out the balance of their original plan to get rid
of the Americans in one way or another.

General Otis states that "when Aguinaldo had completed his preparations
for attack he prepared the outlines of his declaration of war, the
full text of which was published at Malolos on the evening, and very
shortly after, hostilities began. This declaration was circulated in
Manila on the morning of February 5." [234]

The Insurgents brought down upon themselves the punishment which they
received on February 4 and 5.

Blount has stated [235] that if the resolutions of Senator Bacon
introduced on January 11, 1899, had passed, we never should have had
any war with the Filipinos. The resolutions in question concluded
thus:--

"That the United States hereby disclaim any disposition or intention
to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said islands
except for the pacification thereof, and assert their determination
when an independent government shall have been duly erected therein
entitled to recognition as such, to transfer to said government,
upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, all rights secured
under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon leave the government
and control of the islands to their people."

I must take issue with Blount as to the effect which these resolutions
might have had if passed. The Insurgents felt themselves to be fully
competent to bring about such pacification of the islands as they
deemed necessary. At the time the resolutions were presented in the
Senate their soldiers were straining at the leash, ready to attack
their American opponents upon the most slender excuse. Aguinaldo
himself could not have held them much longer, and it is not impossible
that they got away from him as it was. They would have interpreted the
passage of the Bacon resolutions as a further evidence of weakness,
and hastened their attack. As we have seen, "war, war, war" was what
they wanted.

Blount has endeavoured to shift the responsibility for the outbreak
of hostilities to the United States by claiming that certain words
italicized by him in what he calls the "Benevolent Assimilation
Proclamation" were necessarily, to the Insurgents, "fighting
words." The expressions referred to have to do with the establishment
of United States sovereignty and the exercise of governmental control
in the Philippine Islands.

These words were not "fighting words," the Insurgent policy being,
as I have shown by