ment that Spanish
liberties have cost blood.

What other recourse then remained to the people for insisting as in
duty bound on regaining its former rights? No alternative remained
except force and, convinced of that, it has had recourse to revolution.

And now it is not limited to asking assimilation to the Spanish
Political Constitution, but it asks a definite separation from it;
it struggles for its independence in the firm belief that the time
has arrived in which it can and ought to govern itself.

There has been established a Revolutionary Government, under wise
and just laws, suited to the abnormal circumstances through which
it is passing, and which, in proper time, will prepare it for a true
Republic. Thus taking as a sole model for its acts, reason, for its
sole end, justice, and, for its sole means, honorable labor, it calls
all Filipinos its sons without distinction of class, and invites them
to unite firmly with the object of forming a noble society, not based
upon blood nor pompous titles, but upon the work and personal merit
of each one; a free society, where exist neither egotism nor personal
politics which annihilate and crush, neither envy nor favoritism which
debase, neither fanfaronade nor charlatanism which are ridiculous.

And it could not be otherwise. A people which has given proofs of
suffering and valor in tribulation and in danger, and of hard work and
study in peace, is not destined to slavery; this people is called to
be great, to be one of the strongest arms of Providence in ruling the
destinies of mankind; this people has resources and energy sufficient
to liberate itself from the ruin and extinction into which the Spanish
Government has plunged it, and to claim a modest but worthy place in
the concert of free nations.

Given at Cavite the 23d of June, 1898.

_Emilio Aguinaldo._

_To Foreign Governments._

The Revolutionary Government of the Philippines, on its establishment,
explained, through the message dated the 23d of June last, the
true causes of the Philippine Revolution, showing, according to
the evidence, that this popular movement is the result of the laws
which regulate the life of a people which aspires to progress and to
perfection by the sole road of liberty.

The said Revolution now rules in the Provinces of Cavite, Batangas,
Mindoro, Tayabas, Laguna, Morong, Bulacan, Bataan, Pampanga,
Neuva-Ecija, Tarlac, Pangasinan, Union, Infanta, and Zambales, and
it holds be