profoundly grateful. I can prove that gratitude in no better way than by uttering with entire frankness my honest convictions on the great subject you have given me to discuss—a subject fraught with more momentous consequence than any ever submitted to the judgment of the American people since the foundation of our Constitutional Government.
It is proposed to embark this Republic in a course of imperialistic policy by permanently annexing to it certain islands taken, or partly taken, from Spain in the late war. The matter is near its decision, but not yet decided. The peace treaty made at Paris is not yet ratified by the Senate; but even if it were, the question whether those islands, although ceded by Spain, shall be permanently incorporated in the territory of the United States would still be open for final determination by Congress. As an open question, therefore, I shall discuss it.
If ever, it behooves the American people to think and act with calm deliberation, for the character and future of the Republic and the welfare of its people now living and yet to be born are in unprecedented jeopardy. To form a candid judgment of what this Republic has been, what it may become and what it ought to be, let us first recall to our minds its condition before the recent Spanish war.
Our Government was, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, the greatest American of his time and the most genuine type of true Americanism, “the Government of the people, by the people and for the people.” It was the noblest ambition of all true Americans to carry this democratic government to the highest degree of perfection in justice, in probity, in assured peace, in the security of human rights, in progressive civilization; to solve the problem of popular self-government on the grandest scale, and thus to make this Republic the example and guiding-star of mankind.
