Conservative *
SHALL THE UNITED STATES HAVE
COLONIES ?
"Arbitrary governments may have territories
and distant possessions because arbitrary gov
ernments may rule them by different laws and
different systems. . . . Wo can do no such
thing. They must bo of us , part of us , or else
strangers. " Daniel Webster.
This topic of course , involves the re
cent acquisition by the United States of
nn extraordinary assortment of distant
islands and alien peoples. Having ac
quired these islands and peoples by our
recent wars , we must determine upon a
course of action in respect to them.
Three courses are open to us. First , we
may let them go , securing by treaty all
proper privileges in return for some
measure of protection from outside ag
gression. Second , we may incorporate
them into our body politic , holding
them by force in subjection without
representation. Third , wo may incor
porate them into our body politic , con
ceding to them the inalienable rights of
freedom with representation.
Those who would adopt the first
course.letting the islands go , believe that
their people are not fitted to share with
us the privileges and duties of Ameri
can citizenship ; and that , whatever
others may do , it is not open to us to
deny to men of any race or place
equality of personal rights. They who
thus believe do not undervalue trade.
They do not wish to restrict American
influence. They desire to hold their
country true to the course which has
exalted her among the nations and made
her prosperous beyond compare. They
believe that wo can secure through
treaties , cordially entered into by native
governments , all privileges of trade and
intercourse with their peoples which we
should ask.
Those who would let the islands go ,
hold that , if the natives are incompe
tent to maintain public order by means
of governments of their own choice
suited to their conditions , they are unfit
for incorporation into our body politic
on whatever terms. They who so hold
are unwilling to provide a place beneath
their country's flag for others than citi
zens. They remember the tremendous
sacrifices made by a passing generation
to efface the stain of human slavery
from the American name. They would
not re-introduce inequality of rights
into a nation that was "conceived in
liberty and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal. " They
would hold America true to the ideals
of liberty and human rights which in
spired her national life , which constitute
.her real glory , which form the basis of
her most splendid vision.
Those who , with Benjamin Harrison ,
would "limit the use of power of terri
torial expansion to regions that may
safely become part of the United States ,
and to peoples whose American citizen
ship may be allowed , " do not question
the power of the American people
whom they distinguished from the
American government , their agent as
a nation to do as respects acquired ter
ritory what other nations may do. They
deny that it is open to a people , or
ganized to secure and maintain self-gov
ernment for themselves and their pos
terity , to question or deny the right of
another people to self-government.
They say that a people , who for more
than a century have repudiated and de
nied the doctrine of absolutism , are
estopped to assume and exercise abso
lute power over other peoples. They
bold that a crowd acting the role of
despot is even less open to reason than
is the individual despot. They no more
desire to exercise despotic power over
others than to bo themselves the victims
of despotism.
The second course open to us , the in
corporation of the island peoples into
our body politic , to be held in subjection
without representatiouis but a reversion
to the Roman method of nation-mak
ing. It involves the re-introduction into
our system of the doctrine of inequality.
It means the government of millions of
men by force. It marks a clear de
parture from the hitherto consistent
course in the pursuit of which we have
achieved national greatness and world
wide influence. Until now our every
acquisition of territory was made to ex
pand the domain of equal rights , to ex
tend the area of constitutional liberty.
Each successive expansion of our ter
ritory enlarged a republic of self-govern
ing men. The inhabitants of every
such acquisition became citizenssharing
with us the rights of American citizen
ship.
This natural growth of a self-govern
ing nation has until our time satisfied
the aspirations of American statesman
ship. Those , who from time to time ex
ercised the authority of the nation ,
have been content to "limit the use of
the power of territorial expansion to re
gions that might safely become part of
the United States , and to peoples whose
American citizenship might be allowed. ' '
Without preliminary discussion and by
a course each step of which was declared
not to involve the next , we have been
committed to what is at last conceded
to be a departure from our traditional
policy , to what is called a colonial
policy. We have by wars of conquest
acquired distant territories fully peopled
pled by millions of men not qualified
for American citizenship. Our govern
ment , which is without inherent powers
'and is but the expression of the will of
a self-governing people , has assumed
and today exercises despotic power over
these unhappy peoples. We have flatly
denied to them the inalienable "rights
of human nature" for which the revolu
tion was fought. We have despoiled
them of their native land and made them
mere subjects of a distant republic. We
have relegated them to a status of
slavery. Benjamin Harrison , referring
to them in January last , said : "The
man whose protection from wrougrests
wholly upon the benevolence of another
man or a congress , is a slave a man
without rights. " Mr. Justice Harlau ,
in the Dowries' cose , says : "The idea
that this country may acquire territories
anywhere upon the earth , by conquest
or treaty , and hold them as mere colonies
nies or provinces , and the people inhab
iting them to enjoy only such rights as
congress chooses to accord to them , is
wholly inconsistent with the spirit and
genius as well as with the words of the
constitution. "
This policy , though within the power
of the greatest of republics , is suicidal.
John Fiske , in discussing its failure at
Rome , says : "The essential vice of the
Roman system was that it had been un
able to avoid weakening the spirit of
personal independence and crushing out
local self-government among the people
to whom it had been applied. It owed
its wonderful success to joining Liberty I
with Union , but as it went on , it found I
itself compelled gradually to sacrifice
liberty to union , strengthening the
hands of the central government and
enlarging its functions more and more ,
until by and by the political life of the
several parts had so far died away , that
under the pressure of attack from with
out , the Union fell to pieces and the
whole political system had to be pain
fully reconstructed. "
"The Roman method of nation mak
ing lacked the principle of representa
tion . . . . What was needed was
the introduction of a fierce spirit of per
sonal liberty and personal self-govern
ment. "
There is a third course open to us , the
incorporation of the island peoples into
body politic with the equal rights of
American citizenship. This is the tried
American method of nation-making. It
is founded on the great principle of
representation. Until with professions
of humanity on our lips we entered up
on wars of conquest , we had not
dreamed that a self-governing people
might extend its national boundaries by
other means. It assumed that govern
ments derive their just powers only from
the consent of the governed. It did not
prevent national expansion. It limited
such expansion to regions and peoples
that might safely be admitted into a
self-governing nation. The admission
of acquired territory , as states was only
delayed for sufficient population to
maintain all the institutions of constitu
tional liberty. In the meantime the
personal rights of American citizen
ship were protected by the constitution
and everywhere respected. In the
words of the supreme court , in a case
decided in 1895 , even aliens were "en
titled to the benefit of the guaranties of
life , liberty , and property , secured by the