Chapter 5

But the fact was that these were the bonds of the Spanish nation, issued by the Spanish nation for its own purposes, guaranteed in terms "by the faith of the Spanish nation," and with another guaranty pledging Spanish sovereignty and control over certain colonial revenues. Spain failed to maintain her title to the security she had pledged, but the lenders knew the instability of that security when they risked their money on it. All the later lenders and many of the early ones knew, also, that it was pledged for money to continue Spain's efforts to subdue a people struggling to free themselves from Spanish rule. They may have said the morality or justice of the use made of the money was no concern of theirs. They may have thought the security doubtful, and still relied on the broad guaranty of the Spanish nation. At any rate, caveat emptor! The one thing they ought not to have relied upon was that the island they were furnishing money to subdue, if it gained its freedom, would turn around and insist on reimbursing them!

The Spanish contention that it was in their power, as absolute sovereign of the struggling island, to fasten ineradicably upon it, for their own hostile purposes, unlimited claims to its future revenues, would lead to extraordinary results. Under that doctrine, any hard-pushed oppressor would have a certain means of subduing the most righteous revolt and condemning a colony to perpetual subjugation. He would only have to load it with bonds, issued for his own purposes, beyond any possible capacity it could ever have for payment. Under that load it could neither sustain itself independently, even if successful in war, nor persuade any other Power to accept responsibility for and control over it. It would be rendered impotent either for freedom or for any change of sovereignty. To ask the Nation sprung from the successful revolt of the thirteen colonies to acknowledge and act on an immoral doctrine like that, was, indeed, ingenuous--or audacious. The American Commissioners pronounced it alike repugnant to common sense and menacing to liberty and civilization. The Spanish Commissioners resented the characterization, but it is believed that the considerate judgment of the world will yet approve it. International practice will certainly hesitate hereafter, in transfers of sovereignty over territory after its successful revolt, at any recognition of loans negotiated by the ceding Power in its unsuccessful effort to subdue the revolt--no matter what pledges it had assumed to give about the future territorial revenues. Loans for the prosecution of unjust wars will be more sharply scrutinized in the money markets of the world, and will find less ready takers, however extravagant the rates. It may even happen that oppressing nations, in the increasing difficulty of floating such loans, will find it easier to relax the rigors of their rule and promote the orderly development of more liberal institutions among their subjects.

Far from being an encouragement, therefore, to repudiation, the American rejection of the so-called Cuban debt was a distinct contribution to international morality, and will probably furnish an important addition to International Law.

[Sidenote: Ready to Pay Legitimate Colonial Debts.]

At the same time the American Commissioners made clear in another case their sense of the duty to recognize any debt legitimately attaching to ceded territory. There was not the remotest thought of buying the Philippines, when a money payment was proposed, in that branch of the negotiations. When the Spanish fleet was sunk and the Spanish army captured at Manila, Spanish control over the Philippines was gone, and the Power that had destroyed it was compelled to assume its responsibilities to the civilized world at that commercial center and on that oceanic highway.[4] If that was not enough reason for the retention of the Philippines, then, at any rate, the right of the United States to them as indemnity for the war could not be contested by the generation which had witnessed the exaction of Alsace and Lorraine plus $1,000,000,000 indemnity for the Franco-Prussian War. The war with Spain had already cost the United States far above $300,000,000. When trying to buy Cuba from Spain, in the days of that island's greatest prosperity, the highest valuation the United States was ever willing to attach to it was $125,000,000. As an original proposition, nobody dreams that the American people would have consented to buy the remote Philippines at that figure or at the half of it. Who could think the Government exacting if it accepted them in lieu of a cash indemnity (which Spain was wholly incapable of paying) for a great deal more than double the value it had put upon Cuba, at its very doors?

[4] It might, of course, have run away and left them to disorder. That is what a pirate could have done, and would have compelled the intervention of European governments for the protection of their own citizens. Or it might have restored them to Spain. Besides the desertion of natives whose aid against Manila had been encouraged, that would have been to say that while the United States went to war because the injustice and barbarity of Spanish rule in the West Indies were such that they could no longer be tolerated, it was now so eager to quit and get peace that it was willing to reestablish that same rule in the East Indies!

It was certain, then, that the Philippines would be retained, unless the President and his Commissioners so construed their duty to protect their country's interests as to throw away, in advance of popular instruction, all possible chance of indemnity for the war. But there was an issue of Spanish bonds, called a Philippine loan, amounting to forty million dollars Mexican, or say a little less than twenty millions of American money. Warned by the results of inquiry as to the origin of the Cuban debt, the American Commissioners avoided undertaking to assume this en bloc. But in their first statement of the claim for cession of sovereignty in the Philippines, while intimating their belief in their absolute right to enforce the demand on the single ground of indemnity, they were careful to say that they were ready to stipulate "for the assumption of any existing indebtedness of Spain incurred for public works and improvements of a pacific character in the Philippines." When they learned that this entire "Philippine debt" had only been issued in 1897, that apparently a fourth had been transferred to Cuba to carry on the war against the Cuban insurgents, and finally against the United States, and that much of what was left of the remainder, after satisfying the demands of officials for "costs of negotiation," must have gone to the support of the government while engaged in prosecuting the war against the natives in Luzon, the American Commissioners abandoned the idea of assuming it. But even then they resolved, in the final transfer, to fix an amount at least equal to the face value of that debt, which could be given to Spain. She could use it to pay the Philippine bonds if she chose. Nothing further was said to Spain about the Philippine debt, and no specific reason for the payment was given in the ultimatum. The Commissioners merely observed that they "now present a new proposition, embodying the concessions which, for the sake of immediate peace, their Government is, under the circumstances, willing to tender." What had gone before showed plainly enough the American view as to the sanctity of public debt legitimately incurred in behalf of ceded territory, and explained the money payment in the case of the Philippines, as well as the precise amount at which it was finally fixed.

[Sidenote: Privateering.]

Neither the Peace of Paris nor the conflict which it closed can be said to have quite settled the status of private war at sea. "Privateering is and remains abolished," not in International Law, but merely between the Powers that signed that clause in the Declaration of Paris in 1856. But the greatest commercial nation, as well as the most powerful, that withheld its signature was the United States. Obviously its adhesion to the principle would bring more weight to the general acceptance among civilized nations, which is the essential for admission in International Law, than that of all the other dissenting nations.

Under these circumstances, the United States took the occasion of an outbreak of war between itself and another of the dissenting nations to announce that, for its part, it did not intend, under any circumstances, to resort to privateering. The other gave no such assurance, and was, in fact, expected (in accordance with frequent semi-official outgivings from Madrid) to commission privateers at an early day; but the disasters to its navy and the collapse of its finances left it without a safe opportunity. The moral effect of this volunteer action of the United States, with no offset of any active dissent by its opponent, becomes almost equivalent to completing that custom and assent of the civilized world which create International Law. Practically all governments may henceforth regard privateering as under international ban, and no one of the states yet refraining from assent--Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, or China--is likely to defy the ban. The announcement of the United States can probably be accepted as marking the end of private war at sea, and a genuine advance in the world's civilization.

[Sidenote: Exempt all Private Property.]

The refusal of the United States, in 1856, to join in the clause of the Declaration of Paris abolishing privateering was avowedly based upon the ground that it did not go far enough. The American claim was that not only private seizure of enemy's goods at sea should be prohibited, but that all private property of the enemy at sea should be entitled to the same protection as on land--prizes and prize courts being thus almost abolished, and no private property of the enemy anywhere being liable to confiscation, unless contraband of war. It was frankly stated at the time that without this addition the abolition of privateering was not in the interest of Powers like the United States, with a small navy, but a large and active merchant fleet. This peculiar adaptability of privateering at that time to the situation of the United States might have warranted the suspicion that its professions of a desire to make the Declaration of Paris broader than the other nations wished only masked a desire to have things remain as they were.

But the subsequent action of its Government in time of profound peace compelled a worthier view of its attitude. A treaty with Italy, negotiated by George P. Marsh, and ratified by the United States in 1871, embodied the very extension of the Declaration of Paris for which the United States contended. This treaty provides that "in the event of a war between them (Italy and the United States) the private property of their respective citizens and subjects, with the exception of contraband of war, shall be exempt from capture or seizure, on the high seas or elsewhere, by the armed vessels or by the military forces of either party." Is it too much to hope that this early committal of the United States with Italy, and its subsequent action in the war with Spain, may at last bring the world to the advanced ground it recommended for the Declaration of Paris, and throw the safeguards of civilization henceforth around all private property in time of war, whether on land or sea?

[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine Stands.]

Here, then, are three great principles, important to the advancement of civilization, which, if not established in International Law by the Peace of Paris and the war it closed, have at least been so powerfuly reinforced that no nation is likely hereafter lightly or safely to violate them.

But it has often been asked, and sometimes by eminent English writers, whether the Americans have not, at the same time, fatally unsettled the Monroe Doctrine, which never, indeed, had the sanction of International Law, but to which they were known to attach the greatest importance. A large and influential body of American opinion at first insisted that the acquisition of the West Indian, Philippine, and Sandwich Islands constituted an utter abandonment of that Doctrine; and apparently most European publicists have accepted this view. Only slight inquiry is needed to show that the facts give it little support.

The Monroe Doctrine sprang from the union of certain absolute monarchs (not claiming to rule by the will of the people, but by "divine right") in a "Holy Alliance" against that dangerous spread of democratic ideas which, starting in the revolt of the American colonies, had kindled the French Revolution and more or less unsettled government in Europe. It was believed that these monarchs meant not only to repress republican tendencies in Europe, but to assist Spain in reducing again to subjection American republics which had been established in former Spanish colonies, and had been recognized as independent by the United States. Under these circumstances, James Monroe, then President, in his Annual Message in 1823, formally announced the famous "Doctrine" in these words:

The occasion has been deemed proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Powers.... Our policy in regard to Europe ... is not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its Powers.

That is the whole substance of it. There was no pledge of abstention throughout the future and under all circumstances from the internal concerns of European Powers--only a statement of present practice. Far less was there a pledge, as seems to have been widely supposed, that if the Holy Alliance would only refrain from aiding Spain to force back the Mexican and South American republics into Spanish colonies, the United States would refrain from extending its institutions or its control over any region in Asia or Africa or the islands of the sea. Less yet was there any such talk as has been sometimes quoted, about keeping Europe out of the Western hemisphere and ourselves staying out of the Eastern hemisphere. What Mr. Monroe really said, in essence, was this: "The late Spanish colonies are now American republics, which we have recognized. They shall not be reduced to colonies again; and the two American continents have thus attained such an independent condition that they are no longer fields for European colonization." That fact remains. It does not seem probable that anybody will try or wish to change it. Furthermore, the United States has not interfered in the internal concerns of any European Powers. But it is under no direct pledge for the future to that effect; and as to Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea, it is and always has been as free as anybody else. It encouraged and protected a colony on the west coast of Africa. It acquired the Aleutian Islands, largely in the Asiatic system. It long maintained a species of protectorate over the Sandwich Islands. It acquired an interest in Samoa and joined there in a protectorate. It has now taken the Sandwich Islands and the Philippines. Meanwhile the Monroe Doctrine remains just where it always was. Nothing has been done in contravention of it, and it stands as firmly as ever, though with the tragic end of the Franco-Austrian experiment in Mexico, and now with the final disappearance from the Western world of the unfortunate Power whose colonial experiences led to its original promulgation, the circumstances have so changed that nobody is very likely to have either interest or wish to interfere with it.

[Sidenote: Leaving the Continent.]

What has really been unsettled, if anything, by the Peace of Paris and the preceding war, has been the current American idea as to the sphere of national activities, and the power under the Constitution for their extension. It is perfectly true that the people did not wish for more territory, and never dreamed of distant colonies. There had always been a party that first opposed and then belittled the acquisition of Alaska. There was no considerable popular support since the Civil War for filibustering expeditions of the old sort against Cuba. There was genuine reluctance to take the steps which recent circumstances and the national committals for half a century made almost unavoidable in the Sandwich Islands. Now suddenly the United States found itself in possession of Cuba, Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The first impression was one of great popular perplexity. What was to be done with them? Must they be developed through the territorial stage into independent States in the Union? or, if not, how govern or get rid of them? What place was there in the American system for territories that were never to be States, for colonies, or for the rule of distant subject races?

Up to this time, from the outbreak of the war, the Administration had found the American people united in its support as they had hardly been united for a century. The South vied with the North, the West forgot the growing jealousy of the East, the poor the new antagonism to the rich, and the wildest cow-boys from Arizona and New Mexico marched fraternally beside scions of the oldest and richest families from New York, under the orders of a great Secessionist cavalry general.

But now two parties presently arose. One held that there was no creditable escape from the consequences of the war; that the Government, having broken down the existing authority in the capital of the Philippines, and practically throughout the archipelago, could neither set up that authority again nor shirk the duty of replacing it; that it was as easy and as constitutional to apply some modification of the existing territorial system to the Philippines as it had been to Alaska and the Aleutians; and that, while the task was no doubt disagreeable, difficult, and dangerous, it could not be avoided with honor, and would ultimately be attended with great profit. On the other hand, some prominent members of the Administration party led off in protests against the retention of the Philippines on constitutional, humanitarian, and economic grounds, pronouncing it a policy absolutely antagonistic to the principles of the Republic and the precursor of its downfall. In proportion as the Administration itself inclined to the former view, the opposition leaders fell away from the support they had given during the war, and began to align themselves with those members of the Administration party who had opposed the ratification of the treaty. They were reinforced by a considerable body of educated and conservative public opinion, chiefly at the East, and by a number of trades-union and labor leaders, who had been brought to believe that the new policy meant cheap labor and cheap manufactures in competition with their own, together with a large standing army, to which they have manifested great repugnance ever since the Chicago riots.

[Sidenote: Anti-Administration View of the Constitution.]

In the universal ferment of opinion and discussion that ensued, the opponents of what is assumed to be the Administration policy on the new possessions have seemed to rely chiefly on two provisions in the Constitution of the United States and a phrase in the Declaration of Independence. The constitutional provisions are:

The Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes ... and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; _but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States_.--Art. I, Sec. 8.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.--Art. XIV, Sec. 1.

To serve the purpose for which these clauses of the Constitution are invoked, it is necessary to hold that any territory to which the United States has a title is an integral part of the United States; and perhaps the greatest name in the history of American constitutional interpretation, that of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States, is cited in favor of that contention. If accepted, it follows that when the treaty ceding Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines was ratified, that archipelago became an integral part of the United States. Then, under the first clause above cited, the Dingley tariff must be immediately extended over the Philippines (as well as Porto Rico, the Sandwich Islands, and Guam) precisely as over New York; and, under the second clause, every native of the Philippines and the other new possessions is a citizen of the United States, with all the rights and privileges thereby accruing. The first result would be the disorganization of the present American revenue system by the free admission into all American ports of sugar and other tropical products from the greatest sources of supply, and the consequent loss of nearly sixty millions of annual revenue. Another would be the destruction of the existing cane- and beet-sugar industries in the United States. Another, apprehended by the laboring classes, who are already suspicious from their experience with the Chinese, would be an enormous influx, either of cheap labor or of its products, to beat down their wages.

Next, it is argued, there is no place in the theory or practice of the American Government for territories except for development into Statehood; and, consequently, the required population being already present, new States must be created out of Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, Porto Rico, and the Sandwich Islands. The right to hold them permanently in the territorial form, or even under a protectorate, is indignantly denied as conflicting with Mr. Jefferson's phrase in the Declaration of Independence, to the effect that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Some great names can certainly be marshaled in support of such views--Chancellor Kent, Mr. John C. Calhoun, Mr. Chief Justice Taney, and others. Denial of this duty to admit the new possessions as States is denounced as a violation by the Republic of the very law of its being, and its transformation into an empire; as a revival of slavery in another form, both because of government without representation, and because of the belief that no tropical colony can be successful without contract labor; as a consequent and inevitable degradation of American character; as a defiance of the warnings in Washington's Farewell Address against foreign entanglements; as a repudiation of the congressional declaration at the outbreak of the war, that it was not waged for territorial aggrandizement; and finally as placing Aguinaldo in the position of fighting for freedom, independence, and the principles of the fathers of the Republic, while the Republic itself is in the position of fighting to control and govern him and his people in spite of their will.

On the other hand, the supporters of the treaty and of the policy of the Administration, so far as it has been disclosed, begin their argument with another provision of the Constitution, the second part of Section 3 in Article IV:

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.