as little
as ever. He was afraid that Negros and Panay would refuse to accept
the form of government it prescribed. The worst thing about it was
that the Americans would be less disposed to recognize Aguinaldo's
government; for when they saw the constitution they would know, as it
made no mention of them, that the Filipinos wanted independence. Mabini
thought that it was possible that the wording of the constitution
might have been deliberately planned by members of the congress in
favour of annexation to the United States, so that that country would
be warned, would become more mistrustful, and would refuse to recognize
Aguinaldo's government. Whatever the president of the council may have
thought about the theoretical advisability of a congress to represent
the people, he found one much in the way when he had obtained it.

Buencamino advised that the constitution should be approved and
promulgated; one argument was that the congress had been consulted in
the matter of a national loan, and if it was dissolved, there could
be no loan. This was apparently the only matter upon which it had
been consulted. [391]

The constitution of the Philippine Republic was ratified at a session
of the congress on January 20, 1899.

On January 21, 1899, Aguinaldo sanctioned it and ordered that it should
be "kept, complied with and executed in all its parts because it is
the sovereign will of the Philippine people." [392] The constitution
provided for a government of three cooerdinate powers, executive,
legislative and judicial. Whether it provided for a form of government
which would have succeeded in the Philippines was not determined by
actual experience. It was never really put in force for war with the
United States began in two weeks and the constitution must stand as the
expression of the ideas of a certain group of educated natives rather
than as the working formula for the actual conduct of the political
life of a nation. One proof of this is the fact that not until June 8,
1899, were Aguinaldo's decrees upon the registration of marriages and
upon civil marriage, dated June 20,1898, revoked, and the provisions
of the constitution concerning marriage put in effect. [393]

Aguinaldo had approved the constitution; he had informed the foreign
consuls and General Otis that it had been promulgated and become the
law of the land. It was not promulgated. It had not become the law of
the land. It served one important purpose. It pas