The American idea as expounded by American statesmen

Table of Contents

The Declaration of Independence,

The Articles of Confederation, .

The Constitution of the United States

Introduction

N this volume of the present we have the classics of the future in the field of Democracy — the imperishable gems which must continue to shed their luster upon age after age. The American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution resulting therefrom have become the greater Magna Charta of the rights and liberties of Man. Government of the people, for the people, and by the people, and the equality of the citizen under the Law, constitute the solid foundation upon which is to rest hereafter the whole structure of human Government.

The history of agitation by the people for enhanced power shows that concessions gained only lead to renewed demands and that no finality is possible until pure democracy is reached. The question of the suffrage, for example, has not yet been settled, even in the old home of our English-speaking race. Step by step, after prolonged agitation, the franchise has been widened, but still " it will

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not down." It never will be at rest while the slightest inequality remains. In the American Union the national franchise, having been settled upon this basis, and adjusting itself automatically each decade, is never heard of; any change would destroy the equality of the citizen, which is equivalent to saying that the reign of justice, once established, would give place to injustice. Any man's privilege must be every man's right before there can be permanent peace. Inequality produces dissatisfaction. Equality brings content.

Since the reign of the people must therefore prevail, and their voice be accepted as if it were indeed the voice of the highest or anarchy ensue, it follows that the most imperative duty of the State is the universal education of the masses. Demos must be trained to the highest possible standard of enlightenment on pain of certain disaster. No money which can be usefully spent for this indispensable end should be denied. Public sentiment should, on the contrary, approve the doctrine that the more that can be judiciously spent, the better for the country. There is no insurance of nations so cheap as the enlightenment of the people.

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Fleets and armies being much more likely to embroil nations with each other than to insure them against attack, there is no insurance against war in warlike preparation. Government even if founded upon justice, which means equal rights and privileges to every citizen, is insecure, for ignorance is incapable of recognizing what is essentially wise and good. Man must be enlightened in order to be able to judge. Hence the fair fabric of Justice raised by Numa, says Plutarch, passed rapidly away because it was not founded upon education. No better reason can be given for the decay of a State. Readers will find in Washington's Inaugural these weighty words : —

" Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that this should be enlightened."

It is gratifying to know that no country has ever devoted such vast sums, or so successfully insured public education, as the Republic. It may truly be said of the American, as Froude said of the Scotch, education with him is a passion. The initiative, alertness, and fertility of resource which the

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INTR O D UCr ION

American is nowadays credited with displaying, though partly a climatic, is chiefly an educational product.

There is no study more interesting than the steady growth of the sentiment of American nationality — the sway of the United Nation over the Individual State. The first confederation, although a perpetual union, was in many vital respects a rope of sand, for it preserved the practical sovereignty of the consenting states. The present Constitution, which followed later, laid the foundations of one central power, a nation, but, as is usual with all written instruments, the words used have proved of subordinate importance to the interpretations which from time to time have been placed upon them.

Let who will write the laws, he is master who interprets them. The United States Constitution, justly hailed by Mr. Gladstone as " the most wonderful work ever struck off at one time by the brain and purpose of man," has in no respect shown itself more worthy of such praise than in the elastic quality it has revealed of extending and contracting, and its power of adapting itself to the development of the nation which seems destined to become the most powerful that has yet existed. It is not one nation, but forty-five nations in one. Three more are probably to be admitted this year, with others to follow. It has solved the question of government by continents. The United States of all the Americas, or the United States of Europe, could be established and placed under this Constitution after a few days spent in making the necessary verbal and other trifling changes.

We might go farther and say that continents hitherto split into many states, which have become armed camps awaiting the signal of war against each other, could thus combine and win perpetual peace as between themselves, and, this beneficent task accomplished, the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World, could finally be considered as next in order. When that day comes, " as come it will for a' that," the American Constitution could readily be adapted without serious change to unite the world under one government dealing with international relations, thus banishing from the earth its foulest stain, the killing of man by man under so-called "civilized" warfare — such the latent potentiality of this marvelous work, because founded upon equal rights

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and privileges to all. Short of this there is injustice; beyond this there is injustice, hence unrest — with this there is justice, and hence peace, and what is just and equal is capable of indefinite extension.

The Federal idea has proved that the freest government of the parts produces the strongest government of the whole. Under home rule for the various States, jealousy of each other, and especially of the central government, has weakened so much that year after year the States surrender power to the Congress of the whole at Washington over questions of national import hitherto controlled by the respective States in their own fashion, thus producing uniformity where before lay diversity. Since all the forces of to-day are centripetal, the further consolidation of the Union is assured.

The citizen is still fondly devoted to his State as he always may be and happy that he is its son, but when he draws himself up to his full height and wishes to give vent to the sentiment of nationality — and this is not seldom, for of all men the American is the most intensely patriotic — his special State is for the moment forgotten. The States are all right as far as they go, but let anyone

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just touch " Old Glory," and the many are one, — American.

How long it would take the European under federation to reach this glowing devotion to the one flag of their Union is problematical, but, in the opinion of the writer, not much longer than it has taken the American of the former separate and jealous states of our own Union, for national patriotism grows apace when the citizen has political equality, and the federation, being gigantic, makes his country great among the nations, a country for which he cannot help being proud to live, if need be to die.

In this volume place is properly given to the Monroe Doctrine, so clearly defined by Secretary of State Hay. It was the suggestion of British Prime Minister Canning, who boasted that he had called in the new world to redress the balance of the old.

Nations have their supersensitive nerves, which it is the business of the statesmen of other nations to know and make due allowance for. The Monroe Doctrine has become the supersensitive nerve of the American. Just as we should say, in case the inviolability of a British ship was disregarded, there must be restitution or there

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will be war, we can say of the Republic, the attempt of a foreign power to secure a footing upon this continent means war. On this issue the Republic would defy the world. America for the Americans being now both law and gospel to this country, the present possessions of European powers are not relished, but only tolerated. In the recent banishment of Spain from the continent, passion, not reason, ruled. Had we been able to preserve our equanimity, the concessions which Spain offered at the last moment would have appeared adequate for the time, but the whirlwind came, the pent-up feelings of the American burst forth, and the question he had often pondered over in his mind before found fit expression in the inquiry, "What is a European nation doing over here anyhow .r*" We told Napoleon that Mexico was, we thought, a good country for the French to migrate from, and it was so. We have obtained the West Indies, we have obtained Alaska from Russia, by purchase, which is the best mode of all, and these countries have made themselves our closest friends by recognizing the national desire of our people to control adjacent territory and islands upon our continent. Upon no issue

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would the verdict of the people be so nearly unanimous as that of American versus European rule upon the American Continent.

Secretary of State Hay in his celebrated address to the New York Chamber of Commerce here incorporated, notable for many reasons, is perhaps most so for the order in which he unconsciously places the Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule. It reads, not the Golden Rule and the Monroe Doctrine, but the reverse. The Secretary spoke as he felt and his countrymen feel — although the writer, in the calm air of thoughtful composition, feels called upon to suggest that in future editions it might be advisable to consider whether in deference to worldwide impressions the Golden Rule should not have "priority of nomination." That the Monroe Doctrine took first place, however, with the orator, cannot lose its significance.

In any statement bearing upon the Republic, notice must be taken of the ominous fact that the war with Spain, with its unexpected, easy and victorious end, has wrought the martial spirit of the people up to a dangerously high temperature. There is no doubt that the most warlike of people and the material out of which can soonest be made the most formidable force, both naval and military, is our own. When Washington was asked what he would do if beaten in the East, as it then seemed he must inevitably be after he was driven beyond the Delaware, he replied, " Retire beyond the Blue Ridge, where we can fight forever." The capacity for resistance shown by the Boers in South Africa proves that the world in arms could make no headway against the Republic w^hose young men, man for man, can ride and shoot with the Boers, and who, being more intelligent and equally patriotic, possess the genius of initiative in even greater degree than their worthy compeer, the young Boer. The nation is therefore immune from serious attack at home. As for attack by a naval power, that is almost equally impracticable. The ports could be closed, the harbors mined and countermined, and, above all, an edict of non-exportation of food products would bring the other principal naval powers to famine prices for food to feed their people, and compel peace. Britain absolutely depends upon our food supplies and our cotton, and could not long feed her people if our ports were closed. Germany imports

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largely of food products from the United States and would suffer seriously from their cessation. It is not within the range of probabilities that the Republic, unless it become aggressive, is ever to be attacked, but there is danger in the present temper of the people that we may forsake the policy of peaceful industrial development under which we have become the richest of nations, and be involved in the ruinous wars, and rumors of war which are almost as costly.

This volume will be read to little advantage unless the doctrines and advice of Washington and Lincoln be taken to heart and the reign of peaceful Industrialism, marked out for the nation in contradistinction to the militarism prevailing elsewhere, is kept steadily in view. Under the tidal wave of military glory, upheaved by the recent campaign against Spain, our late President was swept against his own ardent wish and his better judgment into a departure from the policy of the Fathers of the Republic, and for the first time distant territory in the tropics was absorbed where our own race can never settle. It is a dangerous departure, but hopeful signs are not wanting that it is to prove but temporary

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and that, as with Cuba, so with the Phib'ppines, the policy adopted by the Republic at first will ultimately prevail and it will return to its former policy. The Filipinos will be invited " to establish a free and independent government and thus fulfill the highest aspirations of their people," as the Cubans were, such being the truly American words addressed by that thorough democrat and man of the people, the late deeply lamented President McKinley. The " Mother of Nations " is probably to have a rival in her offspring, who will also be a creator of free peoples, the Republic of Cuba her firstborn, the " Republic of the Orient " her second. America for the Americans involves the Philippines for the Filipinos. True glory for the American Republic lies here.

President Roosevelt, in his first message to Congress, recognizes the Philippines as " a burden." Secretary of the Navy Long, in his last speech, looks forward to their independence. Chairman Schurman of the Philippine Commission sees no justification of our present attitude unless it leads to independence. The closing words in his book upon the subject are of much significance : —

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INTRODUCTION

" To repeat what ought not to need repetition anywhere within the limits of our Republic, any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than the best possible government of Filipinos by Americans."

Governor-General Taft of the Philippines is of the opinion that it would have been better if we had never taken them. Public opinion is steadily moving in accordance with these views, and those statesmen abroad who, wishing the Republic no good, are so solicitous that we should remain entangled and embarrassed by continuing to hold territory in the tropics and to suppress the divine aspirations of the Filipinos for self-government are, in the opinion of the writer, to be grievously disappointed. The American Democracy has never yet failed to keep the Republic in the true path marked out by the Fathers.

Freed from this prolific source of possible danger, the sky above the American has no threatening clouds. All moves steadily to improved conditions ; existing causes lead to her rapid development, material, moral, and intellectual. The central government growing in power and popularity, the individual

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citizen more and more patriotic, the masses of the people more intelligent — the poor not so poor, and the rich more alive to the truth that their surplus is a sacred trust, to be administered during life for the general good.

Founded upon justice, the equality of its citizens, resting upon an educated and loyal people, immune from foreign attack, a fertile continent to develop, and the teachings of the Fathers as their guide — should Democracy fall under such conditions, it falls, like Lucifer, never to hope again. But the writer sees no premonitions of such fall in the horoscope of the Republic, the product and symbol of triumphant Democracy.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

The Declaration of Independence

In Congress, July 4, 1776. — The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.

HEN in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies ; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected;

whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace. Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject

W us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us :

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world :

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences :

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to brinir on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.

Nor have We been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind. Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved ; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

JOHN HANCOCK.

Massachusetts Bay — Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.

Rhode Island — Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.

New York — Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris.

Pennsylvania — Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.

Maryland — Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Virginia — George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Th. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.

North Carolina — Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.

South Carolina — Edward Rutledge, Thos. Hey ward, Junr., Thomas Lynch, J unr., Arthur Middleton.

The Articles of Confederation

Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland^ Virginia^ North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia,

Article I. — The style of this Confederacyshall be, "The United States of America."

Art. II. — Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.

Art. III. — The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.

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Art. IV. — The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and egress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively; provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State to any other State of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also, that no imposition, duties, or restriction shall be laid by any State on the property of the United States or either of them. If any person guilty of, or charged with, treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any State shall flee from justice and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the governor or executive power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his offense. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State. Art. V. — For the more convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the Legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year. No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor by more than seven members ; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or emolument of any kind. Each State shall maintain its own delegates in any meeting of the States and while they act as members of the Committee of the States. In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress; and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonment during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on, Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace.

Art. VI. — No State, without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty with any king, prince, or state ; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state; nor shall the United States, in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility.

No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue.

No State shall lay any imposts or duties which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties entered into by the United States, in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or state, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the courts of France and Spain.

No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only as shall be deemed necessary by the United States, in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State or its trade, nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only as, in the judgment of the United States, in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every state shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use in public stores a due number of field-pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition, and camp equipage.