Joseph Triemens - "The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing"

Fred W. Ward - "The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's)"

George Adolphus Storey - "The Theory and Practice of Perspective"

Various - "The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

G >> George S. Boutwell >> Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2




Causes may be lost by misinterpreting or misrepresenting the issues, or
by undervaluing the character and ability of opponents, but causes are
not often won by such expedients. The political issues in popular
governments are the outcome of measures and policies, and the issues
can be changed only by a change of policies and measures. President
McKinley's administration has been an administration of new policies and
new measures, and, consequently, it is an administration of new issues
--issues that will remain until the measures and policies, to which they
owe their origin, have been abandoned. Therefore, the struggle to
change the issues, however made, or by whomsoever made, is a vain
struggle.

If, in this year 1900, it could be proved beyond controversy that in
the year 1859, I had maintained the doctrine that the Constitution of
the United States did not apply to the Territories, and that in the
year 1899 I had expressed the opposite opinion, would these facts,
including the change of opinion, and whether considered together or
considered separately, possess any value argumentative, or otherwise,
as a justification of President McKinley in seizing the Philippine
Islands through war, and in attempting to govern the inhabitants by
force? Is it of any consequence when this country is dealing with a
public policy of which war is the incident, and the continuing
inevitable incident, whether the opinions that one man may have
entertained one and forty years ago are acceptable opinions now that
the one and forty years have passed away? Yet, my fellow-citizens, this
is the argument which the representative of the ancient and honored
county of Essex offers to you and to the country in justification of
a policy of war degenerating at times into brutal massacres, carried on
against ten million people, inhabitants of a thousand islands, ten
thousand miles from our shores, and at a cost of four million dollars a
week, and at the sacrifice each year of thousands of the youth of
America, and the destruction of the health and happiness of tens of
thousands more.

Such is the history of President McKinley's administration, and such is
the defence offered by the representative of the county of Essex.

There may have been no sinister design in the attempt to demonstrate
my inconsistency upon a question of constitutional law. I do not
assume the existence of personal hostility. An end would be answered
if you and others could be induced to believe that in 1859 I had so
construed the Constitution as to justify President McKinley in governing
the Philippine Islands as though the Constitution of the United States
did not exist. Thus do my opinions receive more consideration from an
opponent than they could command at the hands of a friend.

I am now to speak more directly in explanation of the opinion that I
gave in 1859, with something of the history of the circumstances
which led to the preparation of the paper of that year. It is an error
to assume that the question whether or not the Constitution extends to
the Territories, was a prominent question, in the period of the anti-
slavery controversy. That question was not publicly and seriously
discussed on either side.

The controversy was conducted upon the theory that the Territories were
under the Constitution. The question was this: Can a slaveholder move
from a slave State to a Territory and be protected under the
Constitution in holding his slaves as property?

It was the theory of the Missouri Compromise Measure of 1820 and it was
the theory of the compromise measures of 1850, that the Constitution
neither authorized slavery anywhere nor prohibited it anywhere. The
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 recognized, as an admitted fact, the
doctrine that the Constitution extended to the Territories, and it
asserted as a conclusion of law and as a public policy, the doctrine
that the Constitution "should have the same force and effect within the
Territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States." Thus it
was maintained by the friends of the compromise measures that the
Constitution neither authorized slavery in the Territories nor
prohibited it. This view of the Constitution was accepted by the
opponents of slavery.

The Constitution did not authorize slavery in the States nor did it
prohibit slavery in the States. Until the Dred Scott Decision, the
controversy proceeded upon the idea that States and Territories were
alike under the Constitution, and that by the Constitution slavery was
neither authorized nor prohibited in any State, nor in any Territory of
the Union.

Inasmuch as at that time slavery was not prohibited under the
Constitution, there was a general agreement in the proposition that
Congress might authorize slavery in the Territories and that Congress
might prohibit slavery in the Territories. One party contended for its
authorization, the other party demanded its prohibition. On this issue
the contest was made up. From first to last the contest proceeded upon
the theory, on all sides admitted to be a true theory, that the
Constitution of the United States, by its own force, applied to all the
Territories of the United States. In that opinion I concurred.

When Mr. Douglas concluded to become a Presidential candidate, he
broached a theory of constitutional interpretation for which he may
have found some support in the Dred Scott Decision.

His theory was this: The Constitution so applies to the Territories
that they must take places as States in the American Union, and the
Constitution also requires Congress to accept the Territories as States,
and with such institutions as the Territories, when on their way to
Statehood, might choose to establish.

Hence it was, that in the article in reply to Mr. Douglas, I made this
statement: "But now under the new political dispensation, these
thirty million can have no opinion concerning the admission of States
which may have established Catholicism, Mohammadanism, Polygamy or
even Slavery."

I interrupt the course of my remarks to say that already in the
Philippines we are tolerating and supporting slavery and polygamy,
and preparing the way for the organization of Catholic and Mohammedan
States, and their admission into the American Union.

It was in 1859, and in the article now under debate, that I used this
language as a fair exposition of Mr. Douglas' plans:

"The people of a Territory have all the rights of the people of a
State; and therefore there are no Territories belonging to the
American Union, but all are by the silent negative operations of the
Constitution of the United States, converted into independent sovereign
members of the North American Confederacy. We commend this system to
the advocates of popular sovereignty. It offers many advantages. It
will not be possible for the people or the Congress of the United States
to resist the admission of new States, inasmuch as their consent will
not be asked. It avoids all unpleasant issues. It provides for new
slave States; it disposes of Utah; it settles, in anticipation, all
questions that may grow out of the annexation of the Catholic Mexican
States; and it permits the immigrants from the Celestial Empire to
re-establish their institutions, and take their places as members of
this Imperial Republic." This statement of Mr. Douglas' policy in the
interest of slavery is not a far-away prophecy of the doings under
President McKinley's administration.

I have reached a point in this discussion when this remark may be
justified: No impartial reader of my article of 1859 can fail to
discover that the discussion did not involve the question now raised.
The issue was this: Are the Territories bound by the Constitution
to become States in the American Union against the judgment of the
people, and are the existing States bound to accept a new State and
that without regard to its institutions? This was the theory of Mr.
Douglas, and it was a theory designed to provide a certain way for the
increase of slave States. My argument was aimed at that policy.

At the end of my article there is a summary by propositions which
contains declarations that were outside of the controversy with Mr.
Douglas.

One of these has been quoted, and quoted in error as evidence of my
inconsistency. I read the proposition: "The Constitution of the United
States may be extended over a Territory by the treaty of annexation, or
by a law of Congress, in which case it has only the authority of the
law; but the Constitution by the force of its own provisions is limited
to the people and the States of the American Union."

In this general proposition there are several minor and distinct
propositions.

1. The Constitution may be extended over a territory by a treaty of
annexation. This is now my distinct claim in regard to Porto Rico and
the Philippines, a position that I have uniformly maintained.

2. The Constitution may be extended to a territory by law, _in which
case it has only the authority of law._

As to this statement I can only say I may have had in mind instances
of such legislation as may be found in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

When we say that the Constitution of its own force, applies to the
Territories, we refer to the parts that are applicable to the
Territories as distinguishable from the parts that relate to States
exclusively. It is a provision of the Constitution that

"No State shall make any law impairing the obligation of contracts."
In terms this limitation does not extend to Territories. Congress
might extend the limitation, but the Act of limitation would have only
the force of law.

3. "The Constitution by the force of its own provisions is limited
to the _people_ and States of the American Union." This is only a
declaration that the Constitution does not apply to other states and
communities. The word _people_ includes the inhabitants of the
Territories as well as the inhabitants of the States. If there could
have been a doubt in 1859 of the validity of this interpretation, the
doubt has been removed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The inhabitants
of Territories are thereby made citizens of the United States, are
brought within the jurisdiction of the Constitution, and as citizens
they are put upon an equality with the citizens of the States. They
are of the _people_ of the American Union, and as such they are under
the Constitution of the United States.

These are the opening words of the amendment:--

"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."

We have no subject classes in America excepting only such as have been
created, temporarily, as I trust, in Porto Rico and the Philippine
Islands, by the policy of President McKinley, and all in violation of
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads thus:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
President McKinley claimed jurisdiction over the Philippine Islands and
consequently the inhabitants are entitled to the benign protection of
this provision of the Constitution. There cannot be any form of
involuntary servitude imposed upon any American citizen without a
violation of this fundamental law. Hence it is that the administration
is forced to deny citizenship to the inhabitants of the Island and to
assert the claim that the President and Congress may govern the
inhabitants of territories acquired by purchase, as in the case of the
Philippine Islands, or by conquest, as in the case of Porto Rico, as
they might be governed if the Constitution did not exist. And this,
we are told by the President and his supporters, is not imperialism, but
a process of extending the blessings of liberty and civilization to
the inferior races of the earth.

The claim of the President is the assertion of a right in Congress to
establish a system of peonage or even of slavery in Alaska, Hawaii,
and the rest. Your representative finds himself called to the defence
of this doctrine. Thus is the amendment to the Constitution made of
no effect in the Territories.

The character of President McKinley's policy is set forth in his own
words and they justify the charge of imperialism.

In his speech of acceptance he said:--"The Philippines are ours, and
American authority must be supreme throughout the Archipelago. There
will be amnesty, broad and liberal, but no abatement of our rights, no
abandonment of our duty; there must be no scuttle policy." What is
the meaning of this language? Is it not an assertion of absolute,
unconditional, permanent supremacy over the millions of the islands?

Imperialism is not a word merely. It is a public policy.

The President denounces imperialism, and with emphasis he declares that
we are all republicans in America. None of us are imperialists.

Our answer is this: In the language that I have quoted the President
describes himself as an imperialist. The test of Republicanism is
the Thirteenth Amendment. The President is subjecting ten million
people to involuntary subserviency under his rule. This, by whatever
name called, is the imperialism that we denounce.

We denounce it as a violation of a provision of our Constitution that
was gained at the cost of the lives of four hundred thousand men.

We denounce it as a violation of the rights of ten million human beings
who owe no allegiance to us. Our title! you exclaim. I answer, What
is it? A title to rule an unwilling, revolutionary people, who, at the
time our title was acquired, were demanding of Spain the enjoyment of
the right of self-government. That right was well-nigh gained when we
accepted the place of substitute for Spain. Through twenty months of
war we have been engaged in a fruitless attempt to subjugate our
purchased victims, and we have been cajoled, continually, by the
declaration that the war was ended.

If we accept the theory of the President that our title to Porto Rico
and the Philippines is a good title, then that title can be exercised
and enjoyed only in one of two ways under our Constitution and the
example that has been set in the case of Cuba. They should be held as
Territories, on the way to Statehood, or as possessions entitled to
self-government without delay by us. Mr. McKinley, Senator Lodge and
Mr. Moody say neither way is acceptable--the lands and the people are
ours. They have no rights under the Constitution. We will hold them
subject to our will until they accept our authority and recognize our
right to rule over them, and beyond that we will hold them until, in
our opinion, they are qualified to govern themselves.

The doctrine of imperialism is again set forth in the President's
letter of acceptance of September 8. "The flag of the Republic now
floats over these islands as an emblem of rightful sovereignty. Will
the Republic stay and dispense to their inhabitants the blessings of
liberty, education and free institutions, or steal away, leaving them
to anarchy or imperialism."

Thus the President is engaged in dispensing liberty to conquered peoples
instead of allowing them to enjoy liberty as a birthright. He is
dispensing to them such education as he thinks they ought to have,
instead of allowing them to decide for themselves as to the education
which may be agreeable or useful for them. He dictates for them the
"free institutions" which in his opinion are best adapted to their
condition, instead of allowing them the freedom to choose their own
institutions. Thus the President assumes authority to furnish systems
of education and institutions of government by force, denying to the
people all freedom of action for themselves, and thereupon he declares
that "empire has been expelled from Porto Rico and the Philippines."

Can the President show wherein his policy, in principle, differs from
the policy of Spain?

Spain was engaged in war to compel the Filipinos to accept Spanish
institutions of education and liberty. We are attempting through war
to compel the Filipinos to accept American institutions of education and
liberty. It is not an answer to say, what may be true, that American
ideas and systems of education are superior to Spanish ideas and
systems. In each case there is compulsion. In each case there is a
denial of freedom. In each case, there is the same exercise of power.
In each case there is the same demand for a subservient class. In each
case there is gross undisguised imperialism. The difference is to the
advantage of Spain. Spain was consistent. Her policy was a policy of
imperialism;--a policy of centuries.

America was a republic. Self-government was at the basis of all her
institutions. It was a prominent feature of her history. Our
accusation against President McKinley is this: He turned away from the
history of America, he disdained our traditions, and he reversed the
policy of a century.

Mark the consequences of the change. In other days we sympathized with
Greece in its struggle for self-government; we denounced the suppression
of liberty in Hungary, and in the opening years of this century we
welcomed the provinces of Central and South America as they emerged,
one by one, from a condition of imperial vassalage, and took their
places in the galaxy of Republican States.

If in this year 1900, America had sent forth one word of official cheer
to the States of South Africa, the act would have been an act of self-
abasement that would have invited the contempt of all mankind.

When we charge imperialism upon the administration this question is put
exultingly: "Where is the crown?" I answer from history. England
waited a century, after the conquests by Clive and Hastings, for a
Beaconsfield to crown Britain's Queen "Empress of the Indies." The
crown is but a bauble. Empire means vast armies employed in ignominious
service, burdensome taxation at home, and ruthless maladministration of
affairs abroad.

In two short years of imperialism, these evils have ceased to be
imaginative merely, and they have taken a place among the unwelcome
realities of our national life.

Before I close this discourse I shall return to the subject that I have
now introduced to your attention, and for the purpose of asking you to
foster and preserve the quality of consistency in the history of the
county of Essex.

Mr. Moody introduced two topics to the Essex Club of which I am to take
notice. They concern me personally, but there is an aspect of one of
them that may merit public attention.

With a kindliness of spirit, that I could not have anticipated, Mr.
Moody attributes my failure to continue in the opinions that he claims
were entertained by me in 1859, to the infirmities incident to advancing
years. He thus raises a question that I am not competent to discuss.
I pass it by.

I trust that Mr. Moody may live to the age of two and eighty years; that
his experience may be more fortunate than the fate that he attributes
to me, and that at that advanced period of his life his ability to
interpret the Constitution of his country will not be less than it now
is.

The speech of Mr. Moody, as it appears in the _Transcript_ of August
30, closes with this sentence: "He at least might spare the epithets
to the party that has showered upon him every honor within its gift,
except the presidency." If I have applied any disparaging epithet to
the Republican Party, my error is due to my ignorance of the meaning of
the word. The quotations which Mr. Moody has made from my speech at the
Cooper Institute contain a declaration in two forms of expression, which
may have led Mr. Moody to charge me with the use of epithets. I find
nothing else on which this allegation can be founded. I reproduce the
quotations:

"President McKinley and his imperialistic supporters through two steps
in an argument have deduced an erroneous conclusion from admitted
truths.

"(1) Our government in common with other sovereignties has a right to
acquire territory.

"(2) That right carries with it the right to govern territory so
acquired.

"From these propositions they deduce the false conclusion that Congress
may indulge a full and free discretion in the government of the
territories so acquired. Herein is the error, and herein is the
usurpation."

Again, "We have the right to acquire territory and we have the right to
govern all territory acquired, but we must govern it under the
Constitution, and in the exercise of those powers, and those only, which
have been conferred upon Congress by the Constitution. Any attempt
further is a criminal usurpation."

In the first quotation I make the charge that President McKinley, in his
attempt to govern the Philippine Islands as though the Constitution did
not apply to them, was exercising powers not granted to him by virtue
of his office.

The President is the creature of the Constitution, and his jurisdiction
is measured and limited by the jurisdiction of the Constitution.

When the President asserts that the Philippine Islands are not under the
Constitution, he admits that the Philippine Islands are not within his
jurisdiction. If, on the other hand, the islands are within his
jurisdiction, it follows that his right of jurisdiction over them must
have come from the presence of the Constitution itself.

Let there be no misunderstanding upon one point. I claim that the
Philippine Islands are under the Constitution and that the President
may exercise in and over the islands whatever powers the Constitution
and the laws may have placed in his hands.

I claim further that as a right on the part of the Filipinos, and as a
policy of justice and wisdom on our part, we should relinquish our
title, whatever it may be, and allow the Filipinos to enter upon the
work of governing themselves.

The President sets up the doctrine that the islands are not under the
Constitution and that they may be governed by him outside of all
constitutional restraints. This is the usurpation that I have charged
upon him, but not upon the Republican Party of former days. Upon the
basis specified the charge remains. It is not an epithet. Let the
charge be answered, or otherwise, let the President and the supporters
of his policy abandon the doctrine that we can seize, hold and govern
communities and peoples who are not within the jurisdiction of our
Constitution and, who, consequently, are not subject to our laws.

I have said that the President and his supporters are imperialists. If
the word is descriptive of a policy then the word is not an epithet.

In the passage that I have quoted from the speech of Mr. Moody he
charges me in fact, if not in form of words, with a violation of my
obligations to the Republican Party, and upon the ground that the party
"has showered upon me every honor in its gift except the Presidency."
The consideration that I have received from the Republican Party merits
acknowledgment, and that I accord without reserve, but it cannot exact
subserviency from me.

On public grounds I ask this question: Are those who may hold office
under the leadership of a party, to be held by party discipline to the
support of measures and policies which they condemn? Freedom of opinion
and freedom of speech are of more value than public office. The
movement for the reform of the civil service is, in its best aspect,
but an attempt to rescue the body of office holders from the tyranny
and discipline of party and of party leaders. Thus much upon public
grounds, but, for myself, I shall not seek protection under a general
policy.

Never for a moment from my early years did I entertain the thought that
I would enter public life, or that I would continue in public life, as
a pursuit or as a profession. Hence, it has happened that I have never
asked for personal support at the hands of any, and hence it has
happened that I have never solicited a nomination or an appointment from
or through the Republican Party or any member of it.

In 1860, a majority of the delegates to the Congressional Convention in
my district, favored my nomination, but not through any effort by me.
I attended the Convention and placed in nomination Mr. Train, who had
been in Congress one term.

Without any effort on my part I was nominated in 1862-'64-'66 and '68.
No aid in money or otherwise was given by the State Committee or the
National Committee. Following my nomination in each case the District
Committee asked me for a contribution of one hundred dollars. On one
occasion the committee sent me a return check of forty-two dollars and
some cents with a statement that the full amount had not been expended.
If contributions of money were made by others the fact was not
communicated to me.

I became a candidate for the Senate upon a request signed by members of
the Legislature. When the second contest was on, in 1877, I declined
a call by a telegraphic message to visit Boston and confer with my
friends who were anxious for my election. I was a member of the Peace
Congress of 1861 and I received several other appointments from Governor
Andrew, but without solicitation by me. At his request I went to
Washington for a conference with Mr. Lincoln and General Scott. I
reached the city by the first train that passed over the road from
Annapolis. Again, at his request, I went to Washington the Monday
following the battle of Bull Run.

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