ization had done its work. The lands had been absorbed by the usurer and gathered into vast estates, cultivated by tenants and often by slaves; the mines of gold and silver in Spain and Greece had been worked out.

The price of farm products had fallen, as they were compelled to compete with the rich granaries of Egypt. Roman legions were no longer recruited among the farmers who tilled the soil. The soldiers were foreign mercenaries. Roman institutions faded away under the influences which gradually took possession of that empire and destroyed its vitality; and the same story can be told of every nation through all history from the very moment it departed from its policy of peace, its internal policy, and entered upon a career of conquest.

One of the oldest nations in the world to-day is Japan. She has had a succession of rulers for two thousand seven hundred years. For two hundred and fifty years previous to 1859 no foreigner was allowed to set foot upon the soil of Japan. She lived within herself. There was no desire for conquest, and no foreign debt. The result is that, in my opinion, to-day she possesses the most civilized people upon the globe, adopting everything that is good and rejecting everything that is bad in modern civilization. Japan holds everything within her own Government. There is no foreign debt. No foreigner is allowed to own stock in any of her companies or to own her soil. There is that peace and satisfaction, that comfort and contentment among the masses of her people that no other nation I know of possesses. But if she starts upon a career of conquest, if she allows the best blood of her people to depart to foreign lands to conquer and make serfs of an inferior people, from that day will date the ruin and decline of Japan.

I believe these problems, as they have been wrought in the crucible of the past, are the ones that should absorb the thoughtful consideration of our people. I believe attention should not be taken from these great questions of economics and government, from the great questions now revitalized in gigantic trusts and corporations, and should not be distracted by a career of conquest.

I believe it is my duty, under these circumstances, to resist on all occasions the acquisition of any territory beyond our borders not contiguous to our present territory and peopled by an unwilling and an inferior race.

To-day we have no territory that it requires a navy to defend. The United States is so situated that she can say whether she will have peace or war. We possess no territory that can be acquired or held by a foreign foe, even if we owned not one single ship; and no nation, however great or strong, can gain any advantage by a war with us. But the moment we acquire distant possessions, we must build a navy to defend them, for in case of war these possessions would be first attacked and taken from us. France, England, and Germany have possessions scattered all over the world, and are consequently compelled to maintain immense navies to defend them. These possessions, in case of war, furnish so many points of attack, so many embarrassments, so many opportunities for national humiliation, that the strife is to see who can maintain the greatest fleet upon the sea. Shall we enter the arena of this contest?

From our earliest history we have insisted that we would engage in no entangling alliances, that we would acquire no territory that requires a navy to defend. We have said that we would attend to our own affairs, and that our interests demanded that no European country should gain further foothold upon the Western Hemisphere; and so strong has been our moral position that without a navy we have been able to enforce this doctrine.

When the French entered Mexico, we had but to indicate our displeasure and they departed; but the very moment we adopt the policy of acquiring distant territories, the very moment we enter upon a policy of acquisition and annexation, upon a colonial system of government, the moral force of our position is gone. I apprehend that, instead of being opposed, France and England would be glad if we would acquire distant islands and thereby place ourselves in the position they occupy in relation to the balance of the world.

The following from Henry Clews's Weekly Financial Review of June, 1898, is in point:

The following is an extract from a letter which I recently received from an influential member of Parliament representing one of Great Britain's largest cities, which speaks for itself:

"Just a line to say that I do not agree with your circular letter, which I have just read, where you suggest that the Philippines should be given back to Spain for Cuba. I hope you will keep the Philippines. It is time your people began to do some work in the world outside your own country. You will have to do it eventually, and you may as well begin now as wait. I am afraid it will not be many years until we have to do some joint-account fighting with continental countries for possession of the parts of the world which are misgoverned at present."

They know too well that colonial acquisition would be an element of weakness; that distant possessions would be hostages for the safety of which we would yield points of right and surrender questions of principle.

How could we invoke the Monroe doctrine and insist that foreign countries should not acquire territory in North and South America if, after our repeated declarations that we had no intention to annex Hawaii, we should proceed to annex it? Would they not justly claim that we would pursue the same course in regard to the republics of North and South America, with the purpose of ultimately acquiring them ourselves? How could we longer argue that we only seek to do right; that we only seek to furnish an example to the world of man's capacity for self-government, the golden rule of doing to others as you would be done by?

What limit can be set to our future acquisition if we once commence a colonial policy and acquire territory in the Tropics, where self-government is impossible?

Mr. President, I contend that it has been the tradition and policy of the people of the United States to acquire no territory that would require a navy to defend.

Mr. Jefferson, in writing to President Madison April 27, 1809, said:

It will be objected to our receiving Cuba that no limit can then be drawn to our future acquisitions. Cuba can be defended by us without

a navy; and this develops the principle which ought to limit our views. Nothing should ever be accepted which would require a navy to defend it-5 Jefferson's Works, 443.

Secretary Frelinghuysen, in a note to Mr. Langston dated June 20, 1883, says:

The policy of this Government, as declared on many occasions in the past, has tended toward avoidance of possessions disconnected from the main continent.

In 1884 he said to the same minister:

A conviction that a fixed policy, dating back to the origin of our constitutional Government, was considered to make it inexpedient to attempt territorial aggrandizement which would require maintenance by a naval force in excess of any yet provided for our national uses, has led this Government to decline territorial acquisitions. Even as simple coaling stations such territorial acquisitions would involve responsibility beyond their utility. The United States has never deemed it needful to their national life to maintain impregnable fortresses along the world's highways of commerce.

I wish to state distinctly, on the general question of annexation of outlying islands or territory-except in the North, and I make an exception there that I trust we have seen the last of annexation, and in this remark I include the whole group of the West India Islands and the whole of the Mexican territory contiguous to the United States, inhabited as it is by a portion of the Latin races, strangely mixed and degenerated by their mixture with native races; a population and a territory that naturally enfeebles man-a population and a territory that I earnestly hope may never be made an integral part of the people and a territory of the United States. We occupy a portion of that great northern zone which girdles the world and which has been the theater of the greatest achievements of civilization, especially in the history of the Anglo-Saxon races; but should we extend our possessions into the tropical (Hawaiian) belt, we would weaken the power of our people and Government.

Although the treaty is not now before us, in view of the fact that we are considering a subject kindred to the treaty made by Mr. Sherman for the annexation of Hawaii, I will read what Mr. Sherman had to say upon the subject:

The events of the future are beyond the vision of mankind, but I hope that our people will be content with internal growth and avoid. the complications of foreign acquisitions. Our family of States is

already large enough to create embarrassment in the Senate, and a republic should not hold dependent provinces or possessions. Every new acquisition will create embarrassments. The Union already embraces discordant elements enough without adding others. If my life is prolonged I will do all I can to add to the strength and prosperity of the United States, but nothing to extend its limits or to add new dangers by acquisition of foreign territory.

I hope those sentiments were largely held by all prominent members of the Republican party. I am sorry to know that the great Secretary of State, through the exigencies of politics, felt that he was compelled to place himself in sympathy with an Administration which held a contrary view upon so great and important a question.

Mr. Bayard, during Cleveland's first Administration, made the following announcement, and I take this from page 580 of Wharton's Digest of International Law:

The policy of the United States declared and pursued for more than a century discountenances and in practice forbids distant colonial acquisitions. Our action in the past touching the acquisition of territory by purchase and cession and our recorded disinclination to avail ourselves of voluntary proffers made by other powers to place territories under the sovereignty or protection of the United States are matters of historical prominence.

For the purpose of showing the unvarying policy of this country up to the Administration of President Harrison, indorsed by Democrats and Republicans alike, I will read from the first message of Grover Cleveland in 1885. Grover Cleveland had then just come from the people; he had not been contaminated and corrupted by association with the business men who afterwards disgraced the Republic by their influence over its President. He then spoke the real sentiments, in my opinion, of an honest man. He said:

Maintaining as I do the tenet of a line of precedents from Washington's day, which proscribe entangling alliances with foreign states, I do not favor a policy of acquisition of new and distant territory or the incorporation of remote interests with our own.

It has been said on this floor that Mr. Cleveland, up to the time he appointed Mr. Blount to go to Hawaii, was in