to have far-reaching effects, extending to the New World, for in 1795 and 1796 the French government began to urge upon Spain the transfer of the former French province of Louisiana. . . .

People speak of the "Louisiana negotiations" as though there had been two sides and a balancing of propositions. In reality the province was thrown to the United States, as the Caliph Harun-al-Raschid might have given a palace to a poor merchant who had admired the portico. . . .

So evident were the practical advantages of annexing Louisiana that much of the anti-annexation argument was directed against the future creation of a new State, from which would come senators and representatives.

The favorite objection was the distance of the new territory. . . .

Another objection was the cost of the territory. . .

To sum up the objections to the treaty: France had no right to cede it; the United States had no right to receive it, under the conditions of the treaty; it was not worth having on any terms; it was vast; it would disturb the balance of the Union; it would draw valued inhabitants from other parts of the United States; it would poison the settlers; the treaty was an extra-constitutional proceeding; the President and Senate did not represent the opinion of the country; and patriotic men ought to oppose "such a pernicious measure as the admission of Louisiana, of a world, and such a world, into our Union.'

While members of Congress, as well as people outside, were discussing the question of Louisiana, Jefferson had already dispatched Lewis and Clarke to explore the upper Missouri and find a practicable road across to the Pacific; but though bold to enlarge his country, he still had constitutional qualms, which were not removed by the Senate vote of 24 to 7 ratifying the treaty, nor by the House vote of 90 to 25 granting the necessary appropriation. Jefferson drew up a constitutional amendment intended to be an indemnity for him, and to define the principles of annexation for later times; but his own friends laughed at the idea, and from that day to this the territory has remained a part of the United States, with no further constitutional controversies.

If this study were carried farther forward, the same evident, hearty, and unappeasable Anglo-Saxon land-hunger would be found appearing in the War of 1812, in the boundary controversies with Great Britain, in the annexations of Texas and California. Whether that was a right and wholesome hunger must be determined from the last fifty years of national history. But wise or unwise, far-seeing or haphazard, consecutive or accidental, good or evil, the policy of our forefathers was a policy of territorial extension, and they met and supposed they had surmounted most of the problems which have now returned to vex American public men, and to give concern to those who love their country.

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Territorial Problems, in Harper's Monthly, Vol. I. pp. 312-320 passim (January, 1900).

ABBOTT (1900)

We have believed and we still believe that the war against Spain was a most just and necessary war; that on it we had a right to invoke "the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God," and that by both it has been sanctioned; that if by his providence God has ever signified his approval of war, he did so by the unparalleled successes of our navy at Manila and Santiago; that if ever war received popular approval from the common people hostile to hierarchical and oligarchic oppression, our war against Spain has had such approval from the common people of other lands. And while the issue in the Philippines is not equally clear, because it is possible that statesmanship could have avoided war with the Filipinos, yet we have believed and still believe that it was our duty to save, by diplomacy if possible, by war if necessary, those islands from the anarchy in which the pseudo-government of the Aguinaldo oligarchy would inevitably have involved them.

The war with a self-seeking oligarchy in Spain and the war with a self-seeking oligarchy in the Philippines is over, and now there commences a war with the same spirit of self-seeking at home. We are glad that the American flag floats over Puerto Rico and over the Philippines; and we believe that the Amer

ican flag will carry to those lands which it covers the same blessings which it has carried in successive eras of expansion to new American territory on this continent. But it is clear that this result and their prosperity and our National honor are threatened by short-sighted politicians and greedy traders, and that those who are expansionists but not imperialists must join hands in a vigorous and determined appeal to the American people to secure the welfare of our dependencies and preserve the honor of our Nation. And it seems to us that those who have not been expansionists might well join those who are expansionists but are not imperialists upon this new issue now presented.

In determining our duty toward our dependencies the Nation is bound neither by the specific provisions of its written Constitution defining the rights of States and Territories, nor by the specific counsels and the unwritten traditions of the past. It is not bound by the first, because Puerto Rico and the Philippines are neither States nor Territories, and have not the specific rights which the written Constitution gives to States and Territories. It is not bound by the second, because counsels given and traditions created in one epoch and applicable to one state of circumstances are not bonds to bind the Nation in another epoch and under different circumstances. . .

But we are bound by those general principles of justice and humanity which are equally applicable to all epochs and in all circumstances, and we must preserve in our new conditions that spirit which constitutes what we may call the personality of the Nation, the loss of which would involve the real death of the Nation. The eternal principle of justice which must control us is that governments exist for the benefit of the governed; the American spirit which must control us is that the ideal form of government is self-government. . . . The selfgovernment of a community rests on the capacity of the individuals in the community to govern themselves; if there is no such capacity in the individuals, there will be no such capacity in the community. That capacity may be developed by long centuries of training, as in the Anglo-Saxon race; it may be developed by contiguity and companionship with men who already possess such capacity, as in the case of our own immi

grant populations. But to assume that it is possessed by a people without training, and to leave them to exercise it without supervision, counsel, or control, would be a blunder only comparable to that of a father who should affirm that all children have a dormant capacity for self-support, and therefore the new-born babe may be left to take care of himself. Moses required a princess mother, and even Romulus and Remus would have starved but for the tender mercies of a she-wolf.

But, although self-government cannot be assumed as the starting point for Puerto Rico or the Philippines, it must be kept constantly in view as the goal. American institutions are built on self-government. In this respect America is more democratic than England. In England the political powers of the county and the town are derived from the central Parliament; in America the powers of Congress are derived from the States. The source of authority in the one nation is a central fountain, in the other it is many local springs. Our object in Puerto Rico and the Philippines must be to develop a local self-government in town and county, and from this build up a self-government for the entire community, and out of this selfgovernment must grow the final relations between that selfgoverning community and the Nation. The ultimate relation must be either that of a State to the Nation, or that of an independent self-governing colony to a mother-land; it must not be that of a Roman province to a central imperial authority. The latter would be imperialism, and it would not be expansion.

Meanwhile, and as a first step in this process, we must govern our dependencies with unselfish justice and equity. For there is only one way of passing from anarchy to self-government—namely, through government from without.

LYMAN ABBOTT, Expansion, but not Imperialism, in The Outlook, LXIV. 662-663 (March 24, 1900).

LODGE (1900)

The capacity of a people, moreover, for free and representative government is not in the least a matter of guesswork. The forms of government to which nations or races naturally tend may easily be discovered from history. You can follow the

story of political freedom and representative government among the English-speaking people back across the centuries until you reach the Teutonic tribes emerging from the forests of Germany and bringing with them forms of local self-government which are repeated to-day in the pure democracies of the New England town meeting. The tendencies and instincts of the Teutonic race which, reaching from the Arctic Circle to the Alps, swept down upon the Roman Empire, were clear at the outset. Yet the individual freedom and the highly developed forms of free government in which these tendencies and instincts have culminated in certain countries and under the most favorable conditions have been the slow growth of nearly fifteen hundred years.

There never has been, on the other hand, the slightest indication of any desire for what we call freedom or representative government east of Constantinople. The battle of Marathon was but the struggle between a race which had the instinct and desire for freedom and the opposite principle. The form of government natural to the Asiatic has always been a despotism. You may search the history of Asia and of the East for the slightest trace, not merely of any understanding, but of any desire for political liberty, as we understand the word. In the village communities of India, in the Mura of Japan, in the towns and villages of China you can find forms of local selfgovernment which are as successful as they are ancient. The Malays of Java and of the Philippines as well display the same capacity, and on this old and deep-rooted practice the selfgovernment of provinces and states can, under proper auspices, be built up. It is just here that our work ought to begin. But this local self-government never went beyond the town or the village; it never grew and spread, as was the case with the Teutonic tribes and their descendants. The only central, state or national governments which the Eastern and Asiatic people have formed or set up have been invariably despotisms.

You cannot change race tendencies in a moment. Habits of thought slowly formed through long periods of time and based on physical, climatic, and geographical peculiarities are more indestructible than the pyramids themselves. Only by very slow processes can they be modified or changed. .