"The other mistake I wish to notice is, that 'the example of the Louisiana purchase is a justification of the purchase of the Filipinos and their subsequent treatment by the President and Congress.' There is no analogy between the cases. If the Louisiana Territory at the time of its purchase had contained eight or ten million inhabitants; if they had been fighting many years for freedom, independence, and self-government, and part of that time as allies of the United States; if, at the time of the purchase, they had nearly achieved their independence; if they never consented to the purchase, refused to acquiesce in it, and declared their determination to be free and independent and to gov ern themselves, there would be considerable similarity between the cases. But none of these conditions were present in that case, and it fails entirely as a precedent for the other. It is a clear case of abandonment, in the face of the nations of the world, of the principles upon which our government was founded, and of an unrighteous claim supported by a murderous war.

"Not a man who signed the Declaration or the Constitution would have tolerated such a claim as that. The government and the people would have scouted it as a disgrace and shame. I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just and that my countrymen are struggling to take by a bloody war from millions of people those inalienable rights with which He has endowed all His children.

"Congress should promptly concede the independence of the Filipinos, and the longer that act of justice is delayed the worse it will be for our country. In a paroxysm

of rapacity worthy of the Anglo-Saxon, we have done a great wrong, been guilty of great oppression, and forfeited the confidence of mankind. We can only regain that confidence by a return to the paths of justice and freedom.

"Our army should be recalled and at least three-fourths of it disbanded. We need no large standing armies for any purpose. Such armies eat out the substance of the people, and are often used to enslave them.

"As to the trial which has led to this meeting and caused this discussion, I wish to say that, in common with all the members of the jury, I very much regretted to be obliged to find a verdict of guilty, but that, under the evidence and the instructions of the Court, no other verdict was possible."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH.

Mr. Lincoln said: "Although nearly every allegation of fact in this case has been contested, there are some things about which there is no dispute, and those are, that twenty thousand Filipinos and two thousand Americans came to their deaths in the Philippine Islands since the close of the war with Spain, and that the war against them was begun and is being carried on by the defendant as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. Nor has there been, nor can there be, much contest over the proposition that, if the war so inaugurated and waged by the President was and is unjust, he is guilty as charged in the indictment.

"The great contention and principal defense has been, and still is, that the war is just and that it was the right and duty of the President to wage it till those people submitted to the authority of the United States and accepted whatever government the President set up over them temporarily, and afterwards the permanent government established by Congress. That by the treaty of peace with Spain, the United States acquired the sovereignty of the entire Philippine Archipelago, and that it was the duty of all the inhabitants of those islands to submit to its authority; that, on the contrary, they resisted it, claimed that they were, and of right ought to be, free and independent, and that they became rebels whom it was necessary to subdue, and that the deaths that followed were justifiable and right.

"This contention by implication denies the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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 abolish it and to institute a 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; that when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to

throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.'

"Spain, by a long train of abuses, had forfeited any right she may have had to hold, possess, and govern the Philippine Islands, or any part of them, and those people had rightfully thrown off her government and set up one of their own before the ratification of her treaty with the United States. According to the Declaration, this ended all the rights Spain ever had in the Philippine Archipelago, and in that respect she conveyed nothing and the United States acquired nothing by the treaty. So far as the Filipinos were concerned, it was absolutely null and void.

"I think that this is the natural and inevitable conclusion which follows the admission of the truths of the Declaration.

"The real question in this case is whether we shall sustain the Declaration or trample it under foot. In my opinion, the salvation of the country depends upon sustaining it. To abandon it is to abandon the only hope for the preservation of our free institutions. Whenever we deny the right of any people to freedom and independence and self-government, and force upon them a government against their consent, we forfeit the right to those blessings ourselves. Sooner or later that forfeiture will be enforced against us, as sure as there is a just God who rules in the armies of Heaven and among the habitations of men.

"Our fathers labored and fought and suffered through a seven-years war to make good that Declaration. They endured hunger, cold, sickness, wounds, and death; they

marched in the winter over the frozen ground to find the enemy, and their bloody foot-prints upon the snow told of their naked feet. That Declaration was baptised in the blood of the Revolution and dedicated forever to the freedom, not of any one people, but of the human race. Its authors meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all and revered by all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and diffusing its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.

"The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain, and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be as, thank God! it is now proving itself, a stumbling-block to all those who, in after-times, might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant that when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

"It has been said in the argument of this case that by the war to put down the Rebellion we forced upon the Southern States a government to which they did not consent. To this I answer that they had consented to it long before, had lived under it many years, had participated in it, had enjoyed its protection and benefits, and had furnished many of its presidents.