It has been my singular good fortune that, so far, they have all come to my way of thinking, as have the majority of the American people, in regard to every one, with perhaps one exception. That is the dealing of the American people with the people of the Philippine Islands, by the Treaty with Spain. The war that followed it crushed the Republic that the Philippine people had set up for themselves, deprived them of their independence, and established there, by American power, a Government in which the people have no part, against their will. No man, I think, will seriously question that that action was contrary to the Declaration of Independence, the fundamental principles declared in many State constitutions, the principles avowed by the founders of the Republic and by our statesmen of all parties down to a time long after the death of Lincoln.
If the question were, whether I am myself right, or whether my friends and companions in the Republican Party be right, I should submit to their better judgment. But I feel quite confident, though of that no man can be certain, that if the judgment of the American people, even in this generation, could be taken on that question alone, I should find myself in the majority. If it be not so, the issue is between the opinion of the American people for more than a century, and the opinion that the American people has expressed for one or two Presidential terms.
Surely I do not need to argue the question; at any rate, I will not here undertake to argue the question, that our dealing with the Philippine people is a violation of the principles to which our people adhered from 1776 to 1893. If the maintenance of slavery were inconsistent with them, it was admitted that in that particular we were violating them, or were unable from circumstances to carry them into effect. Mr. Jefferson thought so himself.
But the accomplishment by this Republic of its purpose to subjugate the Philippine people to its will, under the claim that it, and not they, had the right to judge of their fitness for self-government, is a rejection of the old American doctrine as applicable to any race we may judge to be our inferior.
This doctrine will be applied hereafter, unless it be abandoned, to the Negro at home. Senator Tillman of South Carolina well said, and no gentleman in the Senate contradicted him: "Republican leaders do not longer dare to call into question the justice or the necessity of limiting Negro suffrage in the South." The same gentleman said at another time: "I want to call your attention to the remarkable change that has come over the spirit of the dream of the Republicans. Your slogans of the past—brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God—have gone glimmering down through the ages. The brotherhood of man exists no longer." These statements of Mr. Tillman have never been challenged, and never can be.
I do not mean here to renew the almost interminable debate.
I will only make a very brief statement of my position:
The discussion began with the acquisition of Hawaii. Ever since I came to the Senate I had carefully studied the matter of the acquisition of Hawaii. I had become thoroughly satisfied that it would be a great advantage to the people of the United States, as well as for the people of Hawaii.
Hawaii is 2,100 miles from our Pacific coast. Yet if a line be drawn from the point of our territory nearest Asia to the Southern boundary of California, that line being the chord of which our Pacific coast is the bow, Hawaii will fall this side of it. Held by a great Nation with whom we were at war, it would be a most formidable and valuable base of supplies. We had sustained a peculiar relation to it. American missionaries had redeemed the people from barbarism and Paganism. Many of them, and their descendants, had remained in the Islands. The native Hawaiians were a perishing race. They had gone down from 300,000 to 30,000 within one hundred years.
The Japanese wanted it. The Portugese wanted it. Other nations wanted it. But the Hawaiians seemed neither to know nor care whether they wanted it or no. They were a perishing people. Their only hope and desire and expectation was that in the Providence of God they might lead a quiet, undisturbed life, fishing, bathing, supplied with tropical fruits, and be let alone.
We had always insisted that our relation to them was peculiar; that they could not be permitted to fall under the dominion of another power, even by their own consent. That had been declared by our Department of State under Administrations of all parties, including Mr. Webster, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Bayard. They were utterly helpless. As their Queen has lately declared: "The best thing for them that could have happened was to belong to the United States."