sembled to commemorate the establishment of great public principles of liberty and to do honor to the distinguished dead.' Nor can I ever forget the closing sentence of the great orator and his invocation that the United States might become 'itself a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!'

"A great change has come over the rulers of this country since that day. They have abandoned the doctrines of liberty and independence proclaimed by the Declaration, and repeated by Webster, and are doing their utmost to crush them in the Philippines. The President made war upon them for that very purpose, and to force upon them a government they do not want, and is making of their country, not 'a monument of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty,' but 'a monument of oppression and terror.'

"The relations between the Filipinos and the Americans at the close of the war with Spain were much the same as those between France and the Americans at the close of the Revolutionary War. France had as much right to purchase the Colonies from Great Britain as the United States had to purchase the Philippines from Spain. But if she had done so, I should have been tempted to renounce my country, for I would have regarded the attempt as not only unjust, but dastardly. The Filipinos had been fighting for liberty and independence for many years. For their allies to turn against them when that independence was nearly an accomplished fact, and destroy it by claiming the right, under a purchase, to sovereignty over them with

out their consent and to force them to abandon their liberty and independence and accept a new and foreign government against their determined opposition, made a very strong case against the author of that war. In my opinion, the verdict of the jury could not have been different under the evidence and instructions."

SPEECH OF MR. MADISON.

Mr. Madison said: "The power to declare war was, by the Constitution, conferred upon Congress. Notwithstanding this, two of our Presidents had made war without the authority of Congress. The Mexican War was made by President Polk and the Philippine War was made by President McKinley. Both cases were dangerous usurpations of power, which it is to be hoped will never be repeated.

"It was no justification of the President in this case to say that it was his right and duty to put down the rebellion of the Filipinos, for there was no rebellion. As already shown, a people cannot rebel against an authority to which they are not subject, nor could they be subject to an authority to whose sovereignty they had never consented. Rebellion, in the proper sense of that term, presupposes the duty of allegiance; and in this case there was no such duty. Sovereignty of one people over another cannot be acquired in any way without the consent of both parties, except by conquest in a just war.

"In the beginning this was a presidential war. Its sub

sequent ratification by Congress made it national, but did not make it constitutional. The grant of the war power to Congress by the Constitution is general, but it is not unlimited. It is limited by the objects for which the Constitution was formed. These are 'to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'

"None of these objects are promoted by the Philippine War. It is antagonistic to most of them, and its continuance is a great abuse of the war power. It is waged directly against the most important right proclaimed in the Declaration-the right of every people to freedom, independence, and self-government.

"It has been insisted in this case that the Philippine Islands belong to the United States by the law of nations; that this country acquired them, in accordance with that law, by treaty with Spain. An examination of some of the leading authorities upon international law, and an application of that law to the evidence in this case, will show that there is no ground for this claim.

"Vattel says: "The law of nations is the science which teaches the rights subsisting between nations or states and the obligations correspondent to those rights.'

""Since men are naturally equal, and a perfect equality prevails in their rights and obligations, as equally proceeding from Nature-nations composed of men, and considered as so many free persons living together in a state of nature, are naturally equal and inherit from Nature the same obligations and rights. Power or weakness does not in this re

spect produce any difference. A dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small republic is no less a sovereign State than the most powerful kingdom. By a necessary consequence of that equality, whatever is lawful for one nation is equally lawful for any other; and whatever is unjustifiable in the one is equally so in the other.' (Vattel's Law of Nations, Sec. 18.)

"Wheaton says: 'A nation associating itself with the general society of nations, thereby recognizes a law common to all nations by which its international relations are to be regulated. It cannot violate this law without exposing itself to the danger of incurring the enmity of other nations and without exposing to hazard its own existence. The motive which induces each particular nation to observe this law depends upon its persuasion that other nations will observe towards it the same law. The jus gentium is founded upon reciprocity of will. It has neither law-giver nor supreme judge, since independent states acknowledge no superior human authority. Its organ and regulator is public opinion: its supreme tribunal is history, which forms at once the rampart of justice and the Nemesis by which injustice is avenged. Its sanction, or the obligation of all men to respect it, results from the moral order of the universe which will not suffer nations and individuals to be isolated from each other, but constantly tends to unite the whole family of mankind in one great harmonious society.' (Wheaton's International Law, pp. 16 and 17.)

""The principal in the war, the sovereign in whose name it has been carried on, cannot justly make a peace without including his allies-I mean those who have given him assistance without directly taking part in the war.

"But the treaty concluded by the principal is no further obligatory on his allies than as they are willing to accede to it, unless they have given him full power to treat for them.' (Vattel's Law of Nations, p. 436.)

""Those treaties dictated by a conquering party which have the effect to destroy the national existence of the vanquished state or deprive it of some essential right which is necessary to separate political existence are not obligatory any longer than the society affected thereby chooses to treat them as such.' (Pomeroy's International Law, edited by Prof. T. S. Woolsey, p. 348; and see pp. 350, 351, and 352, to the same effect.)

"A nation is an aggregate of individuals, and has all the rights of attack and defense that a man in a state of nature would have by natural law. Whatever is right in itself such a one could lawfully do. Whatever is right in itself a nation may lawfully do. There being no parliament or tribunal of nations to agree upon rules of right, we may say in general that the true law of nations, as of an indi vidual person, is the law of God. Certainly both communities and individuals are bound to act justly, mercifully, and reasonably. Morality is incumbent upon both. The law of nations is summarily written in the Ten Commandments.' (Waples on Proceedings in Rem, p. 372.)

"Every true sovereignty is in its own nature inalienable. Let us conclude, then, that as the nation alone has a right to subject itself to a foreign power, the right of really alienating the state can never belong to the sovereign, unless it be expressly given to him by