ereby rescinded.

Given at Cavite, June 23, 1898.

_Emilio Aguinaldo_.

The Promulgation of the Constitution of the Revolutionary Government
was accompanied by a Message from Emilio Aguinaldo, of which the
following is a translation:--

_Message of the President of the Philippine Revolution_

It is an established fact that a political Revolution, judiciously
carried out, is the violent means employed by nations to recover
the sovereignty which naturally belongs to them, when the same has
been usurped and trodden under foot by tyrannical and arbitrary
government. Therefore, the Philippine Revolution cannot be more
justifiable than it is, because the country has only resorted
to it after having exhausted all peaceful means which reason and
experience dictated.

The old Kings of Castile were obliged to regard the Philippines
as a sister nation united to Spain by a perfect similarity
of aims and interests, so much so that in the Constitution of
1812, promulgated at Cadiz, as a consequence of the Spanish War
of Independence, these Islands were represented in the Spanish
Parliament. But the monastic communities, always unconditionally
propped up by the Spanish Government, stepped in to oppose the
sacred obligation, and the Philippine Islands were excluded from
the Spanish Constitution, and the country placed at the mercy of
the discretional or arbitrary powers of the Gov.-General.

Under these circumstances the country clamoured for justice,
and demanded of the Peninsular Government the recognition and
restitution of its secular rights, through reforms which should
gradually assimilate it to Spain. But its voice was soon stifled,
and its children were rewarded for their abnegation by punishment,
martyrdom and death. The religious corporations, whose interests
were always at variance with those of the Filipinos and identified
with the Spanish Government, ridiculed these pretensions, calmly
and persistently replying that liberty in Spain had only been
gained by the sacrifice of blood.

What other channel, then, was open to the country through which
to insist upon the recovery of its lawful rights? No other remedy
remained but the application of force, and convinced of this,
it had recourse to revolution.

Now its demands are no longer limited to assimilation with the