overnment by one people over another
without its consent, and that the International law declared
by the Republic is that all Governments must depend for their
just powers upon the consent of the governed. This was insisted
on by our Fathers as the doctrine of International law, to
be acted upon by the infant Republic for itself. In this
I am confirmed by the testimony of Mr. Secretary Long, who
was in President McKinley's most intimate counsels.

The Treaty negotiated by President McKinley with Hawaii was
not acted upon. It was concluded to substitute a joint resolution,
for which there was a precedent in the case of the acquisition
of Texas. I voted for the joint resolution, as did Senator
Hale of Maine, and several Democratic Senators, who were earnestly
opposed to what is known as the policy of Imperialism.

I left the President, after the conversation above related,
without giving him any assurance as to my action. But I
determined on full reflection, to support the acquisition of
Hawaii, in accordance with my long-settled purpose, and at
the same time to make a clear and emphatic statement of my
unalterable opposition to acquiring dependencies in the East,
if we did not expect, when the proper time came, to admit
them to the Union as States. This I did to the best of my
power. I was invited to give an address before a college
in Pennsylvania, where I took occasion to make an emphatic
declaration of the doctrine on which I meant to act.

Afterward, July 5, 1898, I made a speech in the Senate, on
the joint resolution for the acquisition of Hawaii, in which
I said that I had entertained grave doubts in regard to that
measure; that I had approached the subject with greater hesitation
and anxiety than I had ever felt in regard to any other matter
during the whole of my public life.

I went on to say:

"The trouble I have found with the Hawaiian business is this:
Not in the character of the population of the Sandwich Island,
not in their distance from our shores, not in the doubt that
we have an honest right to deal with the existing government
there in such a matter. I have found my trouble in the nature
and character of the argument by which, in the beginning and
ever since, a great many friends of annexation have sought
to support it . . . .

"If this be the first step in the acquisition of dominion
over barbarous archipelagoes in distant seas; if we are to
enter into competition with the great pow