ' ' Islands beyond the Sea, ' ' and the ne
cessity of adopting some policy, commonly described as ' ' Im
perial, " in dealing with them. This policy is, in the minds

32
of most people who favor it, to be indirectly modelled on the
policy heretofore so successfullj' pursued under somewhat
similar conditions by Great Britain. It involves, as I tried
to point out in the Lexington paper I have referred to, the
abandonment or reversal of all the fundamental principles of
our govemment since its origin, and of the foreign policy we
have heretofore pursued. This, I submit, is absolutely un
necessary. Another and substitute policy, purely American,
as contradistinguished from the European or British, known
as " Imperial," policy, can readily be formulated.
This essentially American policj' would be based both
upon our cardinal political principles, and our recent foreign
experiences. It is commonly argued that, having destroyed
the existing govemment in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Phil
ippines, we have assumed a political responsiblity, and are
under a moral obligation to provide another govemment in
place of that which by our action has ceased to exist. What
has been our course heretofore under similar circumstances ?
Precedents, I submit, at once suggest themselves. Prece
dents, too, directly in point, and within your and my easy
recollection. I refer to the course pursued by us towards Mexico in the
year 1848, and again in 1866; towards Hayti for seventy
years back ; and towards Venezuela as recently as three
years ago. It is said that the inhabitants of the islands of
the Antilles, and much more those of the Philippine archi
pelago, are as 3'et unfitted to maintain a government ; and
that they should be kept in a condition of ' ' tutelage ' ' until
they are fitted so to do. It is further argued that a stable
govemment is necessary, and that it is out of the question
for us to permit a condition of chronic disturbance and scan
dalous unrest to exist so near our own borders as Cuba and
Porto Rico. Yet how long, I would ask, did that condition
exist in Mexico ? And with what results ? How long has
it existed in Hayti ? Has the government of Venezuela ever
been ' ' stable ' ' ? Have we found it necessary or thought it
best to establish a governmental protectorate in any of those
immediately adjacent regions ?
What has been, historically, our policy — the American,
as distinguished from the European and British policy —

33
towards those communities, — two of them Spanish, one Afri
can ? So far as foreign powers are concerned, we have laid
down the principle of " Hands-off." So far as their own
government was concerned, we insisted that the only way to
learn to walk was to try to walk, and that the history of man
kind did not show that nations placed under systems of ' ' tute
lage," — taught to lean for support on a superior power, —
ever acquired the faculty of independent action.
Of this, with us, fundamental truth, the British race itself
furnishes a very notable example. In the forty-fourth year of
the Christian era the island of Great Britain was occupied by
what the "Imperial" Romans adjudged to be an inferior
race. To the Romans the Britons unquestionably were in
ferior. Every child's history contains an account of the
course then pursued by the superior towards that inferior
race, and its results. The Romans occupied Great Britain,
and they occupied it hard upon four centuries, holding the
people in "tutelage," and protecting them against them
selves, as well as against their enemies. With what result ?
So emasculated and incapable of self-government did the
people of England become during their "tutelage" that,
when Rome at last withdrew, they found themselves totally
unfitted for self-government, much more for facing a foreign
enemy. As the last, and best, historian of the English
people tells us, the purely despotic system of the imperial
government " by crushing all local independence, crushed all
local vigor. Men forgot how to fight for their country when
they forgot how to govern it." ' The end was that, through
six centuries more, England was overrun, first by those of
one race, and then by those of another, until the Normans
established themselves in it as conquerors ; and then, and not
until then, the deteriorating effect of a system of long con
tinued ' ' tutelage ' ' ceased to be felt, and the islanders became
by degrees the most energetic, virile, and self-sustaining of
races. As nearly, therefore, as can be historically stated, it
took eight centuries for the people of England to overcome
the injurious influence of four centuries of just such a system
as it is now proposed by us to inflict on the Philippines.''
¦ Green's Short History (IH. Ed.). Vol. I. p. 9.
2 The Roraan legions were withdrawn from Great Britain in 410; Magna Charta

34
Hindostan would furnish another highly suggestive example
of the educational effects of " tutelage " on a race. After a
century and a half of that British "tutelage," what prog
ress has India made towards fitness for self-government ? Is
the end in sight ?
From the historical point of view, it is instructive to note
the exactly different results reached through the truly Ameri
can policy we have pursued in the not dissimilar cases of
Hayti and Mexico. "UTiile Haj-ti, it is true, has failed to
make great progress in one centurj-, it has made quite as
much progress as England made during any equal period
immediately after Rome withdrew from it. And that degree
of slowness in growth, which ^th equanimity has been en
dured by us in Hayti, could certainly be endured by us in
islands on the coast of Asia. It cannot be gainsaid that,
through our insisting on the policy of non-interference our
selves, and of non-interference bj' European nations, Hayti
has been brought into a position where it is on the high road
to better things in future. That has been the result of the
prescriptive American policy. With Mexico, the case is far
stronger. We all know that in 1S4S, after our war of spoUa
tion, we had to bolster up a semblance of a govemment for
Mexico, with which to negotiate a treaty of peace. Mexico
at that time was reduced by us to a condition of utter anar
chy. Under the theory now gaining in vogue, it would then
have been our plain duty to make of Mexico an extra-terri
torial dependencj', and protect it against itself. We wisely
took a different course. Like other Spanish communities in
America, Mexico than passed through a succession of revo
lutions, from which it became apparent the people were not
in a fit condition for self-government. Nevertheless, stemlv
insisting on non-interference b}- outside powers, we ourselves
wiseh- left that country to work out its own salvation in its
own wa}-.
In 1862, when the United States was involved in the War
was signed in June. 1215, and Uie reign of French kings OTer England came to a
close in 1217. It is a striking illustration of the deliberation with which natural
processes work themselves out. that the period which elapsed between the with
drawal of Rome frt>m England, and the recover>-of England by the English, should
have exceeded by more than a century the time which has as vet elapsed since
England was thus recovered.

35
of the Rebellion, the Europeans took advantage of the situa
tion to invade Mexico, and to establish there a "stable gov
ernment." They undertook to protect that people against
themselves, and to erect for them a species of protectorate,
such as we now propose for the Philippines. As soon as our
war was over, we insisted upon the withdrawal of Europe
from Mexico. What followed is matter of recent history.
It is unnecessary to recall it. We did not reduce Mexico into
a condition of "tutelage," or establish over it a "protecto
rate" of our own. We, on the contrary, insisted that it
should stand on its own legs; and, by so doing, leam to stand
firmly on them, just as a child learns to walk, by being com
pelled to try to walk, not by being kept everlastingly in
' ' leading strings. ' ' This was the American, as contradistin
guished from the European pohcy ; and Mexico to-day walks
firmly. Finally take the case of Venezuela in 1895. I believe I
am not mistaken when I say that, during the twenty-five
preceding years, Venezuela had undergone almost as many
revolutions. It certainly had not enjoyed a stable govern
ment. Through disputes over questions of boundary-. Great
Britain proposed to confer that indisputable blessing upon a
considerable region. We interfered under a most question
able extension of the Monroe Doctrine, and asserted the
principle of "Hands-off." Having done this, — having in
so far perpetuated what we now call the scandal of anarchy,
— we did not establish "tutelage," or a protectorate, our
selves. We wisely left Venezuela to work out its destiny in
its own way, and in the fullness of time. That policy was
far-seeing, beneficent, and strictly American in 1895. Why,
then, make almost indecent haste to abandon it in 1898 ?
Instead, therefore, of finding our precedents in the experience
of England, or that of any other European power, I would
suggest that the true course for this country now to pursue
is exactly the course we have heretofore pursued under simi
lar conditions. Let us be true to our own traditions, and
follow our own precedents. Having relieved the Spanish
islands from the dominion of Spain, we should declare con
cerning them a policy of " Hands-off," both on our own part
and on the part of other powers. We should say that the

36
independence, of those islands is morally guaranteed by us
as a consequence of the treaty of Paris, and then leave them
just as we have left Hayti, and just as we left Mexico and
Venezuela, to adopt for themselves such form of government
as the people thereof are ripe for. In the cases of Mexico
and Venezuela, and in the case of Hayti, we have not found
it necessary to interfere ever orat all. It is not yet apparent
why we should find it necessary to interfere with islands so
much more remote from us than Hayti, and than Mexico
and Venezuela, as are the Philippines.
In this matter we can thus well afford to be consistent, as
well as logical. Our fundamental principles, those of the
Declaration, the Constitution, and the Monroe Doctrine, have
not yet been shown to be unsound — why should we be in such
a hurry to abandon them ? Our precedents are close at hand,
and satisfactory — why look away from them to follow those
of Great Britain ? Why need we, all of a sudden, be so very
English and so altogether French, even borrowing their
nomenclature of "imperialism?" Why can not we, too, in
the language of Burke, be content to set our feet "in the
tracks of our forefathers, where we can neither wander nor
stumble ? " The only diSiculty in the way of our so doing
seems to be that we are in such a desperate hurry ; while
natural influences and methods, though in the great end
indisputably the wisest and best, always require time in
which to work themselves out to their results. Wiser than
the Alraighty in our own conceit, we think to get there at
once; the "there" in this case being everlasting "tute
lage," as in India, instead of ultimate self-government, as in
Mexico. The policy heretofore pursued by us in such cases, — the
policy of "Hands-off," and "Walk alone," is distinctly
American; it is not European, not even British. It recog
nizes the principles of our Declaration of Independence.
It recognizes the truth that all just government exists by the
consent of the governed. It recognizes the existence of
the Monroe Doctrine. In a word, it recognizes every princi
ple and precedent, whether natural or historical, which has
from the beginning lain at the foundation of our American
polity. It does not attempt the hypocritical contradiction in

terms, of pretending to elevate a people into a self-sustaining
condition through the leading-string process of "tutelage."
It appeals to our historical experience, applying to present
conditions tbe lessons of Hayti, Mexico, and Venezuela.
In dealing with those cases, we did not find a great standing
army or an enormous navy necessary ; and, if not then, why
now? Why such a difference between the Philippines aud
Hayti? Is Cuba larger or nearer to us than Mexico? When,
therefore, in future they ask us what course and policy we
Anti-Imperialists propose, our answer should be that we pro
pose to pursue towards the islands of Antilles and the Philip
pines the same common-sense course and truly American
policy which were by us heretofore pursued with such signal
success in the cases of Hayti, Mexico, and Venezuela, all in
habited by people equally unfit for self-government, and
geographically much closer to ourselves. We propose to
guarantee them against outside meddling, and, above all,
from "tutelage," and make them, by walking, learn to walk
alone. This, I submit, is not only an answer to the question so
frequently put to us, but a positive policy following estab
lished precedents, and, what is more, purely American, as
distinguished from a European or British, policy and pre
cedents. I remain, etc.,
Charles Francis Adams.
Hon. Carl Schurz,
i6 E. 64th Street, New York City.

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