ilipino forces never controlled the territory
now known as Ifugao, Bontoc, Kalinga or Apayao, much less that
occupied by the Negritos on the east coast of Luzon, but this is
not all. There exists among the Insurgent records a very important
document, prepared by Mabini, showing that when the call for the
first session of the Filipino congress was issued, there were no less
than sixty-one provinces and _commandancias_, which the Insurgents,
when talking among themselves, did not even claim to control, and
twenty-one of these were in or immediately adjacent to Luzon. [380]

The men who composed this congress were among the ablest natives of
the archipelago; but representative institutions mean nothing unless
they represent the people; if they do not, they are a conscious lie
devised either to deceive the people of the country or foreign nations,
and it is not possible for any system founded upon a lie to endure. A
real republic must be founded not upon a few brilliant men to compose
the governing group but upon a people trained in self-restraint and
accustomed to govern by compromise and concession, not by force. To
endure it must be based upon a solid foundation of self-control, of
self-respect and of respect for the rights of others upon the part of
the great majority of the common people. If it is not, the government
which follows a period of tumult, confusion and civil war will be a
government of the sword. The record the Philippine republic has left
behind it contains nothing to confirm the belief that it would have
endured, even in name, if the destinies of the islands had been left
in the hands of the men who set it up.

The national assembly met on the appointed day in the parish church
of Barasoain, Malolos, which had been set aside for the meetings
of congress. This body probably had then more elected members than
at its subsequent meetings, but even so it contained a large number
of men who were appointed by Aguinaldo after consultation with his
council to represent provinces which they had never even seen.

From a "list of representatives of the provinces and districts,
selected by election and appointment by the government up to July
7, 1899, with incomplete list of October 6, 1899" [381] I find
that there were 193 members, of whom forty-two were elected and one
hundred fifty-one were appointed. This congress was therefore not an
elective body. Was it in any sense representative? The following table,
show