Calhoun as a Lawyer and Statesman. ment of the government; violence and anarchy ruled the day, and military despo tism closed the scene." He referred to Great Britain as an exam ple to the contrary. He freely admitted that she held large territorial possessions without demoralizing her people or ruining her in stitutions; but he said that resulted from the peculiar character of her government — "that her executive and the House of Lords (the conservative branches of her govern ment) are both hereditary, while the other House of Parliament has a popular charac ter." He contended that even England had suffered the penalty of a free government attempting to hold provinces in subjection, that she was groaning under a heavy debt; and that the subjection of Ireland was not only a cause of debt but a perpetual menace to the peace of the government. Nor, as I have already said, was he in favor of incor porating Mexico into the Union. He thought that it would involve great expense and a large standing army to keep her there. Then, too, he maintained that the Mexicans were entirely different from our own people in their traditions, habits, and ideas, and that it would be impossible to convert them to our ideas of liberty and government. But even Mr. Calhoun him self, after the war had been started and carried on for a while, in discussing the settlement of the issues involved, acquiesced in the result of things up to a certain point and indeed favored retaining a part, at least, of the conquered territory. In his speech on "The Three Million Bill" delivered in the Senate, February 9, 1847, he said: "Under such circumstances, to make peace with Mexico without acquiring a consider able portion, at least, of this uninhabited re gion, would lay the foundation of new troubles and subject us to the hazard of further conflicts — a result equally undesir able to Mexico and ourselves. But it is not only in reference to a permanent peace with Mexico that it is desirable that this vast,
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uninhabited region should pass into our possession. High considerations connected with civilization and commerce, make it no less so. Left as it is, it must remain for generations an uninhabited and barren waste." The last sentences have very much the same tone that we hear in the argument of the annexationists of the present day. "Mani fest destiny" was at that time a popular term. And then, too, we must remember that, to a very large extent, the woof and warp of Mr. Calhoun's mind were regulated and controlled on public matters by his es timate of their relation to the subject of sla very. All of his ideas upon the subject of the annexation of territory were largely biased by his views on the slavery question. And besides, and in a large measure as the result of this fact, his ideas on this subject were also influenced by his State - right views, — that this was a Union of equal, sovereign States, each of which had the right to judge for itself when its constitutional rights were infringed upon. In discussing Mr. Calhoun's position upon the subject of territorial acquisition, therefore, we must make allowance for both of these considera tions, neither of which can operate now, for slavery is a thing of the past and that feature of State sovereignty, to which I have referred and for which he contended so vig orously, has been eliminated from the doc trine. That having the Philippines on our hands as one of the results of war, we should cast them adrift and thus practically consign them to a state of anarchy and bar barism, or allow them to become the prey of mercenary nations, I can hardly believe would have accorded with Mr. Calhoun's character or met with his approbation; that he would have been in favor of maintaining over them a protectorate with an ultimate idea of freeing them as soon as they became capable of self-government, I think ex tremely probable; but that for this Republic to hold in subjection any civilized people de
