"COLONY, "--OR "FREE STATE"? "DEPENDENCE, "--OR "JUST CONNECTION"? "EMPIRE, "--OR "UNION"? An Essay Based on the Political Philosophy of the American Revolution, as Summarized in the Declaration of Independence, towards the Ascertainment of the Nature of the Political Relationship Between the American Union and Its Annexed Insular Regions. AND THE QUESTION OF TERMINOLOGY An Address Containing the Substance of the Foregoing Essay, with some Additions, Delivered before the Section for the Study of the Government of Dependencies, of the American Political Science Association, at the Meeting held at Providence, December 29, 1906 By ALPHEUS H. SNOW WASHINGTON 1907 "COLONY, "--OR "FREE STATE"? "DEPENDENCE, "--OR "JUST CONNECTION"? "EMPIRE, "--OR "UNION"? From the time of the acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippines, in1898, under a Treaty with Spain which left indefinite the relationsbetween the American Union and those regions, the question of thenature of this relationship has been discussed. The Republican party, which has been in power ever since the war, hasjustified its acts on the ground of political necessity. Its policyhas been that of giving the people of the Islands good administration, just treatment, and all practicable self-government. The Democraticparty has declared such a policy to be only imperialism andcolonialism under another name. It has asserted that "no nation canendure half Republic and half Empire" and has "warned the Americanpeople that imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably todespotism at home. " It has characterized the Republican government inthe Insular regions as an "indefinite, irresponsible, discretionaryand vague absolutism, " and Republican policy as a policy of "colonialexploitation. " That the American people have believed the Republicanadministration to have been good and beneficent, is shown by theirretaining that party in power. But it is perhaps not too much to saythat nearly all thoughtful persons realize that some part of theDemocratic complaint is just, and that there is at the present time alack of policy toward the Insular regions, due to the inability ofeither of the political parties, or the Government, or the studentsand doctors of political science, to propound a theory of a justpolitical relationship between us and our Insular brethren which willmeet with general approbation. We are, however, not peculiar in this respect. Great Britain, Franceand Germany are in the same position. In none of these countries isthere any fixed theory of the relationship between the State and itsannexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions. The BritishEmpire, so called, containing as it does several strong and civilizedStates in permanent relationship with Great Britain, gives many signs, to the student, of the direction in which political thought istraveling in its progress toward a correct and final theory; but atthe present time there seems to be no prospect of the emergence of afinal theory in that country. Here in America, political thinking, following the line of least resistance, has, as a general rule, concentrated itself upon the Constitution of the United States, as ifin that instrument an answer was to be found for every politicalproblem with which the Union may be confronted. To some of us, however, it has appeared inconsistent with the principles of theAmerican Revolution that the Constitution of the United States shouldbe the Constitution of any communities except the thirteen Statesforming the original Union and those which they have admitted intotheir Union; and, while yielding to none in our belief in thesupremacy of the Constitution throughout the Union, we have sought tobase the relationship between the Union itself and its Territories andannexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions, upon suchprinciples as would enable the American Union to justify itself in theeyes of all civilized nations, and as would be consistent with theideas for which it stood at the Revolution. Those of us who thus limitthe effect of the Constitution to the Union are charged withadvocating an absolute power of the Union over its annexed regions. Itis assumed that there is no intermediate theory between that whichassumes the Constitution of the American Union to extend to theseregions in some more or less partial and metaphorical way, --for it isevident upon inspection that it cannot extend in any literal way, --andthat which assumes that the Union is the Government of all theseregions with absolute power. It is a somewhat curious illustration of the truth that historyrepeats itself that for ten years before the Continental Congress metin 1774, the British and Americans alike, with some few exceptions, discussed the question of the relationship between Great Britain andthe American Colonies as one arising from the extension of theConstitution of the State of Great Britain over America, just as forthe past eight years Americans, Porto Ricans and Filipinos alike, have, with few exceptions, discussed the question of the relationshipbetween us and our Insular brethren as one arising from the extensionof the Constitution of the United States over these regions. It wasnot until the Continental Congress had discussed the matter for twoyears that this theory was definitely abandoned and the rights of theAmericans based upon the principles which our Revolutionary Fathersconsidered to be just. We have not yet attained to this broader view. At the present time the doctrine of the Supreme Court, and thereforeof the Government, is that all acts of the American Government in theannexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions, are acts ofabsolute power, when directed toward communities, though tempered by"fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution" or by "theapplicable provisions of the Constitution, " when directed towardindividuals. I shall ask the reader to follow me in trying to find out exactly whatthis broader view of the Revolutionary Fathers was and to adjudge, onthe considerations presented, whether they did not discover the _viamedia_ between the theory of the right of a State to govern absolutelyits annexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions and theright of a State to extend its Constitution over these regions, --regionswhich, it is to be remembered, can never, from their local and othercircumstances, participate on equal terms in the institution oroperation of the Government of the State. In trying to rediscover this _via media_ of the Fathers I shall acceptthe Declaration of Independence as the final and complete expositionof their theories, and in interpreting that great document I shallconform to the established rules of law governing the interpretationof written instruments. Let me first, however, call attention to the well known, but veryinteresting fact that the American people throughout this period ofeight years since the Spanish war during which the question has beendiscussed by experts almost exclusively as one which relates to theapplication of the Constitution outside the Union, have always had anidea that it was the Declaration of Independence, rather than theConstitution, to which we were to look for the solution of our Insularproblems. In 1900, the Democrats, in their platform, "reaffirmed theirfaith in the Declaration of Independence--that immortal proclamationof the inalienable rights of man and described it as "the spirit ofour Government, of which the Constitution is the form and letter. " TheRepublicans in their platform declared it to be "the high duty ofGovernment ... To confer the blessings of liberty and civilizationupon all rescued peoples, " and announced their intention to secure tothese peoples "the largest measure of self government consistent withtheir welfare and our duties. " The Populists in their platform in thesame year, insisted that "the Declaration of Independence, theConstitution and the American flag are one and inseparable. " TheSilver Republicans declared that they "recognized that the principlesset forth in the Declaration of Independence are fundamental andeverlastingly true in their application to government among men. " TheAnti-Imperialists declared that the truths of the Declaration, notless self-evident to-day than when first announced by the Fathers, areof universal application, and cannot be abandoned while government bythe people endures. " In 1904, the Democratic party, while professingadherence to fundamental principles declared in favor of casting intothe outer darkness of the fictitious "independence" every people"incapable of being governed under American laws, and in consonancewith the American Constitution, " but the Populists still held to theprinciples of the Declaration, while the Republicans held to theirdeclarations of 1900. It is an ancient and well established rule of law for theinterpretation of written instruments that when the meaning of thewords used is not so clear as to leave no room for doubt and whenthere thus exists what is called in law an ambiguity, it is proper toconsider the circumstances surrounding the execution of theinstruments, so that, by placing ourselves as nearly as possible inthe same situation in which the persons who executed the instrumentwere at the time of its execution, we may have a basis for forming areasonable opinion as to which of two or more possible constructionsis correct. That such an ambiguity exists in the Declaration isundeniable. Opinions concerning the meaning of its philosophicstatements, and indeed of nearly all its statements, differ betweenextremes at one of which are arrayed those who, with Rufus Choate andJohn James Ingalls, regard its philosophic declarations as "glitteringgeneralities, " and at the other of which stand that great body of menand women, living and dead, who, with Abraham Lincoln, believe, andhave believed, that these declarations are the foundation of the onlytrue and final science of politics. Following this ancient rule ofinterpretation, therefore, let us consider the circumstancessurrounding the Declaration of Independence. From the earliest times, the political philosophy of the people ofAmerica was directly connected with the religious and politicalphilosophy of the Reformation. The essence of that philosophy was thatman was essentially a spiritual being; that each man was the directand immediate creature of a personal God, who was the First Cause;that each man as such a spiritual creature was in direct and immediaterelationship with God, as his Creator; that between men, as spiritualcreatures, there was no possibility of comparison by the human mind, the divine spark which is the soul being an essence incapable ofmeasurement and containing possibilities of growth, and perhaps ofdeterioration, known only to God; that therefore all men, asessentially spiritual beings, were equal in the sight of all othermen. Luther and Calvin narrowed this philosophy by assuming that thisspiritual nature and this equality were properties only of professingChristians, but Fox, followed by Perm, enlarged and universalized itby treating the Christian doctrine as declaratory of a universaltruth. Penn's doctrine of the universal "inner light, " which was inevery man from the beginning of the world and will be to the end, andwhich is Christ, --according to which doctrine every human being whohas ever been, who is, or who is to be, is inevitably by virtue of hishumanity, a spiritual being, the creature of God, and, as directlyand immediately related spiritually to Him, the equal of every otherman, --marked the completion of the Reformation. According to this theory, the life of animals, who, being createdunequal, are from birth to death engaged in a struggle for existencein which the fittest survives, is eternally and universallydifferentiated by a wide and deep chasm from the life of men, who, being created equal, are engaged in a struggle against thedeteriorating forces of the universe in which each helps each and alland in which each and all labor that each and all may not only live, but may live more and more abundantly. According to this theory, also, the glaring inequalities of physicalstrength, of intellectual power and cunning, and of material wealth, which are, on a superficial view, the determining facts of all socialand political life, are merely unequal distributions of the commonwealth, and each person is considered to hold and use his strength, his talents and his property for the development of each and all asbeings essentially equal. According to this theory, also, there is for mankind no "state ofnature" in which men are equally independent and equally disregardfulof others, which by agreement or consent becomes a "state of society"in which men are equally free and equally regardful of others, but the"state of nature" and the "state of society" are one and the samething. Every man is regarded as created in a state of society andbrotherhood with all other men, and the "state of nature, "--man'snatural estate and condition, --is the "state of society. " Were anyone asked to sum up in the most concise form possible theultimate doctrine of the Reformation, he could, perhaps, epitomize itno more correctly than by the single proposition, "All men are createdequal. " This doctrine of human equality arising from common creation, growing out of Lutheranism and Calvinism through the intellectualinfluence of Penn, and the broadening effect of life in this new andfruitful land, underlay all American life and institutions. One of the results of this final theory of the Reformation was theconception, by certain devout men and great scholars, of a "law ofnature and of nations, " based on revelation and reason, which wasuniversally prevalent, and which governed the relations of men, ofcommunities of states and of nations. Out of this there had thenemerged the conception which has now become common under the name ofInternational Law, which treats of the temporary relations betweenindependent states. But the conception of the 'law of nature and ofnations' was, as has been said, vastly wider than this. It was auniversal law governing all possible forms of human relationship, andhence all possible relations between communities and states, andtherefore determining the rights of communities and states which werein permanent relationship with one another. Based on the theory of theequality of all men by reason of their common creation, it recognizedjust public sentiment as the ultimate force in the world foreffectuating this equality, and considered free statehood as the primeand universal requisite for securing that free development andoperation of public sentiment which was necessary in order that publicsentiment might be just. While this philosophy of the Reformation was thus extending itself inAmerica, both among the Governments and the people, and in Europeamong the people, the Governments of Europe, though not recognizingthe existence of any 'law of nature and of nations' whatever, werenevertheless acting on the basis that such a law did exist and wasbased on the proposition that all men are created unequal, or thatsome are created equal and some unequal. The alleged superior wassometimes a private citizen, sometimes a noble, sometimes a monarch, sometimes a government, sometimes a state, sometimes a nation. Theinferior was said to be "dependent" upon the superior--that is, related to him directly and without any connecting justiciary medium, so that the will of the superior controlled the will and action of theinferior. It was this alleged law of nature and of nations, based onan alleged divine or self-evident right of inequality--an inequalityarising from creation--which was the basis of the British DeclaratoryAct of 1766, which may perhaps be called "The Declaration ofDependence. " In that Act, the State of Great Britain declared, (basingitself evidently upon the law of nature and of nations, since therewas no treaty, ) that the American Colonies "have been, are, and ofright ought to be, subordinate unto and dependent upon the ImperialCrown and Parliament of Great Britain, " and that the Parliament ofGreat Britain "had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power andauthority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validityto bind the Colonies and people of America subjects of the Crown ofGreat Britain, in all cases whatsoever. " The expression "of rightought to have" clearly meant "has by the law of nature and ofnations. " Great Britain was thus declared to be the superior ofAmerica, with power according to the law of nature and of nations, tocontrol, by its will, the will and action of America as a "dependent"country, and of each and all of its inhabitants as "dependent"individuals. We discover, then, from an examination of the circumstancessurrounding the Declaration of Independence, a most interestingsituation. A young nation, separated by a wide ocean from Europe, settled by men who were full of the spirit of the Reformation, deeplyconvinced, after a national life of one hundred and fifty years, thatthese principles were of universal application, was suddenly met by adenial of these principles from the European State with which theywere most intimately related. This denial was accompanied by acts ofthat State which amounted to a prohibition of the application of theseprinciples in American political life. This European State was indeedthe mother-country of America, and the Americans were bound to theirEnglish brethren by every tie of interest and affection. The Americanswere only radical Englishmen, who gloried in the fact that England ofall the countries of Europe had gone farthest in accepting theprinciples of the Reformation, and who had emigrated reluctantly fromEngland, because they were out of harmony with the tendency of Englishpolitical life to compromise between the principles of Mediaevalism andthe principles of the Reformation. The Declaratory Act of 1766 broughtclearly into comparison the political system of America, as opposed tothe political system of Europe. It was inevitable from that momentthat the American System, based on the principles of the Reformationin their broadest sense and their most universal application andbriefly summed up in the proposition that "all men are created equal, "must conquer, or be conquered by, the European System, based either onthe principles of Mediaevalism, summed up in the proposition that "allmen are created unequal, " or on a compromise between the principles ofMediaevalism and the Reformation, summed up in the proposition that"some men are created equal, and some unequal. " In the light of this situation, let us examine the words of theDeclaration. The philosophical statements in which we are interested, read: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation:-- "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. " * * * * * "Finally we do assert and declare ... That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, ... And that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. " The most reasonable interpretation, as it seems to me, of thestatement that "all men are created equal" is, as I have said, that itis, and was intended to be, an epitome of the doctrine of theReformation. There will be those who will scoff at the suggestionthat a political body like the Continental Congress should have basedthe whole political life of the nation upon a religious doctrine. Butit is to be remembered that the Continental Congress was not anordinary political body. It was the most philosophic and at the sametime the most religious and the most intellectually untrammeled bodyof men who ever gathered to discuss political theories and measures. Meeting under circumstances where weakness of resources compelled themost absolute justness in their reasons for taking up arms, they musthave discussed their position from the standpoint of morality andreligion. John Adams tells us that one of the main points discussed atthe opening of the Continental Congress, when they were framing theultimatum which finally took the form of the Fourth Resolution was, whether the Congress should "recur to the law of nature" asdetermining the rights of America. He says that he was "very strenuousfor retaining and insisting on it, " and the Resolutions show that hesucceeded, for they based the American position on the principles of"free government" and "good government, " recognized that the "consent"of the American Colonies to Acts of the British Parliament justlyregulating the matters of common interest was a "consent from thenecessity of the case and a regard to the mutual interests of bothcountries, " and claimed the rights of "life, liberty and property"without reference to the British Constitution or the AmericanCharters. Jefferson tells us that throughout the period of nearly twoyears which intervened between the assembling of the Congress and thepromulgation of the Declaration the principles of the law of natureand of nations set forth in the preamble were discussed, and that whenhe wrote the preamble he looked at no book, but simply stated theconclusions at which the Congress, with apparently practicalunanimity, had arrived. But it is not necessary, it would seem, to resort to external evidenceto prove that the Declaration is based on the doctrine of theReformation. In several places it seems to expressly declare that therights claimed by America are claimed under the law of nature and ofnations based on divine revelation and on human reason. In the firstsentence, it declares that "the law of Nature and of Nature's God"entitles the Americans, --it having "become necessary" for them "todissolve the political bands which have connected them with" thepeople of Great Britain, --to "assume a separate and equal stationamong the powers of the earth. " In the next it declares not only "thatall men are created equal, " but that they have "unalienable rights oflife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, " not by virtue of anysocial contract or other form of consent, but by "endowment, "--thatis, by voluntary gift and grant--of "their Creator. " This doctrine of"endowment" of men with "unalienable rights, " by "their Creator, " isof course the Christian doctrine. In the concluding part of theDeclaration, it is declared not only that the United Colonies, as "theUnited States of America, " are "free and independent states, " but thatthey "of right ought to be" such, and in that paragraph the"connection between them and the State of Great Britain" is not merelydeclared to be "totally dissolved" but it is also declared that it"ought to be" so dissolved. There was certainly no "right" of theUnited Colonies, as the United States of America, to be free andindependent states and to declare the connection between them and theState of Great Britain to be dissolved except upon principles of someimplied common law which was supreme over the Constitution of theState of Great Britain and the Charters and Constitutions of theColonies, for none of these Constitutions or Charters made provisionfor the dissolution of the connection on any contingency. There is necessarily implied in the statement that "all men arecreated equal" and that "they are endowed by their Creator withcertain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and thepursuit of happiness, " the conception of the right of human equalityas a divine right. But is there any other basis than divine right onwhich to rest a doctrine of human equality? A doctrine of humanequality by human right, is a doctrine of equality by consent. But ifa man can consent regarding his equality with another man or withother men, he can, as has been often pointed out, consent himself intoa state of permanent inequality, inferiority and slavery, evensupposing that a basis can be found for the assumption of an originalstate of equality arising from consent. Assuming then, for the sake of argument at least, that the propositionthat all men are created equal is and was intended to be a statementof the Reformation doctrine in its broadest and most universal form, aclue is given for the interpretation of the propositions which follow. If politics, as well as religion, assumes as its basis the propositionthat all men are spiritual beings in direct and permanent relationshipwith God, and hence equal as regards one another, then the purpose ofboth politics and religion is to preserve this equality, --politics bycompulsion and religion by persuasion. Because all men are spiritualbeings in direct relationship with a common Creator who hasestablished laws under which He is the final judge, which men canascertain and apply through revelation and reason, men are declared tohave rights. Man is thus distinguished from animals, who have norights because they have no capacity to know the law--a knowledgewhich must inevitably precede a knowledge of the right. Politics looksat the universal needs of all men, --those needs which each man has incommon with all humanity--and from the universal needs assumes auniversal unalienable right of each against each other and againstall, and a universal duty of each toward each other and toward all, tosupply these needs. Religion regards the supplying of these universalneeds as a duty toward God. Hence politics adopts as its secondself-evident truth, the proposition that all men "are endowed by theirCreator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, libertyand the pursuit of happiness. " The primary and universal needs of allmankind, regarded as equal creatures of a common Creator, are the needof life, the need of liberty and the need of pursuing happiness. Theseneeds are unalienable. No man can rid himself of them withoutdestroying himself as an equal creature of a common Creator. Consequently the rights and duties corresponding to these unalienableneeds are themselves unalienable. There is no denial here of alienablerights and duties. But it is clearly laid down as a fundamentalprinciple of the all-pervasive common law, that rights given by theCreator are unalienable, and that no human being, howeveremphatically he may declare, or will, or agree to the contrary, may byany possible act of any other human being or of any set of humanbeings, whether calling themselves a government or not, or by anypossible means, deprive himself, or be deprived of the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--these being necessarilyincidental to the original right of equality. To apply this interpretation to the relationship between ourselves andour brethren of the Insular regions: They are, according to theuniversal and common law of nature and of nations, as we and all otherhuman beings are, equally creatures of a common Creator and equal withus. Under that all-pervasive law, they, with us, and all other humanbeings, are created with the unalienable need of life, liberty and thepursuit of happiness, and therefore with corresponding unalienablerights. Under that law we cannot deprive them of these unalienablerights, nor allow them to deprive themselves of their unalienablerights, nor allow a part of them to deprive the others of theirunalienable rights. According to the philosophy of the Revolution, every man, every community, every state and every nation is bound toenforce, and cause to be enforced, this law of nature and of nations, which prevents the voluntary or involuntary alienation by any man, anycommunity, any state or any nation of his or its rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration, having thus described the ends of all government, proceeds to describe the methods by which these ends are accomplished. It declares that "to secure these rights governments are institutedamong men, deriving their just powers from the consent of thegoverned. " Governments, it is declared, are instituted solely tosecure to each and every being his and their unalienable rights, asequal creatures of a common Creator, to life, liberty and the pursuitof happiness. Here is a plain denial that government is universallythe expression of the will of the majority, for it is matter of commonknowledge that in only a few of the most highly civilized countries ofthe world does the will of the majority, as it is expressed, secure toeach and every person his and their unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is also an implied denial of the proposition that government isthe will of the majority, in the proposition that "governments areinstituted among men. " If the Fathers had meant that government wasthe will of the majority they would have said, "Men have the right toinstitute governments for themselves, according to the will of themajority. " What they did was simply to state as a fact that"governments are instituted among men, " which fact is whollyinconsistent with the hypothesis of a universal right of each and allcommunities to institute government for themselves. There is, however, it would seem, clearly implied in the statementthat "to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, "the statement that governments are universal, that they begin with andcontinue through human existence, --that government is, as Calvin said, of "not less use among men than bread and water, light and air, and ofmuch more excellent dignity, " and therefore the prime necessity ofhuman life, --and that there is a universal right of all men, allcommunities, all states and all nations, to such government as willsecure these rights; for the rights which are to be secured beinguniversal, government, which is the instrumentality for securing them, must also be universal. Having thus declared governments of a kind suitable to secure theunalienable rights of the individual to be a universal right, andhaving by implication declared that it is not essential in all casesthat governments should be instituted by the people governed, and thattherefore there may be cases in which governments may justly beinstituted by an external power, the Declaration proceeds to lay downas a universal proposition that all governments, --existing, as theydo, solely for the purpose of securing to each and every individualhis and their unalienable rights, --do, universally, whether institutedby the consent of the governed or not, "derive their just powers fromthe consent of the governed. " The expression "deriving their justpowers from" is generally read as if it were "by, " and the expression"the consent of the governed" as if it were "the will of themajority. " Both of these readings are so plainly inconsistent withboth the text and the context as to be clearly inadmissible. If thewords are taken in their usual and proper meaning and read in thelight of the context and the surrounding circumstances, it seems atleast reasonable to conclude that the expression "deriving their justpowers from the consent of the governed, " is and was intended to be anepitome of the two fundamental principles of the law of agency, brought over into the English law from the Roman. These principlesare: "_Obligatio mandati consensu contrahentium consistit, "_ atranslation of which is, "The powers of an agent are derived from theconsent of the contracting parties, " and "_Rei turpis nullum mandatumest_, " a translation of which is "No agent can have unjust powers. " Ifthis interpretation be correct, the expression "that to secure theserights governments are instituted among men, deriving their justpowers from the consent of the governed" means that there is nouniversal absolute right of communities, states, or nations, toinstitute their own governments, but that every government, howeverinstituted, is universally the agent of the governed, to secure toevery individual, every community, every state, and every nationgoverned, his and their unalienable rights of life, liberty and thepursuit of happiness and to effectuate the equality of all men as thecreatures of a common Creator. On this interpretation a rule is laid down to determine under whatcircumstances a community, state, or nation has the right to instituteits own government. Its rights are to be determined by the principlesof agency. Agencies among individuals are of several kinds, expressand implied, voluntary and involuntary. There may be co-agencies, inwhich the performance of one general agency is distributed amongseveral agents. A person of full capacity has the right, according tothe common law of persons, to appoint his own agent, unless he is insuch just relationship with others that the common interests requirethat he should adopt as his agent an agent appointed by the others. Socommunities, states and nations which are of full capacity, have theright, assuming the existence of this common law of nature and ofnations, to appoint their own governments, subject to the necessarylimitations growing out of their just relationships to othercommunities, states and nations. Infants, and persons _non compos_ orspendthrift, are subject, by the principles of the common law ofpersons, to have an involuntary agency created for them by theChancellor until the disability is removed, if the disability istemporary, or permanently, if the disability is permanent. The same istrue by the law of nature and of nations, if the interpretation I havesuggested be correct, regarding communities, states and nations, whichare in a condition of infancy or anarchy, or are spendthrift. TheChancellor or Justiciar, whether a person, a state, or a nation, mustpossess the qualities and attributes of a Chancellor and Justiciar, and proceed as a Chancellor and Justiciar. Otherwise the attempt tocreate an involuntary agency for the suitor is nugatory. The fact thata person who is an infant, or _non compos_, or spendthrift, has aninvoluntary agency created for him by the Chancellor, does notdestroy, or in any way affect, the juridical personality of suchperson, or his political equality with other persons; and, by parityof reasoning, the fact that a community which would otherwise berecognized as having free statehood and political personality andequality with other free states, has an involuntary governmentappointed for it by a Justiciar State, on account of its being in aweak or infantile condition, or on account of its being anarchic orspendthrift, can not destroy or in any way affect its freestatehood, --or, what is the same thing, its political personality, --orits equality with other free states. A further meaning apparently is that the first object of allgovernment is to do justice, and the second object to do the will ofthe governed. A government which recognizes itself as deriving itsjust powers from the consent of the governed, is bound to do justicein such manner as will conform to the just public sentiment of thegoverned. It is in no case bound to execute the will of the governed, much less the will of the majority, unless that will conforms tojustice in the particular case. Nor can it do an unjust act and pleadin justification the consent of the governed, for the consent of thegoverned to an unjust act is void by the law of nature and of nations. This principle was often appealed to by the Americans, notably in thefinal manifesto of 1778, as an answer to the British claim that theAmericans were bound by the restrictive Acts of Parliament on accountof their acquiescence in them. They said that an attempted consent toan unjust act of government was a nugatory act, an unjust act ofgovernment being itself nugatory, and deserving obedience only frommotives of policy. This doctrine that government is the doing of justice according topublic sentiment is, of course, utterly opposed to the doctrine thatgovernment is the will of the majority. If government is the doing ofjustice according to public sentiment, government is the expressionand application of a spiritually and intellectually educated publicsentiment, since the knowledge of what is just comes only after acourse of spiritual and intellectual education, and the forms andmethods of government should be such as are adapted to such spiritualand intellectual education. Education takes place by direct personalcontact, and can best be accomplished only through the establishmentof permanent groups of individuals who are all under the sameconditions. The formation and expression of a just public sentiment, therefore, requires the establishment of permanent groups of persons, more or less free from any external control which interferes withtheir rightful action, under a leadership which makes for theirspiritual and intellectual education in justice. Such permanent groupswithin territorial limits of suitable size for developing andexpressing a just public sentiment, are free states. Territorialdivisions of persons set apart for the purpose of convenience indetermining the local public sentiment, regardless of its justness orunjustness, are not states, but are mere voting districts. Just publicsentiment, for its expression and application, requires the existenceof many small free states, disconnected to the extent necessary toenable each to be free from all improper external control in educatingitself in the ways of justice; mere public sentiment, for itsexpression and application, requires only the existence of a few greatstates, unitary in their form and divided into voting districts. Justpublic sentiment, as the basis of government, is a basis which makesgovernment a mighty instrument for spirituality and growth; merepublic sentiment, regardless of its justness or unjustness, as thebasis of government, is a basis which makes government a mightyinstrument for brutality and deterioration. Human equality, unalienable rights, just public sentiment, and free statehood, areinevitably and forever linked together, as reciprocal cause andeffect. All the American public men were agreed that the American Colonies, socalled, were and always had been free states, and that the State ofGreat Britain, acting through or symbolized by its Chief Executive orits Chief Legislature, or both of them was a governmental agency, anda connecting medium, of all the free states which were connected withit, and which with it formed what they called "The British Empire. "Some based this right of free statehood and political connection onthe Colonial Charters; some on the doctrine of the extension to theColonies of the Constitution of the State of Great Britain in apartial and metaphorical manner; some thought that the Colonies hadalways been not only free states, but also free and independentstates, and that the political connection between them and the Stateof Great Britain was, and always had been, by consent, that is, byimplied treaty. Upon careful examination, all these theories werefound to be untenable. The Colonial Charters clearly did not intend torecognize the Colonies as free states, much less as free andindependent states; the doctrine of the extension to them of theBritish Constitution was inconsistent with their statehood in anysense; and there was not a vestige of anything which could be regardedas a treaty between the Colonies and Great Britain. Finally, therefore, all were apparently brought to see that there was nothingon which to base the American claim that the Colonies were and alwayshad been states, free or free and independent, except "the law ofnature and of nations, " and not even the law of nature and of nationsas it was understood by the Governments of Europe, but a law of natureand of nations which was based on the broadest principles of theReformation. Free statehood for the American Colonies was apparentlyasserted as a universal right of all communities, states and nations, because free statehood was considered by the framers of theDeclaration to be the universal and only means of forming andexpressing a just public sentiment, and therefore to be the universaland only means of securing the universal and unalienable rights ofindividuals. The ultimate meaning of the expression "that to securethese rights Governments are instituted among men, deriving their justpowers from the consent of the governed, " seems therefore to be thatby the law of nature and of nations there is a universal right of freestatehood of all communities on the face of the earth withinterritorial limits of suitable size for the development and operationof a just public sentiment. The Declaration denies even to all the people of a free state theright to change their government when and how they will, and accordingto mere public sentiment, regardless of its justness. Their right "toalter or abolish" a "form of government" is declared to exist, according to the law of nature and of nations, only when that form ofgovernment "becomes destructive of these ends, " that is, when agovernment, instead of securing the unalienable rights of theindividuals governed, attempts to destroy these rights. Moreover, itis declared that when the people alter or abolish one form ofgovernment, their right of establishing a new government is notabsolute, but is limited, according to the law of nature and ofnations, so that in establishing a new form of government they areobliged to "lay its foundation on such principles and organize itspowers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect theirsafety and happiness, "--that is, to secure the unalienable rights ofthe individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thislimitation upon the powers of even the whole people of a statenecessarily results from the fact that the law of nature and ofnations is universal and governs so completely every human act andrelationship that no act can be done and no relationship formed whichviolates the unalienable rights of any individual. How the law ofnature and of nations is to be enforced, the Declaration does not say. Apparently the obligation to enforce it rests upon every individual, every community, every body corporate, every state and every nation, and the ultimate force which compels its application is the justpublic sentiment of the world, or, as Rivier called it, "the commonjuridical conscience. " The declaration of the universal right of free statehood is not onlymade in the statement that "to secure these rights, governments areinstituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent ofthe governed. " It is asserted with much more clearness in theconcluding part of the Declaration, which reads: "We, therefore, ... Declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, ... And that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. " In the first draft of the concluding part of the Declaration, Jefferson wrote: "We, therefore, ... Utterly dissolve and break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us and the people or Parliament of Great Britain, and finally we do assert and declare these Colonies to be free and independent states. " The resolution of the Virginia Convention of May 15, 1776, which wasthe basis of the Declaration, read: "That the delegates ... Be instructed to propose to [the Continental Congress] to declare the United Colonies free and independent states, absolved from all ... Dependence upon the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain. " A comparison of the words used by the Congress with those used by theVirginia Convention and those used by Jefferson in the first draft, shows how much the judgment of the Congress was clarified by the greatdebate which occurred between May 15 and June 10, 1776, when thewording above quoted was agreed upon. The wording of the Virginia resolution, if it had been adopted, wouldhave implied that the Colonies had theretofore been "dependent uponthe Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, " and that their statehood, their free statehood, and their independent statehood came intoexistence by virtue of their declaring themselves free and independentstates. The wording of Jefferson's first draft, if it had been adopted, wouldhave implied that a "political connection" might or might not havetheretofore existed between the American people and "the people orParliament of Great Britain, " and that if such a political connectionhad existed, the American people had the right to secede from it, whenever they considered that the terms of the connection were notobserved by the people or Parliament of Great Britain, and that bysuch act of secession, and by their Declaration, their rights ofstatehood, of free statehood and of independent statehood came intoexistence. The wording of the Declaration which was actually adopted implied thatthe Colonies had always been free states or free and independentstates, and that, by the Declaration, at most their right ofindependent statehood came into existence, that they had theretoforeat all times been in political connection, either as free states underthe law of nature and of nations, or as free and independent states byimplied treaty, with the free and independent state of Great Britain, that the dissolution of the connection had not come about by an act ofsecession on their part, but was due to the violation, by the State ofGreat Britain, either of the law of nature and of nations, or of theimplied treaty on which the political connection was based. The term "connection" was an apt term to express a relationship ofequality and dignity. "Connection" implies two things, considered asunits distinct from one another, which are bound together by aconnecting medium. Just connection implies free statehood in all thecommunities connected. Union is a form of connection in which theconnected free states are consolidated into a unity for the commonpurposes, though separate for local purposes. Merger is the fusion oftwo or more free states into a single unitary state. Connectionbetween free states may be through a legislative medium, or through ajusticiary medium, or through an executive medium. The connectingmedium may be a person, a body corporate, or a state. States connectedthrough a legislative medium, whether a person, a body corporate or astate, and whether wholly external to the states connected or to someextent internal to them, whose legislative powers are unlimited orwhich determines the limits of its own legislative powers, are"dependent" upon or "subject" to the will of the legislative medium. Such states are "dependencies, " "dominions, " "subject states, " or moreaccurately "slave-states, "--or more accurately still, not states atall, but mere aggregations of slave individuals. States connectedthrough a legislative medium, whether a person, a body corporate or astate, and whether wholly external to the states connected or in partinternal to them, whose legislative powers are granted by the statesand which has only such legislative powers as are granted are in acondition of limited dependence, dominion, and subjection, but theirrelationship is by their voluntary act and they may, and by the termsof the grant always do to some extent control the legislative will towhich they are subject and on which they are dependent. Where statesare connected or united through a justiciary medium, whether thatjusticiary medium is a person, a body corporate, or a state, all thestates are free states, their relationships being governed by law. Where states are connected through an executive medium, whether thatexecutive medium is a person, a body corporate, or a state, all thestates are free and independent states, and each acts according to itswill. All connections in which the legislative medium--whether aperson, a body corporate or a state, and whether wholly external tothe states connected, or to some extent internal to the statesconnected, --has unlimited legislative powers or determines the limitsof its own legislative powers, are fictitious connections, therelationship being really one which implies "empire" or "dominion" onone side, and "subjection" or "dependence" on the other. Suchconnections are properly called "empires" or "dominions. " So also allconnections in which the only connecting medium is a common executive, whether a person, a body corporate or a state, are fictitiousconnections, the relationship being one of "permanent alliance" or"confederation" between independent states. Such connections areproperly called "alliances" or "confederations. " The only trueconnections are those in which there is a legislative medium, whethera person, a body corporate or a state, whose legislative powers arelimited, by agreement of the connected states, to the common purposes, and those in which there is a justiciary medium, whether a person, abody corporate, or a state, which recognizes its powers as limited tothe common purposes by the law of nature and of nations, and whichascertains and applies this law, incidentally adjudicating, accordingto this law, the limits of its own jurisdiction. Just connections tendto become unions, it being found in practice necessary, for thepreservation of the connection in due order, that the power ofadjudicating and applying the law for the common purposes shouldextend not only to the states, but to all individuals throughout thestates. Thus "dependence, " as a fictitious and vicious form of connection, is, it would appear, forever opposed to "connection" of a just and properkind. If it were attempted to sum up the issue of the AmericanRevolution in an epigram, would not that epigram be: "Colony, "--or"Free State"? "Dependence, "--or "Just Connection"? "Empire, "--or"Union"? Summarizing, then, the result of this examination of the philosophy ofthe Declaration, so far as it relates to communities rather thanpersons, it appears that the central conception of this philosophy isthat of a universal right of free statehood. This conception, morespecifically, is, it seems, that all communities on the earth'ssurface, within limits of territorial extent of such reasonabledimensions that within the area of each the just common sentimentabout local concerns and external relations can be convenientlyascertained and executed, have an unalienable right to be free statesand as such to have their respective just local sentiments about localmatters ascertained and executed by their respective governments, thisbeing, according to Revolutionary philosophy, essential to makeeffective the right of each and every person to life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness. But a universal right of free statehood does notimply a universal right of self-government. Statehood andself-government are two different and distinct conceptions. TheAmericans claimed the right of free statehood as a part of theuniversal rights of man, but they claimed the right of self-governmentbecause they were Englishmen trained by generations of experience inthe art of self-government and so capable of exercising the art. Afree state is not less or more a free state because it hasself-government. It is a free state when its just public sentiment isto any extent ascertained and executed by its government, free fromthe control of any external power. It does not prevent a region frombeing a free state that its government is wholly or partly appointedby an external power, if that government is free from external controlin ascertaining and executing the just local sentiment to any extent. Nor does it interfere with the right of free statehood when anexternal power stands by merely to see that the local governmentascertains and executes the just local sentiment to a proper extent. The external power in that case is upholding the free statehood of theregion. It stands as surety for the continuance of free statehood. The right of self-government, according to this view, is a conditionaluniversal right. When a community, inhabiting a region of suchterritorial extent that it is not too large to make it possible for ajust public sentiment concerning its own affairs to be developed andexecuted, and not so small as to make it inconvenient that it shouldbe in any respect free from external control, is of such moral andintellectual capacity that it can form and execute a just publicsentiment concerning its internal affairs and its relations with othercommunities, states and nations, it has not only the right of freestatehood, --that is, of political personality, --which is of universalright, but also the right of self-government. The right of such a freestate to self-government is complete if there be no just politicalconnection or union between it and other free states, or partial, ifsuch a just connection or union exists, being limited, in this lattercase, to the extent necessary for the preservation, in due order, ofthe connection or union. The Declaration, by declaring the Colonies to be free and independentStates and following this statement by the statement that thepolitical connection between them and the State of Great Britain wasdissolved, leaves it doubtful whether the American claim was that theColonies had always been free and independent States in treatyconnection with Great Britain or merely free states in connection withGreat Britain under the law of nature and of nations. The arrangementof the sentences was probably necessary to satisfy the extreme statesrights party, but the study of great documents discloses that nearlyall contain such compromises, and that the judgment of posterityusually approves the judgment of the less extreme party. When weconsider, however, that even Jefferson, the most extreme of the statesrights party in the Continental Congress, has recorded his belief thatthe whole issue of the Revolution could have been settled if GreatBritain had adopted the principle of Lord Chatham's bill, and if thatbill on the one side and the Fourth Resolution on the other had beentaken as the basis of settlement, it is at least not unreasonable toconclude that the extreme states rights theory was put forward more inorder that the Americans might have something to concede in a bargainwith Great Britain than from any belief in the justness of it, andthat the real belief of the Americans was that the Colonies had alwaysbeen free states, but not independent until they so declaredthemselves, and that their political connection with the State ofGreat Britain was under the law of nature and of nations, and not byimplied treaty with the State of Great Britain. Independence was regarded, if this interpretation be correct, as aconditional universal right of free states. Those free states whichconform to the conditions necessary to independence--great physicalstrength, great moral and intellectual ability, and great qualities ofleadership--were regarded as entitled to the right of independence. But independence of a free state, as regarded other free states, meant, to the Fathers, only leadership and judgeship. The law ofnature and of nations, being universal, they considered as abolishingsovereignty in the European sense, so that the highest function of anindependent State was to be the Justiciar of other States. In theliterature of the Revolution we find the rights of free andindependent states described as rights of "jurisdiction"--not of"sovereignty. " Connection between free States on free principles was regarded by theFathers as the proper and perhaps the normal condition. Theyrecognized that connection, while based on the assumption of theoriginal independence of the units, necessarily implied a surrender ofthe right of final decision concerning all or a part of the commonpurposes to a Justiciar State, or of the right of legislation for thecommon purposes, expressly defined by written agreement, to a CentralGovernment. Political connection with European States was dissolved inthe Revolution, and thereafter refrained from, because the EuropeanStates stood for a law of nature and of nations which did not permitof free states being connected on free principles. Taking the whole Declaration together, and reading it in the light ofthe political literature which was put forth on both sides of thewater between the years 1764 and 1776, which is too voluminous to bereferred to here specifically, it seems to be necessary to concludethat the views of the American statesmen of the period concerning thenature of the connection between Great Britain and the Colonies, inits details, were these. They considered, as I interpret their language, that the connectionbetween the American Colonies, as free states, and the free andindependent State of Great Britain had existed and of right ought tohave existed under the law of nature and of nations, interpreted in sobroad a sense that it may perhaps be called the American system of thelaw of nature and of nations. They accordingly claimed, as Iunderstand them, that Great Britain, as a free and independent state, had power, as Justiciar over the American free states for the commonpurposes of the whole connection, to finally decide, in a judicialmanner, according to the principles of the law of nature and ofnations, upon all questions arising out of the connection betweenthem; and that each of the American free states had power, through itslegislature, to legislate according to the just public sentiment ineach, concerning its purely local matters, and had the right to haveits local legislation executed by its executive, and interpreted andapplied in private cases by its courts. Some of the Americans, and those the most patriotic and conservative, thought that Great Britain had jurisdiction to ascertain and executethe law of nations for the common purposes, and in the exercise ofthat jurisdiction to control, by its decrees and regulations, theaction of individuals in the Colonies. This was to regard GreatBritain and America as consolidated for the common purposes so as toform what may be called a Justiciary Union. They were content, so longas Great Britain acted on the theory that she was the Justiciar of theBritish-American Union for the common purposes, and maintained acompetent tribunal for determining what were common and what localpurposes according to the principles of the law of nature and ofnations, that she should finally determine the limits of her ownjurisdiction as the Justiciar State of the Union. While I do not meanto say that Great Britain ever recognized that the American Colonieswere free states and that she was only a Justiciar State with power offinal decision according to the law of nature and of nations over thewhole British-American Union for common purposes, yet I think it maynot be wholly incorrect to say that from 1700 to 1763, the King andthe Parliament of Great Britain, advised by the Committee of the PrivyCouncil for Plantation Affairs assisted by the Board of Commissionersfor Trade and Plantations, really acted as the Supreme AdministrativeTribunal for applying the principles of the law of nature and ofnations in the decision of the questions common to all the free statesof a _de facto_ British-American Union and as a necessary incidentthereto, decided the limits of the jurisdiction of Great Britain asthe Justiciar State of this _de facto_ British-American Union. In this view, the actions of the Americans show the evolution of acontinuous theory and policy, and the application of a single systemof principles, --a system which was based upon free statehood, justconnection and union. The British-American Union of 1763 was a Unionof States under the State of Great Britain as Justiciar, that statehaving power to dispose of and make all rules and regulationsrespecting the connected and united free states, needful to protectand preserve the connection and union, according to the principles ofthe law of nature and of nations. The dissolution of this Union, caused by the violation by the State of Great Britain of its duties asJusticiar State, gave a great impetus to the extreme states' rightsparty, and the next connection formed, --that of 1778 under theArticles of Confederation, --was not a Union, the Common Government(the Congress) being merely a Chief Executive. Such a connectionproving to be so slight as to be little more than a fiction, theyformed, under the Constitution of 1787, the only other kind of a unionwhich appears to be practicable, namely, a union under a commongovernment which was a Chief Legislature for all the connected andunited states by their voluntary grant, and whose powers wereexpressly limited, by limitation in the grant, to the common purposesof the whole connection and union of free states. The power exercised by a Justiciar State in a Justiciary Union, theFathers recognized as being neither strictly legislative, nor strictlyexecutive, nor strictly judicial, but a power compounded of all thesethree powers. They considered that it was to be exercised afterinvestigation by judicial methods, both of the facts and principlesand of the public sentiment; that the just public sentiment of thefree states connected and united with the Justiciar State was to beexecuted in local matters and was to be considered in thedetermination of the common affairs; and that the action of theJusticiar State was to result, after proper hearing of the free statesconcerned, in regulations which were to have the force of supreme lawin each of the connected and united free states respectively. Thiskind of power, which the Fathers called "the superintending power" or"the disposing power" under the law of nature and of nations, andwhich may be called, using an expression now coming into use, "thepower of final decision, " being neither legislative nor executive, butmore nearly executive than legislative, the more conservative amongthem considered might be exercised, consistently with the principlesof the law of nature and of nations, either by the LegislativeAssembly of the Justiciar State or by its Chief Executive. This rightof both the Legislative Assembly and of the Chief Executive toexercise the powers of the Justiciar State under the law of nature andof nations is, I believe, also recognized by our Constitution, as Ihave elsewhere attempted to show. The Fathers further considered, if my understanding of their belief iscorrect, that, inasmuch as both the Legislative Assembly and the ChiefExecutive of the Justiciar State, in exercising its power over the freestates connected and united with it, and throughout the JusticiaryUnion, have as their function the ascertainment of facts and theapplication of the principles of the law of nature and of nations tothose facts, they ought to exercise this function by the advice of apermanent Administrative Tribunal, properly constituted so as to advisethem intelligently and wisely. As I have said above, the Revolutionarystatesmen considered, as it would seem, that the Committee of the PrivyCouncil for Plantation Affairs, assisted by the Board of Commissionersfor Trade and Plantations, had, up to 1763, constituted such anAdministrative Tribunal. They considered also, it would seem, thatneither the Chief Executive nor the Legislative Assembly was bound bythe action of this Administrative Tribunal, its action being whollyadvisory, but that the Chief Executive was bound to take its advicebefore making his dispositions; and that the Chief Executive, whenacting as an Administrative Tribunal for disposing and regulating thecommon affairs of the free states of the Justiciary Union, after takingthe advice of this permanent Administrative Tribunal, was a tribunal offirst instance. They further considered, as it would seem, that theLegislative Assembly, when acting as an Administrative Tribunal foradjudicating and regulating the common affairs of the Justiciary Union, was a tribunal of final instance, whose dispositions and regulationssuperseded those of the Chief Executive in so far as they conflictedwith them. It was, as I understand it, because the situation of affairsin the British-American Union from 1700 to 1763 conformed to thetheoretical ideas of the Americans as to the true nature of therelationship between the American Free States and the State of GreatBritain, that they were ready to return to that situation at all timesbetween 1763 and 1778. In the latter year, the spirit of Americannationality manifested itself so strongly that all thought of politicalconnection with Great Britain was abandoned. The practical result of this theory is, that the Chief Executive of aJusticiar State may exercise the power of the Justiciary State, afterinvestigation and adjudication and after taking the advice of aproperly constituted permanent Administrative Tribunal given afterinvestigation and upon adjudication, and that such action may take theform of regulations concerning the common affairs of the free statesof the Justiciary Union (and even concerning the local affairs of therespective free states, when regulations concerning local affairs arereasonably and justly necessary, as incidental to the regulation ofthe common affairs, in order to make the regulation of the commonaffairs effective), and that such regulations may extend to theregulation of the conduct of individuals, and that the LegislativeAssembly of the Justiciar State may exercise the same power, to thesame extent and that its dispositions and regulations supersede thedispositions and regulations of the Chief Executive in so far as theyconflict with them. This conclusion seems correct, if we accept ascorrect the premise of a universal and common law of nature and ofnations, based on human equality arising from creation, of a universaland unalienable human right of life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness, of a universal right of agency-government of a kindnecessary to secure these rights, of a universal right of freestatehood of all communities within reasonable territorial limitssuitable for the formation and application of just local publicsentiment, as the necessary means to secure the right toagency-government, of a universal right of free states to be connectedor united with other free states on just principles of the law ofnature and of nations, of a universal conditional right of free statesto be self governing free states if capable of self government of auniversal conditional right of self governing free states to beindependent free states, if capable of independence, and of auniversal conditional right of independent free states to be justiciarstates of justiciary unions of free states if capable of judgeship andable to make their dispositions and regulations effective. Of course there must be conditions of transition where the relationsbetween free states which would normally be in union, or betweendetached portions of what would normally be a unitary state, temporarily assume a form which is partly one of union or merger, andpartly of dependency. The justification of all such forms ofrelationship must, it would seem, be found in the fundamental rightwhich every independent state, whether a justiciar state or not, hasto the preservation of its existence and its leadership orjudgeship--that is, in the right of self-preservation, which, whennecessary to be invoked, overrules all other rights. On this theorymust, it would seem, be explained the relations between the AmericanUnion and its Territories between Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, andbetween England and Ireland. On this theory of self-preservation, also, must, it would seem, be explained the permanent relationship ofdependency which exists between the District of Columbia and theAmerican Union--such dependency being necessary to the preservation ofthe life of the Union. Thus, if our interpretation of the Declaration is correct, there wasevolved in it, out of the original proposition that "all men arecreated equal, " a complete system of the philosophy of government, directly the opposite of the system of Europe which was based on theproposition that 'all men are created unequal, ' or that "some arecreated equal and some unequal, " and the Declaration of Independencewas a declaration of an American System, as opposed to the EuropeanSystem. If this interpretation be correct, it was to preserve thisAmerican System that President Washington advised against 'politicalconnection' with Europe, and that President Jefferson warned Americaagainst "entangling alliances, " it was this American System whichPresident Monroe and President Adams declared to have extended itselfthroughout this hemisphere; it was this American System to preservewhich the Civil War was fought and to the maintenance of whichPresident Lincoln rededicated the American people on the field ofGettysburg, it is this American System which President Roosevelt hasupheld against the forces in our midst, which on the one side have, bythe wrongful use of accumulations of wealth, sought to establish adoctrine of inequality based on the possession of property, and on theother side, by denying the rightfulness of all accumulations ofwealth, have sought to establish a doctrine that the inequalities ofphysical wealth and intellectual ability are to be destroyed, insteadof being employed, by those endowed with great wealth or greatability, as the common wealth, in helping each and all to secure theirunalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness andthus to realize the divine right of equality, it is this AmericanSystem which the American Congress under the leadership of PresidentMcKinley and President Roosevelt, has actually applied in thedetermination of our relations with the Insular regions, so that theyare to-day free states _de facto_ connected and united with theAmerican Union as the Justiciar State, and so that it needs only ourrecognition to convert them into free states _de jure_ and to bringinto legal existence a Greater American Union of Free States of whichour present Union will be the Supreme Justiciary Head, determining thequestions arising out of the relationship not by edict founded on willand force, but by decision carefully made in each case afterascertaining the facts and the principles of the law of nature and ofnations which are properly applicable. If the principles and the corresponding terms adopted by theRevolutionary Fathers were adopted by them as of universalsignificance, and if they were right, must we not apply theseprinciples and these terms to-day, when the position of America isreversed and she stands as a great and independent State inrelationship with distant communities which are so circumstanced thatthey can never participate on equal terms in the institution andoperation of her government? Must not this law of nature and ofnations according to the American System, which for us underlies allother law and which is the Spirit of the Constitution itself, determine for us whether or not we shall continue to use the terms'colony, ' or "dependence, " or "empire"? If we must admit as Americans a universal right of free statehood, isit proper to call Hawaii, Porto Rico, the Philippines or Guam'colonies'? They are inhabited and we do not propose to colonize them. If they are free states in union with the American Union as theJusticiar State and form with it a Greater American Union, is itproper to call them "dependencies, " which may imply a directlegislative power over them? And if the American Union is only theJusticiar State of the whole Greater American Union of Free States, composed of the American Union and its Territories and Insularregions, with power of final decision for the common purposesaccording to the law of nature and of nations why speak of this as"Empire, " which may imply absolute power and a denial that thereexists a universal law of nature and of nations protecting alike therights of persons communities states and nations? But it will be said the conception I have outlined is impracticable. Judging from the characteristics of human nature, a state whichdeclares itself the Justiciar of a Union of free states in permanentpolitical connection with it, for the purpose of discovering andapplying the principles of the law of nations in the just conduct ofthe common affairs of the Union, is likely, if it acts as a trueJusticiar to accomplish much more by the persuasive effect of justiceexercised in accordance with an overruling law of nature and ofnations, than is an Emperor-State by the issuing of edicts based on aclaim of right to be the supreme legislative power overnon-represented regions. Widely scattered free states which are in political connection orunion must necessarily have some charge of their own defence bothphysically and commercially, and the right to protect and supportthemselves by tariff taxation must necessarily include the right tolay a tariff against the Central State as well as against the otherconnected states and against foreign states. All these conflictingrights must be harmonized by the Central State, and it must at thesame time provide from the common resources for the common defence andwelfare. The questions growing out of such relations are the mostcomplicated known to politics. It seems that a Justiciar State actingupon the advice of properly constituted administrative tribunals, which habitually act judicially and whose function is to decide allquestions according to law and justice is much more likely to solvesuch problems by investigation hearing and adjudication than is aLegislator State to settle them by edict, or than is an ExecutiveState to procure a settlement of them by persuading the parties toconfer and compromise. Is not this theory the true _via media_? The theory of the automaticextension of the constitution of a state over its annexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions which from their local or othercircumstances can never equally participate in the institution andoperation of its government, in some cases protects individual rights, but it takes no account of the right of free statehood, which is theprime instrumentality for securing these rights. The theory of a powerover these regions not regulated by a supreme and universal law, is atheory of absolute power over both individuals and communities inthese regions. The theory of a power over these regions based on theprinciples of the law of nature and of nations, granting that this lawis itself based on the divine right of human equality, protects therights of persons, of communities, of states and of nations. This theory is not inconsistent with the present doctrine of theSupreme Court of the United States. It is an application and extensionof that doctrine. To say, as does the Supreme Court, that the AmericanUnion has power over its annexed Insular regions restricted by "thefundamental principles formulated in the Constitution, " or by "theapplicable provisions of the Constitution, " is to say that the powerof the Union over these regions is exercised under a supreme law whichis not the Constitution of the United States; for "principlesformulated in the Constitution" are not the Constitution, and to saythat "the applicable provisions" of the Constitution are theConstitution is to say that a part is the whole. Such a supreme lawcan only be a supreme common law, and a common law can be supreme overa group of scattered states only because it is universal. The onlydifference between this doctrine and that of the Supreme Court is thatthe Court's doctrine protects only civil rights, while this protectsboth civil and political rights. By adopting this theory of the Reformation and the AmericanRevolution, may not the American System extend indefinitely withoutdanger to America herself? There would be no domination, nosubjection. The same law of nature and of nations would extend overand govern throughout the whole Greater American Union. This GreaterAmerican Justiciary Union would be but a logical application of theprinciples underlying the American Legislative, Executive and JudicialUnion formed by the Constitution of the United States. It would not bethe Constitution which would follow the flag into the regions whichAmerica has annexed to herself, but the law of nature and of nationsaccording to the American System. If the Revolutionary theory as Ihave interpreted it is correct, this law of nature and of nations iseverywhere pervasive throughout the American System of Free States. Itis greater than the Constitution of the United States. TheConstitution lives in so far as it truly declares the law of natureand of nations according to the American System. If the Constitutionis interpreted contrary to this law, as authorizing the Union to treatits annexed regions as subjects or as creating a hiatus or a conflictbetween the powers of the Central and the Local Governments, thisoverruling law will compel a new interpretation. On this theory the"Territory Clause" of the Constitution recognizes the law of natureand of nations as determining the relationship between the AmericanUnion and the Insular regions--"needful" rules and regulations beingthose which are adapted to accomplish the end desired and which are inaccordance with the principles of the law of nature and of nations asdeclared in the Declaration of Independence. How can such a theory endanger the Republic? It will require some newinstitutions, no doubt, but they will be institutions in line withrepublican ideas and ideals, for they will all be institutions fordiscovering and applying the principles of the common law. We shallonly have to enlarge our conception of the common law, by adding tothe definition of Coke, and saying that it is "the perfection ofreason and revelation. " Out of this theory of a universal common law of nations have emergedthe science of the Law of the State, which deals with the internalrelations of states, and the science of International Law, which dealswith the temporary relations between independent States. Why out ofthe same theory should there not emerge a science of the Law ofConnections and Unions of States, based on the proposition that freestatehood is the normal form of all community life and the right ofall communities within proper limits on the surface of the earth, andwhich will deal with the permanent relations between free states, whether independent or not, --a science which will occupy the widefield of human relationships which lies between that now occupied bythe science of the Law of the State and that now occupied by thescience of International Law? To those who regard all law as an aggregate of eternal and universalprinciples inhering in the nature of things, which are discoverable byman through revelation and reason, and who therefore regard allgovernmental action as the ascertainment and application of theseprinciples, the conception of a common and universal Law ofConnections and Unions of Free States and that of a common anduniversal International Law, are equally without difficulty. To thosewho regard all law as an act of human will supported by force, theconception of a common and universal Law of Connections and Unions ofFree States and that of a common and universal International Law, areequally impossible; and indeed these persons are logically obliged todeny the existence of any common law of any kind. To those who occupythe middle ground and regard all law as in one aspect theascertainment and application of eternal principles, and in anotheraspect an act of human will supported by force, the conception of acommon and universal Law of Connections and Unions of Free States isless difficult than that of a common and universal International Law, for the former implies a Justiciar State which is capable of enforcingits decisions and dispositions, while the latter implies thenon-existence of any political power capable of enforcing the actionagreed or decided upon. Fortunately, there is every evidence that at the present time thisnarrow political sect who believe that law is only a human edictsupported by physical force, --this sect which had its origin in thedark decades of the nineteenth century when the materialisticphilosophy prevailed--is dying out, under the influence of a generalrenaissance. There are, it is to be believed, many who will be readyand willing to accept as true the statement, which every student ofpolitical history must admit to be true, that the philosophy of theAmerican Revolution was a religious philosophy. It is indeed perhapsnot too much to say that the period of the American Revolution was theperiod in which both political and religious thinking reached thehighest point, and that there is no question of government which hassince arisen which was not either solved by the Revolutionarystatesmen or put in the process of solution. The political philosophy of the American Revolution has long beenconfused with that of the French Revolution. As matter of fact, theystand at opposite poles. Our philosophy was religious, the Frenchnon-religious. America had been peacefully assimilating, for a centuryand a half, the doctrines of the Reformation. France had been held fortwo centuries and a half in a condition of mediaevalism, and theprinciples of the Reformation had little hold among the people. Whenthe Americans spoke, it was with the calm wisdom of free-men; when theFrench spoke, it was with the folly and excess of intellectual andspiritual slaves who had suddenly emancipated themselves. To theAmericans, to whom government was the expression of the just publicsentiment, government, equally with religion, was a necessary good; tothe French, to whom government was the expression of the will of themajority, whether just or unjust, government was a necessary evil andreligion an unnecessary evil. The French Revolution made itself felt, even in America, for a century. Till within recent years, itsprinciples have obscured, though they have never wholly eclipsed, theprinciples of the American Revolution. But now there seems reason tobelieve that the French Revolution has spent its force, and that theinfluence of the American Revolution is growing daily stronger. Signsof this are the councils and conferences which are steadily increasingin number and in power, on the subject of arbitration as the peacefulmeans of settling questions growing out of the relations ofcommunities, of states and of nations. Arbitration, whether betweenpersons or between communities, states and nations, implies auniversal and common law. Peace conferences can, it would seem, haveno reasonable purpose and can hope to accomplish no permanent result, except as they attempt to substitute a universal and common law, supported by the public sentiment of the civilized world, for humanedicts founded on human will and supported by physical force. TheAmerican System is but the establishment of interstate andinternational arbitration as the common and usual course ofgovernmental action instead of as a voluntary or spasmodicmanifestation of governmental will. Only on the assumption of the existence of this universal common lawcan the relations between us and our Insular brethren be relationsunder law, for a written constitution between us and them isimpossible. We realize, as Americans, that somehow these relationsmust be under law if they are to be according to the American System, for we know that there is no liberty except under law, and that theAmerican System has, for its sole object, human liberty. If we are right, the American people, in rejecting, as they have, theEuropean terms "colony, " "dependence" and "empire, " and the theorywhich these terms symbolize, have been true to the American System. Insubstituting for these terms the American terms, "free state, " "justconnection" and "union" and the American theory which these termssymbolize, it is not necessary for us to alter in the least ourestablished views concerning the Constitution as the supreme law ofthe Union. It is only necessary for us to realize that theConstitution is itself but one application of the great principles ofthe American System which, as the Supreme Court says, are "formulated"in it, and to proceed, by a new formulation or by adjudication, toapply these principles outside the present Union wherever Americanjurisdiction extends, in the confident belief that they can be applieduniversally, and that, wherever applied, they will bring the blessingsof true liberty. APPENDIX THE AMERICAN SYSTEM THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation--" "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. " * * * * * "We, therefore the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. " The Continental Congress. Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. THE ADOPTION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM BY THE AMERICAN UNION IN ITS CONSTITUTION, AS APPLYING TO ITS EXTERNAL JUSTICIARY RELATIONS "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.... "The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.... "The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.... "The Judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.... The Judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority. " The Constitutional Convention. The Constitution of the United States, of September 17, 1787. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM DIFFERENTIATED FROM THE EUROPEAN BY PRESIDENT WASHINGTON "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness--these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.... "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?... "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.... "Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. "Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at anytime resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. "Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. " President Washington. Farewell Address, September 17, 1796. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM AS DEFINED BY PRESIDENT JEFFERSON "I deem the essential principles of our government [to be] Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none, the support of the State Governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies, the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad. " President Jefferson. First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801. THE EXTENSION OF THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE DECLARED INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, BY PRESIDENT MONROE. "The political system of the Allied Powers is essentially different ... From that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective Governments, and to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.... "It is impossible that the Allied Powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness. " President Monroe Annual Message of December 2, 1823 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM DECLARED TO HAVE EXTENDED ITSELF TO THE WHOLE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, BY PRESIDENT JOHN QUINCY ADAMS "Among the inquiries which were thought entitled to consideration before the determination was taken to accept the invitation [to the proposed Congress of the American Republics at Panama], was that whether the measure might not have a tendency to change the policy, hitherto invariably pursued by the United States, of avoiding all entangling alliances and all unnecessary political connections. "Mindful of the advice given by the Father of our Country in his Farewell Address, that the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible, and faithfully adhering to the spirit of that admonition, I can not overlook the reflection that the counsel of Washington in that instance, like all counsels of wisdom, was founded upon the circumstances in which our country and the world around us were situated at the time when it was given that the reasons assigned by him for his advice were that Europe had a set of primary interests which to us had none or a very remote relation, that hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which were essentially foreign to our concerns, that our detached and distant situation invited and enabled us to pursue a different course, that by our union and rapid growth, with an efficient Government, the period was not far distant when we might defy material injury from external annoyance, when we might take such an attitude as would cause our neutrality to be respected, and, with reference to belligerent nations, might choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, should counsel. " Compare our situation and the circumstances of that time with those of the present day and what, from the very words of Washington then, would be his counsels to his countrymen now? Europe has still her set of primary interests, with which we have little or a remote relation. Our distant and detached situation with reference to Europe remains the same. But we were then the only independent nation of this hemisphere, and we were surrounded by European colonies, with the greater part of which we had no more intercourse than with the inhabitants of another planet. These colonies have now been transformed into eight independent nations, extending to our very borders, seven of them Republics like ourselves, with whom we have an immensely growing commercial and must have, and have already, important political connections, with reference to whom our situation is neither distant nor detached, whose political principles and systems of government, congenial with our own, must and will have an action and counteraction upon us and ours to which we cannot be indifferent if we would. The rapidity of our growth, and the consequent increase of our strength, has more than realized the anticipations of this admirable political legacy. Thirty years have nearly elapsed since it was written, and in the interval our population, our wealth, our territorial extension, our power--physical and moral--have nearly trebled. Reasoning upon this state of things from the sound and judicious principles of Washington, must we not say that the period which he predicted, as then not far off, has arrived, that America has a set of primary interests which have none or a remote relation to Europe, that the interference of Europe, therefore, in those concerns should be spontaneously withheld by her upon the same principles that we have never interfered with hers, and that if she should interfere, as she may, by measures which may have a great and dangerous recoil upon ourselves, we might be called, in defence of our altars and firesides, to take an attitude which would cause our neutrality to be respected, and choose peace or war as our interest guided by justice, should counsel? "The acceptance of this invitation, therefore, far from conflicting with the counsel or the policy of Washington, is directly deducible from and conformable to it. Nor is it less conformable to the views of my immediate predecessor, as declared in his Annual Message to Congress of the 2d December, 1823. " President John Quincy Adams. Communication to the House of Representatives, in answer to their Resolution of Inquiry, regarding the proposed Panama Congress, March 15, 1826. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE REDEDICATED TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN, AT GETTYSBURG. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. " President Lincoln. Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM APPLIED IN THE EXTERNAL JUSTICIARY RELATIONS OF THE AMERICAN UNION, BY PRESIDENT MCKINLEY. "In order to facilitate the most humane, specific, and effective extension of authority throughout [the Philippine Islands], and to secure with the least possible delay the benefits of a wise and generous protection of life and property, I have named Jacob G. Schurman, Rear-Admiral George Dewey, Major-General Elwell S. Otis, Charles Denby, and Dean C. Worcester to constitute a Commission to aid in the accomplishment of these results.... "The Commissioners will endeavor, ... To ascertain what amelioration in the condition of the inhabitants and what improvements in public order may be practicable, and for this purpose they will study attentively the existing social and political state of the various populations particularly as regards the forms of local government, the administration of justice, the collection of customs and other taxes, the means of transportation and the need of public improvements. "They will report to the State Department according to the forms customary or hereafter prescribed for transmitting and preserving such communications, the results of their observations and reflections, and will recommend such Executive action as may from time to time seem to them wise and useful.... "It is my desire that in all their relations with the inhabitants of the Islands the Commissioners exercise due respect for all the ideals, customs, and institutions of the tribes and races which compose the population, emphasizing upon all occasions the just and beneficent intentions of the Government of the United States. ' "It is also my wish and expectation that the Commissioners may be received in a manner due to the honored and authorized representatives of the American Republic, duly commissioned, on account of their knowledge, skill and integrity, as bearers of the good will the protection, and the richest blessings of a liberating rather than a conquering nation. " President McKinley--Instructions to the Secretary of State regarding the First Philippine Commission, January 20, 1899. THE DEFINITION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM AS APPLIED BOTH TO THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF THE AMERICAN UNION--BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT. "When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood remains as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life for which we strive. Each man must work for himself, and unless he so works no outside help can avail him, but each man must remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that while no man who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or any one else yet that each at times stumbles or halts, that each at times needs to have the helping hand outstretched to him. To be permanently effective, aid must always take the form of helping a man to help himself, and we can all best help ourselves by joining together in the work that is of common interest to all.... "It is no light task for a nation to achieve the temperamental qualities without which the institutions of free government are but an empty mockery. Our people are now successfully governing themselves, because for more than a thousand years they have been slowly fitting themselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, toward this end. What has taken us thirty generations to achieve, we cannot expect to see another race accomplish out of hand, especially when large portions of that race start very far behind the point which our ancestors had reached even thirty generations ago. In dealing with the Philippine people we must show both patience and strength, forbearance and steadfast resolution. Our aim is high. We do not desire to do for the islanders merely what has elsewhere been done for tropic peoples by even the best foreign governments. We hope to do for them what has never before been done for any people of the tropics--to make them fit for self-government after the fashion of the really free nations. " President Roosevelt. First Message, December 3, 1901. THE QUESTION OF TERMINOLOGY _Mr. President, Members of the Association and Section, Ladies andGentlemen_: You have heard ably discussed certain questions which arise out of therelationship between the American Union and the annexed Insularregions, viewed in its sociological and economic aspect. I now askyour attention to a question of immediate interest and importancegrowing out of this relationship viewed in its political, that is tosay, its legal aspect. This question, which the Committee onArrangements has called "The Question of Terminology, " is: What arethe correct terms to use in describing the political and legalrelationship between the American Union and its distant annexedregions, assuming that this relationship is to be permanent and is tobe on terms which are just to all parties? More specifically, the question which I shall discuss will be, whetherwe, as Americans, ought, according to American principles, to use, inour political and legal language, the terms "colony, " "dependence, "and "empire, " or whether we ought, according to those principles, tosubstitute for the term "colony, " the term "free state, " for"dependence, " "just connection, " and for "empire, " "union. " It is needless to say that I shall accept the decisions of the SupremeCourt of the United States as final in regard to all the mattersadjudicated in them. But the Supreme Court has jurisdiction only forthe purpose of determining the rights of individuals. The politicalrelations between the Union and the Insular regions, it determinesonly so far as may be necessary to ascertain individual rights. Itspresent doctrine--that the American Union has power over the Insularregions subject to "fundamental principles formulated in theConstitution, " or subject to "the applicable provisions of theConstitution, " protects the civil rights of individuals, but under itthe power of the Union for political purposes remains absolute. Theproposition which I shall offer for your judgment, will, I believe, not only not be in conflict with the propositions laid down by theSupreme Court, but will give a reason why they are right. It will, too, I believe, give a reasonable basis for our holding that the powerof the American Union over the Insular regions, while ample for themaintenance of a just and proper permanent relationship with themunder our control, is not absolute even as respects their politicalrights. I have said that I shall discuss this question upon Americanprinciples. I shall not base myself on the Constitution of the UnitedStates, though I shall try to show the relation of that document tothe question, as I understand it. I shall assume it to be settled bythe decisions of the Supreme Court, --as it seems clearly to be, --thatwith the exception of the "Territory" clause of that instrument, itis, and of right ought to be, the Constitution of the thirteenoriginal States of the American Union and of the other States whichthey have admitted into their Union, and of no other States orcommunities; and that therefore it does not extend of its own forceoutside the American Union in any constitutional or legal sense, butonly in a metaphorical sense--this being as I understand it, themeaning of the Court when they hold, as they do, that, though the"Territory clause" is of present and universal significance asrespects all the regions annexed to the Union, yet, with thisexception, only "the applicable provisions of the Constitution" or"the fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution" are inforce in the annexed regions. "Extensions, " so-called, of theConstitution by Act of Congress, are of course mere Acts of Congress, and whether such metaphorical "extensions" are permanent will dependupon the terms and conditions of the "extension. " But though I shall not base myself on the Constitution of the UnitedStates, I shall nevertheless base myself on a great American Document, which preceded the Constitution as a statement of American principles, and which is so far from being inconsistent with it that theDemocratic party, in its platform of 1900, called it "the Spirit ofthe Constitution"--I refer to the Declaration of Independence. It isthe American principles set forth in that document which I shall tryto discover. If I shall be adjudged to have rightly interpreted thatinstrument, it will follow that we ought to substitute, in ourpolitical and legal language, for the term "colony, " the term "freestate, " for "dependence, " "just connection, " and for "empire, ""union. " In making such substitution, however, it will be necessary togive to the terms "free state" and "union, " a scientific meaning whichwill differ from that which they now have in the popular mind, butwhich will, I believe, be the same as was given to these terms by theRevolutionary statesmen. I shall not allow myself to be embarrassed by the fact that in myfirst published writing I used the terms "colony, " "dependence" and"empire;" for at the same time that I used these terms, I based myselfon principles which were those of free statehood, just connection andunion, to which I adhere to this day. Taking the Declaration of Independence, therefore, as the expositionof the fundamental principles on which all American political theoryis based, and to which all American policy must conform, let me statebriefly the general meaning and purpose of this instrument, as Iunderstand it. As a result of the discussion for twelve years preceding theDeclaration, the doctrine of the extension of the British Constitutionto the American Colonies, which from their situation, could never berepresented on equal terms in Parliament, was found to be useless forthe protection of American rights, political or civil; and thedoctrine that their rights were dependent on the Colonial Charters wasfound to be inadequate, for these Charters, while protecting the civilrights of the Americans to some extent, proceeded on the theory thatthey held all their political rights at the will or whim of GreatBritain. The Americans felt and knew that they were entitled topolitical, as well as civil rights, and they all firmly believed thateach so-called "colony" was a free state and subject to no externalcontrol beyond what was necessary to preserve their relationship withGreat Britain on just terms to all the parties. The only questionwhich the Americans discussed, as soon as they comprehended the wholesituation, was, Why was each so-called "colony" a free state and whyhad it always been such? The Declaration of Independence, as Iunderstand it, gave to the world their solution of this problem. Theiranswer, as I understand it, was, that the American Colonies were andalways had been free states, because their relations with the State ofGreat Britain were not under the British Constitution and were notwholly under the Colonial Charters, but were under a supreme anduniversal common law, which governs the relations between men, communities, bodies corporate, states and nations, and which theycalled in the Declaration "the Law of Nature and of Nature's God, "according to which every community on the earth's surface, withinreasonable limits for the formation and execution of a just publicsentiment, is entitled to be a free state, --that is, to be free fromexternal control, in executing its just public sentiment, except sofar as may be necessary to enable it to conform to the terms of itsjust connections with other free states. This doctrine of freestatehood as a universal right is, as I understand it, the centralidea of the Declaration. Assuming this to be the central idea, let us see how this idea isreached; and for that purpose, let us notice the exact language of theDeclaration. The first paragraph reads: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. " The "causes of separation" are prefaced by a number of propositionsdetermining the nature of the "political bands" by which one peoplemay be "connected with" another. These propositions are all rules ofhuman conduct, and are therefore principles of law, though they arecalled "self-evident truths. " This part of the Declaration reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. " The conception of the universal right of free statehood is reached, inthe Declaration, through a series of three propositions, each statedto be self-evident, and yet all forming a sequence. The basalproposition is, that "all men are created equal. " Rufus Choate andJohn James Ingalls have declared this proposition and the succeedingone that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certainunalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuitof happiness, " to be "glittering generalities. " Abraham Lincoln, onthe other hand, in his speech at Gettysburg, at the most solemn andstirring moment in the country's history, declared that theproposition that all men are created equal was the foundation-idea ofthe nation, to which it was dedicated by the Fathers. The doctrine of equality arising from the common creation of all menas the spiritual offspring of a common Creator, was the doctrine ofthe Reformation in its broadest form, as declared by Penn. Taking intoconsideration the religious character of the Americans, as well as thelearning and acumen of that most remarkable body of men whoconstituted the Continental Congress, it seems not only notimprobable, but probable, and indeed necessary to conclude, that theproposition that "all men are created equal" was intended to be theepitome of the doctrine of the Reformation, as that doctrine wasbroadened by the influence of Penn and his followers. As theGovernments of Europe were at that time acting on the politicalphilosophy of feudalism and mediaevalism, which in its last analysiswas based on the proposition that all men are created unequal, or thatsome are created equal and some unequal, the Declaration, if it betrue that it based the American political philosophy upon the broadestdoctrine of the Reformation, announced an American System as opposedto the European System. From the doctrine of equality arising from the common creation of allmen by a personal Creator to whom all were equally related, it isdeclared by the Declaration to follow as a 'self-evident' truth thatthere are certain rights, which are attached to all men by endowmentof the Creator as being the correlative of the unalienable needs ofall men, and which inasmuch as they arise from the universallimitations which the Creator has imposed, are as unalienable as theneeds themselves. These unalienable rights are declared to be therights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of unalienable rights, necessarily supposes a universallaw, for the conception of law must precede the conception of right. This law, as conceived of by the Declaration is a common and universallaw. In the first part of the preamble this universal common law isspoken of as "the law of Nature and of Nature's God. " Inasmuch as therights claimed are those which depend for their existence uponrevelation as well as reason, it is evident that this common anduniversal law to which the Declaration appeals, is the "law of natureand of nations, " of the scholars of the Reformation, which wasconceived of as based on revelation and reason, and as governing everyrelationship of men, of bodies corporate, of communities, of statesand of nations. Out of this conception there had already grown thatgreat division of the law which deals with the temporary relationsbetween independent states, which we now call International Law. Having thus established the doctrine of unalienable rights, based on auniversal common law of nature and of nations, which all men, allbodies corporate, all communities, all governments, all states and allnations were bound to enforce, the Declaration proceeds to aconsideration of the forms, methods and instrumentalities by whichthese unalienable rights are to be secured. It declares that the primary instrumentality by which these rights aresecured, are governments "deriving their just powers from the consentof the governed. " Contrary to the usual interpretation, theDeclaration does not state that government is the expression of thewill of the majority. Governments, it is declared, are instituted to"secure" the "unalienable rights" of individuals. The will of themajority, of course, is quite as likely to destroy as to secure theunalienable rights of individuals. Moreover, the Declaration saysmerely that "governments are instituted among men"--not that menuniversally institute their own governments. The whole statement thatthe governments which are instituted among men to secure theunalienable rights of individuals, universally "derive their justpowers from the consent of the governed, " is inconsistent with theproposition that governments are the expression of the mere will ofthe majority, for it is only their "just powers" that governments"derive" from "the consent of the governed, " and the will of themajority may be just or unjust. The expression "deriving their justpowers from the consent of the governed, " seems to me most probably tobe an epitome and summary of the two fundamental propositions of thelaw of agency--_Obligatio mandati consensu contrahentium consistit_, afree translation of which is "The powers of an agent are derived fromthe consent of the contracting parties, " and _Rei turpis nullummandatum est_, a free translation of which is "No agent can haveunjust powers. " On this interpretation the meaning of the wholesentence "that to secure these rights, governments are institutedamong men, deriving their just powers from the consent of thegoverned, " is, it would seem, that there is a universal right of allcommunities to have a government of a kind best adapted for thesecuring of the unalienable rights of individuals, instituted eitherby their own selection or by the appointment of an external power, andthat all governments, however instituted, are universally the agentsof the governed to secure these rights. Government is thus declarednot to be the expression of the will of the majority, but theapplication of the just public sentiment justly ascertained throughforms best adapted for this purpose. The free statehood which is claimed in the concluding part of theDeclaration to be the right of the Colonies is by the Declarationbased on the philosophical declarations of the preamble. Theparticular proposition which bears upon the right of free statehood isevidently the one which declares that, "to secure these [unalienable]rights [of individuals], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. " Theintermediate propositions, as the result of which the universal rightof free statehood follows from this proposition, are, it would seem, these: If government is the doing of justice according to publicsentiment, government is the expression and application of aspiritually and intellectually educated public sentiment, since, although a rudimentary knowledge of what is just is implanted in everyhuman being, a full knowledge of what is just comes only after acourse of spiritual and intellectual education. Hence it follows thatthe forms and methods of government should be such as are adapted tosuch spiritual and intellectual education. Education takes place bydirect personal contact, and can be best accomplished only through theestablishment of permanent groups of individuals who are all under thesame conditions. The formation and expression of a just publicsentiment, therefore, requires the establishment of permanent groupsof persons, more or less free from any external control whichinterferes with their rightful action, under a leadership which makesfor their spiritual and intellectual education in justice. Suchpermanent groups within territorial limits of suitable size fordeveloping and expressing a just public sentiment, are free states. Territorial divisions of persons set apart for the purpose ofconvenience in determining the local public sentiment, regardless ofits justness or unjustness, are not states, but are mere votingdistricts. Just public sentiment, for its expression and application, requires the existence of many small free states, disconnected to theextent necessary to enable each to be free from all improper externalcontrol in educating itself in the ways of justice; mere publicsentiment, for its expression and application, requires only theexistence of a few great states divided into voting districts, eachdistrict being under the control of the Central Government, which isto it an external control. Just public sentiment, as the basis ofgovernment, is a basis which makes government a mighty instrument forspirituality and growth; mere public sentiment, regardless of itsjustness or unjustness, as the basis of government, is a basis whichmakes government a mighty instrument for brutality and deterioration. Human equality, unalienable rights, government according to justpublic sentiment, and free statehood, are inevitably and foreverlinked together as reciprocal cause and effect. The ultimate meaning of the expression "that to secure these rightsgovernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers fromthe consent of the governed, " seems therefore to be that by the commonlaw of nature and of nations there is a universal right of freestatehood which pertains to all communities on the face of the earthwithin territorial limits of suitable size for the development andoperation of a just public sentiment. So complete and universal are the principles of government by justpublic sentiment and of free statehood that, according to theDeclaration, even when all the people of a free state are meetingtogether to alter or abolish a form of government which has becomedestructive of the ends of its institution, as it is declared they mayrightfully do, their right to form a new government is not absolute sothat they can rightfully do whatever the majority wills, but islimited by this universal common law, so that they can rightfullyinstitute only a new form of government whose foundation principlesand mode of organization are such "as to them shall seem most likelyto effect their safety and happiness"--that is, to secure theunalienable rights of individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness. The declaration of the universal right of free statehood isaccompanied, in the Declaration, by the claim that the Colonies, asfree states, had always been in political "connection" with the Stateof Great Britain. The concluding part of the Declaration reads: "We, therefore, ... Declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, ... And that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. " In this it was necessarily implied that the Colonies had always beenfree states or free and independent states, and that, by theDeclaration, at most their right of independent statehood came intoexistence; that they had theretofore at all times been in politicalconnection, either as free states under the law of nature and ofnations, or as free and independent states by implied treaty, with thefree and independent State of Great Britain; that the dissolution ofthe connection had not come about by an act of secession on theirpart, but was due to the violation, by the State of Great Britain, either of the law of nature and of nations, or of the implied treatyon which the political connection was based. The term "connection" was an apt term to express a relationship ofequality and dignity. "Connection" implies two things, considered asunits distinct from one another, which are bound together by aconnecting medium. Just connection implies free statehood in all thecommunities connected. Union is a form of connection in which theconnected free states are consolidated into a unity for the commonpurposes, though separate for local purposes. Merger is the fusion oftwo or more free states into a single unitary state. Connectionbetween free states may be through a legislative medium, or through ajusticiary medium, or through an executive medium. The connectingmedium may be a person, a body corporate, or a state. States connectedthrough a legislative medium, whether a person, a body corporate or astate, and whether wholly external to the states connected or to someextent internal to them, whose legislative powers are unlimited orwhich determines the limits of its own legislative powers, are"dependent" upon or "subject" to the will of the legislative medium. Such states are "dependencies, " "dominions, " "subject-states, " or moreaccurately "slave-states, "--or more accurately still, not states atall, but mere aggregations of slave-individuals. States connectedthrough a legislative medium, whether a person, a body corporate or astate, and whether wholly external to the states connected or in partinternal to them, whose legislative powers are granted by the statesand which has only such legislative powers as are granted, are in acondition of limited dependence, dominion, and subjection; but theirrelationship is by their voluntary act and they may, and by the termsof the grant always do to some extent control the legislative will towhich they are subject and on which they are dependent. Where statesare connected or united through a justiciary medium, whether thatjusticiary medium is a person, a body corporate, or a state, all thestates are free states, their relationships being governed by law. Where states are connected through an executive medium, whether thatexecutive medium is a person, a body corporate, or a state, all thestates are free and independent states, and each acts according to itswill. All connections in which the legislative medium, --whether aperson, a body corporate or a state, and whether wholly external tothe states connected, or to some extent internal to the statesconnected, --has unlimited legislative powers or determines the limitsof its own legislative powers, are fictitious connections, therelationship being really one which implies "empire" or "dominion" onone side, and "subjection" or "dependence" on the other. Suchconnections are properly called "empires" or "dominions. " So also allconnections in which the only connecting medium is a common executive, whether a person, a body corporate or a state, are fictitiousconnections, the relationship being one of "permanent alliance" or"confederation" between independent states. Such connections areproperly called "alliances" or "confederations. " The only trueconnections are those in which there is a legislative medium, whethera person, a body corporate or a state, whose legislative powers arelimited, by agreement of the connected states, to the commonpurposes, and those in which there is a justiciary medium, whether aperson, a body corporate, or a state, which recognizes its powers aslimited to the common purposes by the law of nature and of nations, and which ascertains and applies this law, incidentally adjudicating, according to this law, the limits of its own jurisdiction. Justconnections tend to become unions, it being found in practicenecessary, for the preservation of the connection in due order, thatthe power of limited legislation for the common purposes and the powerof adjudicating and applying the law for the common purposes shouldextend not only to the states, but to all individuals throughout thestates. Thus "dependence, " as a fictitious and vicious form of connection, is, it would appear, forever opposed to "connection" of a just and properkind. If it were attempted to sum up the issue of the AmericanRevolution in an epigram, would not that epigram be: "'Colony, ' or'Free State?' 'Dependence, ' or 'Just Connection?' 'Empire, ' or'Union?'" According to the opinion of the Revolutionary statesmen, as it wouldseem, a universal right of free statehood does not imply a universalright of self-government. Statehood and self-government are twodifferent and distinct conceptions. The Americans claimed the right offree statehood as a part of the universal rights of man, but theyclaimed the right of self-government because they were Englishmentrained by generations of experience in the art of self-government andso capable of exercising the art. A state is not less or more a freestate because it has self-government. It is a free state when its justpublic sentiment is to any extent ascertained and executed by itsgovernment, --however that government may be instituted, --free from thecontrol of any external power. It does not prevent a region from beinga free state that its government is wholly or partly appointed by anexternal power, if that government is free from external control inascertaining and executing the just local sentiment to any extent. Nordoes it interfere with the right of free statehood when an externalpower stands by merely to see that the local government ascertainsand executes the just local sentiment to a proper extent. The externalpower in that case is upholding the free statehood of the region. Itstands as surety for the continuance of free statehood. The right of self-government, according to this view, is a conditionaluniversal right of free states. When a community, inhabiting a region ofsuch territorial extent that it is not too large to make it possible fora just public sentiment concerning its affairs to be developed andexecuted, and not so small as to make it inconvenient that it should bein any respect free from external control, is of such moral andintellectual capacity that it can form and execute a just publicsentiment concerning its internal affairs and its relations with othercommunities, states and nations, it has not only the right of freestatehood, --that is, of political personality, --which is of universalright, but also the right of self-government. The right of such a freestate to self-government is complete if there be no just politicalconnection or union between it and other free states, or partial, ifsuch a just connection or union exists, being limited, in this lattercase, to the extent necessary for the preservation, in due order, of theconnection or union. Independence was regarded apparently also, by the Declaration, when itdeclared the Colonies to be "free and independent states, " to be aright superadded to the right of free statehood in some cases, andtherefore to be a conditional universal right of free states--that is, a right universally existing where the conditions necessary toindependence--great physical strength, and great moral andintellectual ability--exist. The Colonies regarded themselves as free states in such a just andrightful connection with the free and independent State of GreatBritain as to form with it a union. From this it followed, inasmuch asthis connection and union was conceived of as existing under auniversal common law, that the State of Great Britain, through itsGovernment, was the justiciary medium which connected the free statesof that which they conceived of as the British-American Union, and assuch applied the principles of this universal common law forpreserving and maintaining in due order the connection and union. There, therefore, resulted the conception of Great Britain as what mayperhaps be called "the Justiciar State" of this British-AmericanUnion. If we were to use the exact language of the Revolution, itwould probably be more proper to speak of Great Britain as "theSuperintending State" of the British-American Union, as the power ofGreat Britain over the Colonies was generally spoken of by theAmericans as "the superintending power. " Lord Chatham used thisexpression in his famous bill introduced in the House of Lords. Theexpression "Justiciar State, " however, seems to be more scientificallycorrect. A Justiciar was an official who exercised the power ofgovernment in a judicial manner. His power was neither strictlylegislative, nor strictly executive, nor strictly judicial, but wascomplex, being compounded of all three powers, so that his executiveaction, taken after judicially ascertaining the facts in each case andapplying to them just principles of law, resulted in action having theforce of legislation. The Revolutionary statesmen have left a very considerable literatureshowing their views concerning the nature of the right of a state tobe the Justiciar State of a Union of States, and concerning the powerswhich a Justiciar State may rightfully exercise. Arguing on the same basis as that adopted by them regarding the rightof self-government and independence, it appears that they consideredthe right of a state to act as Justiciar for other states to be aright superadded to the right of self-government and independence insome cases--that is, that justiciarship is a conditional universalright of self-governing and independent states, the conditionsnecessary to its existence being great physical strength, a judicialcharacter and a capacity for leadership. The power exercised by a Justiciar State in a Justiciary Union, theyrecognized as being neither strictly legislative, nor strictlyexecutive, nor strictly judicial, but a power compounded of all thesethree powers. They considered that it was to be exercised for thecommon purposes after investigation by judicial methods; that thejust public sentiment of the free states connected and united with theJusticiar State was to be considered by it in the determination of thecommon affairs; and that the action of the Justiciar State was toresult, after proper hearing of the free states and all partiesconcerned, in dispositions and regulations made according to justprinciples of law, which were to have the force of supreme law in eachof the connected and united free states respectively. This kind ofpower, which the Fathers called "the superintending power" or "thedisposing power" under the law of nature and of nations, and which maybe called, using an expression now coming into use, "the power offinal decision, " or more briefly "the justiciary power, " being neitherlegislative, executive nor judicial, but more nearly executive thanlegislative, the more conservative among them considered might beexercised, consistently with the principles of the law of nature andof nations, either by the Legislative Assembly of the Justiciar Stateor by its Chief Executive, advised by properly constitutedAdministrative Tribunals or Councils; the action of the LegislativeAssembly superseding that of the Chief Executive in so far as theymight be inconsistent with each other. This right of both theLegislative Assembly and of the Chief Executive, properly advised, toexercise the powers of the Justiciar State--the former having supreme, and the latter superior justiciary power, --under the law of nature andof nations, is, I believe, also recognized by our Constitution, as Ihave elsewhere attempted to show. Of course there must be conditions of transition where the relationsbetween free states which would normally be in union, or betweendetached portions of what would normally be a unitary state, temporarily assume a form which is partly one of union or merger, andpartly of dependency. The justification of all such forms ofrelationship must, it would seem, be found in the fundamental rightwhich every independent state, whether a Justiciar state or not, hasto the preservation of its existence and its leadership orjudgeship--that is, in the right of self-preservation, which, whennecessary to be invoked, overrules all other rights. On this theorymust, it would seem, be explained the relations between the AmericanUnion and its Territories, between Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, andbetween England and Ireland. On this theory of self-preservation, also, must, it would seem, be explained the permanent relationship ofdependency which exists between the District of Columbia and theAmerican Union--such dependency being necessary to the preservation ofthe life of the Union. Out of the conception of a universal common law of nature and ofnations which governs all human acts and relationships, --and thereforeall the acts and relationships of states and nations as well as ofmen, bodies corporate and communities, --there has arisen and at thepresent time exists, a science of the universal and common law of thestate, called the Science of the Law of the State, which concernsitself with the internal relations of a state to its people, itsbodies corporate and its communities, and a science of the universaland common law of independent states, called the Science ofInternational Law, which concerns itself with the occasional andtemporary relations of independent states. The great field of lawwhich concerns the permanent relations of free states is not yetcovered by a recognized science. Must there not therefore emerge fromthis conception of a universal and common law of nature and ofnations, a third science of law, covering this field, which will takeas its basal proposition the doctrine that free statehood is thenormal and rightful condition of all communities on the earth'ssurface within suitable limits for the formation of a just publicsentiment, and which will concern itself with the permanent relationsbetween free states? As such permanent relations must always be byjust connection, either in its simple form or in the form of union, may not such a science of law, standing between the science of the Lawof the State and the science of International Law, be called thescience of the Law of Connections and Unions of Free States? Taking the whole Declaration together, and reading it in the light ofthe political literature which was put forth on both sides of thewater between the years 1764 and 1776, it seems to be necessary toconclude that the views of the most conservative of the Americanstatesmen of the period concerning the connection between GreatBritain and the Colonies were these: They considered, as I interpret their language, that the connectionbetween free and independent State of Great Britain, and the AmericanColonies, as free states, had existed and of right ought to haveexisted, according to the principles of the law of nature and ofnations--that law being based on principles opposed to the principlesapplied by the governments of Europe, and being thus what may becalled a law of nature and of nations according to the AmericanSystem. Had they used a more definite and scientific phraseology, itseems that their view would best be expressed by saying that theyconsidered that the relationship between Great Britain and theColonies had always existed according to the principles of the Law ofConnections and Unions of Free States. They accordingly admitted, as Iunderstand them, that Great Britain, as a free and independent state, had power, as Justiciar, over the American Free States, for the commonpurposes of the whole Union, to finally decide, by dispositions, ordinances and regulations having the force of supreme law, madethrough its Government after a judicial hearing in each case for theinvestigation of facts and the application to them of the principlesof the Law of Connections and Unions of Free States, upon allquestions of common interest arising out of the connection and union;and that each of the American Free States had power, through itsLegislature, to legislate according to the just public sentiment ineach, and the right to have its local laws executed by its Executiveand interpreted and applied by its Courts, free from all control bythe State of Great Britain, except what was necessary to protect andpreserve the Union. In this view, the actions of the Americans show the evolution of acontinuous theory and policy, and the application of a single Americansystem of principles, --a system which was based upon free statehood, just connection and union. The British-American Union of 1763 was aUnion of States under the State of Great Britain as Justiciar, thatState having power to dispose of and make all rules and regulationsrespecting the connected and united free states, needful to protectand preserve the connection and union, according to the principles ofthe Law of Connections and Unions. The dissolution of this Union, caused by the violation by the State of Great Britain of its duties asJusticiar State, gave a great impetus to the extreme states-rightsparty, and the next connection formed, --that of 1778 under theArticles of Confederation, --was not a Union, the Common Government(the Congress) being merely a Chief Executive. Such a connectionproving to be so slight as to be little more than a fiction, theyformed, under the Constitution of 1787, the only other kind of a unionwhich appears to be practicable, namely, a union under a commongovernment which was a Chief Legislature for all the connected andUnited States by their express grant, and whose powers were expresslylimited, by limitation in the grant, to the common purposes of thewhole connection and union of free states. If the Constitution, in defining what are the common purposes of theUnion and what the local purposes of the States of the Union, isdeclaratory of the principles of the Law of Connections and Unions ofFree States, as it seems not unreasonable to hold, the LimitedLegislative Union formed under the Constitution may perhaps beconsidered, in view of the supremacy of the Judiciary, as Guardians ofthe Constitution, over the Limited Legislature, as a species ofJusticiary Union. Moreover, if in what has been said we are correct, the relationship atpresent existing between the American Union and the Insular regions, is that of _de facto_ Justiciary Union, and the American Congress, under the lead of President McKinley and President Roosevelt, hasacted, with reference to these regions, according to the principles ofthe American system. The American Union, through President McKinley, has declared itself to be "a liberating, not a conquering nation, " andhas recognized the people of Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines aseach having a separate and local citizenship, thus recognizing each ofthese regions as a _de facto_ free state connected with the AmericanUnion. The action of the American Union extends to the regulation ofthe action of individuals in these free States, so that a GreaterAmerican Union of Free States exists _de facto_. To bring intoexistence a Greater American Union _de jure_, it needs, first, thepublic and express recognition by the American Union of itself as theJusticiar State, and of each of the separate Insular regions withinproper territorial limits, as a Free State in just connection andunion with the American Union; and, secondly, the establishment by theAmerican Union of the necessary Advisory Council for investigatingfacts and for advising the President before he, on behalf of theAmerican Union as Justiciar State, exercises his superior justiciarypowers, and for advising the Congress before it, in the same behalf, exercises its supreme justiciary powers. Councils suitable foradvising the local Governors, when they, on behalf of the AmericanUnion as Justiciar State, exercise their inferior justiciary powers, already exist. Of such a Greater American Union, the present AmericanUnion would be the Supreme Justiciary Head, with power to finallydetermine the questions arising out of the relationship, not by edictfounded on will and force, but by decision carefully made in each caseafter ascertaining the facts in each case and applying to them theprinciples of the Law of Connections and Unions properly applicable tothem. Is not this theory the true _via media_? The theory of the automaticextension of the constitution of a state over its annexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions which from their local or othercircumstances can never equally participate in the institution andoperation of its government, in some cases protects individual rights, but it takes no account of the right of free statehood, which is theprime instrumentality for securing these rights. The theory of a powerover these regions not regulated by a supreme law, is a theory ofabsolute power over both individuals and communities in theseregions, --a theory which implies an absence of all rights. The theoryof a power over these regions based on the principles of the Law ofConnections and Unions, granting that this law is itself based on theright of human equality, protects the rights of persons, ofcommunities, of states and of nations. On this theory the "TerritoryClause" of the Constitution recognizes the Law of Connections andUnions as determining the relationship between the American Union andthe Insular regions--"needful" rules and regulations being those whichare adapted to accomplish the end desired and which are consistentwith the principles of the Law of Connections and Unions as declaredin the Declaration of Independence. On this theory, the doctrine ofthe Supreme Court that the civil rights of individuals in casesgrowing out of our relations with our Insular brethren are protectedby "the fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution, " or by"the applicable provisions of the Constitution, " is translated intothe doctrine that these individual and civil rights are protected bythe principles of the Law of Connections and Unions of Free States, asthese principles are formulated in the Constitution and as they aredisclosed by an examination of the applicable provisions of theConstitution, and that not only are these civil rights protected bythis law, but also the political rights of all the parties to therelationship. On this theory, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Courtcontinues to be exactly the same as at present. The necessary AdvisoryCouncils for ascertaining the just political relations between theAmerican Union and the Insular regions and for determining thepolitical rights growing out of that relationship, would not in theleast interfere with the Supreme Court in the exercise of itsfunctions. They would supplement that Court, which now protects thecivil rights of all concerned through its adjudications in civilcases, by assisting the Congress and the President to protect andpreserve the political rights of all concerned through dispositionsand needful rules and regulations in political cases. By adopting this theory of the Reformation and the AmericanRevolution, may not the American System extend indefinitely withoutdanger to America herself? There would be no domination, nosubjection. The same Law of Connections and Unions would extend overand govern throughout the whole Greater American Union. This GreaterAmerican Justiciary Union would be but a logical application of theprinciples underlying the American Legislative, Executive, andJudicial Union formed by the Constitution of the United States. It would not be the Constitution which would follow the flag into theregions which America has annexed to herself, but the Law ofConnections and Unions, which is a part of the Law of Nature and ofNations according to the American System. I recur, therefore, to my first proposition and submit to yourjudgment whether the terms "colony, " "dependence, " and "empire, " onthe one hand, and the terms "free state, " "just connection, " and"union, " on the other, are not the symbols of two great andfundamentally opposed systems of politics--the one European, and theother American; whether the American terms and the American System arenot capable of being applied universally and beneficently, in the waypointed out above, throughout all places outside the present Unionwhich are within the limits of its justiciary power; and whether, ifthey are capable of this application, it is not our duty, bothlogically and ethically, to use the American terms in describing therelations between us and our Insular brethren, applying at the sametime the principles of the American System, and thus calling intoexistence a Greater American Union. * * * * *