"Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers"

by Charles Francis Adams

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 moral obligation. On the other hand, trade and commercial inducements are held out which would lead us to treat these islands simply as a commencement—the first instalment—in a system of unlimited extra-territorial dependencies and imperial expansion. With these responsibilities and obligations we here this evening 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; 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 simply to test historically some of the arguments I have heard most 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 historic 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 disconnected?

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 Almighty, in his infinite wisdom, has thrust upon us,—some say 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 history,—and that is the only way we here can view them,—"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 theories, 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 the output of the Bible Society. The record speaks for itself. So far as the Indian is concerned, 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 enunciated 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 concerned, 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 audience, "I am for the white man as against the black man, and for the black man against the alligator." Recent lynching 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 massacres, 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 new regions 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 the fittest." (Hon. C.A. Sulloway, Rochester, N.H., Nov. 22, 1898.)

Next as regards our fundamental principles of equality of human rights, and the consent of the governed as the only just basis of all government. 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 modern knowledge and conditions, are of doubtful general truth and limited application. True, when confined and carefully applied to citizens of the same blood and nationality; questionable, when applied to human beings of different race in one nationality; manifestly false, in the case of races less developed, and in other, especially tropical, countries.[2] As fundamental principles, it is admitted, they were excellent for a young people struggling into recognition and limiting its attention narrowly to what only 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 question of what races are superior and what inferior, what dominant and what subject, that is of necessity a question to be settled between the superior race and its own conscience; and one in regard to the correct settlement of which it indicates a tendency at once unpatriotic and "pessimistic," to assume that America could by any chance decide otherwise than correctly. 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 revolutionary 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, and their necessary consequents, costly and burdensome armaments and large standing armies, we are again advised that, having 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 authority 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 inapplicable to existing conditions. Under these circumstances, and in view of the obligations we have assumed, the President, and Secretaries of War and the Navy, recommend an establishment the annual cost of which ($200,000,000), exclusive 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, susceptible of verification. I do 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, historically, there seems 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 heretofore 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 been either to exclude or destroy, or to leave them in the fullness of time to work out their own destiny, undisturbed by us; fully believing 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 dependencies. 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 of the governed was a condition of government. They have, on the contrary, emphatically 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 reaching 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 limitations; 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 principles 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 statements. 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;" and 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, wholly distinct from our own, and directly inhibited by our constitution, in regard to which systems those dependencies have no representative voice. They are not 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 incidentally 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 alliances, 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 outgrown the Monroe 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 Doctrine." Indeed 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 products, Providence has imposed on us obvious obligations, material as well as benevolent and religious, which it would 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 of the Old World have not heretofore erred conspicuously 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 similar conjuring 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 establishments. 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 reserve 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.