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 similar 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 concerning them a
policy of "Hands-off," both on our own part and on the part of other
powers. We should say that the 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 or at
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 difficulty 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 Almighty in our own conceit, we think to get
there at once; the "there" in this case being everlasting "tutelage," 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 recognizes 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
principle 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 the 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 and 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 propose to pursue towards the islands of Antilles and the
Philippines 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 inhabited 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 established precedents, and, what
is more, purely American, as distinguished from a European or British,
policy and precedents.
I remain, etc.,
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.
_Hon. Carl Schurz,
16 E. 64th Street, New York City._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "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 political or civil distinctions, and to abolish all
institutions founded upon _birth_. 'All men are _created_ equal,' says
the Declaration of Independence. 'All 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 Great Charter of 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 Ethiopian; nor is he French, German, English, or Irish;
he is a MAN, the equal of all his fellow-men. He is one 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, imitating the divine Justice, is no respecter of
persons."--_Works of Charles Sumner, Vol. II., pp. 341-2_.
[2] Historically speaking, the assertion in the Declaration of
Independence has been fruitful of dispute. The very evening the present
paper was read at Lexington 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 (1848) that the claim of human
equality set forth in the Declaration was "the most false and dangerous
of all political errors," which, after resting a long time "dormant,"
had, in the process of time, begun "to germinate and produce its
poisonous fruits." Mr. Pettit, a Senator from Indiana, pronounced it in
1854, "a self-evident lie." In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debate in
Illinois (1860) the question reappeared, Mr. Douglas contending that the
Declaration 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 one single affirmation,
from one single man, that the negro was not included in the
Declaration." The contention of Mr. Douglas had recently again made its
appearance in 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 country, 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 1860, a plausible pretext for subjugating
somebody else,--Indian, African, or Asiatic. As Mr. Lincoln expressed
it, "The assertion that all men are created equal was of no practical
use in effecting our separation from Great Britain, and 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, a stumbling block to all
those who, in after times, might seek to turn a free people back into
the paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed
tyrants, and they meant, when such should reappear in this fair land,
and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one
hard nut to crack."--_Works_, Vol. I., p. 233.
[3] Green's Short History (Ill. Ed.). Vol. I. p. 9.
[4] The Roman legions were withdrawn from Great Britain in 410; Magna
Charta was signed in June, 1215, and the reign of French kings over
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 withdrawal of Rome from England, and
the recovery of England by the English, should have exceeded by more
than a century the time which has as yet elapsed since England was thus
recovered.