leading Republicans, whom he named.

I never, at any time during the discussion of the Philippine
question, expressed a more emphatic disapproval of the acquisition
of dependencies or Oriental Empire by military strength, than
he expressed on that occasion. I am justified in putting
this on record, not only because I am confirmed by several
gentlemen in public life, who had interviews with him, but
because he made in substance the same declaration in public.

He declared, speaking of this very matter of acquiring sovereignty
over Spanish territory by conquest:

"Forcible annexation, according to our American code of morals,
would be criminal aggression."

He said at another time:

"Human rights and constitutional privileges must not be forgotten
in the race for wealth and commercial supremacy. The Government
of the people must be by the people and not by a few of the
people. It must rest upon the free consent of the governed
and all of the governed. Power, it must be remembered, which
is secured by oppression or usurpation or by any form of injustice
is soon dethroned. We have no right in law or morals to usurp
that which belongs to another, whether it is property or power."

I suppose he was then speaking of our duty as to any people
whom we might liberate from Spain, as the results of the Spanish
War. He unquestionably meant that we had no right, in law
or morals, to usurp the right of self-government which belonged
to the Cubans, or to the Philippine people.

Yet I have no doubt whatever that in the attitude that he
took later he was actuated by a serious and lofty purpose
to do right. I think he was led on from one step to another
by what he deemed the necessity of the present occasion. I
dare say that he was influenced, as any other man who was
not more than human would have been influenced, by the apparently
earnest desire of the American people, as he understood it,
as it was conveyed to him on his Western journey. But I believe
every step he took he thought necessary at the time. I further
believe, although I may not be able to convince other men,
and no man will know until the secret history of that time
shall be made known, that if he had lived, before his Administration
was over, he would have placed the Republic again on the principles
from which it seems to me we departed--the great doctrine
of Jefferson, the great doctrine of the Declaration of Independence,
that there can be no just G