WHEN the nation gets so far gone morally that nothing will save it but a national Sabbath law, it is a sign that it is past redemption.AMS January 19, 1899, page 33.2

POLITICAL religion is worth nothing in the sphere of morals.AMS January 19, 1899, page 33.3

WHEN Cesar stumbles, it will not be well for religion if she is leaning on his arm. Jesus Christ offers the only support which is unfailing.AMS January 19, 1899, page 33.4

[Inset.] TWO ENEMIES OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS. THE American people see the enemy which is advancing from Utah, but they do not see the much more formidable enemy which is advancing from an unsuspected quarter. They are up in arms against polygamy, and denounce the Mormon system in Utah as a union of church and state; and that is true. But it is no less true that the system which would join religion with the national Government is also a union of church and state, and a much worse one than could possibly be formed by the people of a single state. If religion joined with the civil power is bad in Utah, as it is, the like system is bad in any other state; and in the nation as a whole it is as much worse as the United States is greater than a single state. And at this very time there is a widespread movement in progress for just this union,—there is a widespread clamor for legislation, both state and national, in support of religion. The great religious societies,—the Christian Endeavor Society, League for Social Service, Good Citizenship League, Epworth League, the W.C.T.U., American Sabbath Union, and other bodies, are clamoring and agitating for this. Congress is almost continually besieged by them with petitions for a national Sabbath law, or an acknowledgment of God in the Constitution. This national movement is going on, and is daily growing in power, while the American people seem to be unconscious of the danger which it threatens to their liberties. If Mormonism ought to be combated and kept out of the seat of national Government, ten times more ought this national union or religion with the state to be kept out of the same place.AMS January 19, 1899, page 33.5

“Note” American Sentinel 14, 3, p. 34.

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OF the Americans under Washington, when they were fighting for independence against the soldiers of King George III., the latter said:—AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.1

“I merely desire to restore to them the blessings of law and liberty which they have exchanged for the calamities of war, and the arbitrary tyranny of their chiefs.”AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.2

And now the American Government merely desires to restore to the Filipinos “the blessings of law and liberty,” in the same way that their own ancestors were invited to receive them by the English king.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.3

The centuries have witnessed many attempts to dispense the “blessings of law and liberty” in this fashion, but history has failed to record on instance in which a people have acquired the blessings of liberty by being forced to take them against their will.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.4

A people can win their liberty by successful resistance to the power trying to dominate them: that has often been done: that has done by our forefathers under Washington. But the blessings of liberty cannot be crammed down the throats of an unwilling people at the point of the bayonet.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.5

WHAT has brought the blessings of civilization—the real blessings, and not the curses, of civilization—to peoples sunken in the lowest depths of ignorance and barbarism? Is it the mailed hand of imperialism,—the army and navy of a conquering power? Is it not rather, beyond all question, the gospel of brotherly love, taken to the darkest and most forbidding regions of earth by the missionaries of Christ?AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.6

He who is inclined to be skeptical upon this point can, very profitably to himself, take time to read the history of Christian missionary effort made during the present century among savage peoples the farthest removed from civilization,—as those inhabiting the islands of the southern seas.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.7

Give the Filipinos to-day the blessings of the gospel, and the blessings of liberty and law will come to them without the instrumentality of the American army and navy. The Government cannot, of course, give the gospel to the Filipinos, but it has only to leave the way open for the gospel, and it will go there without its help.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.8

But the Government proposes to maintain Rome in her hold upon the islands, and to depend upon the priests for the restoration and maintenance of law and order. Under this plan the force of a formidable army and navy in the islands will no doubt be continually in demand. The peace and order which are imposed upon a people by the pressure of superior power, never remains long unbroken.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.9

THE American Constitution, article XIV., section 1, declares: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.10

This provision of the Constitution clearly forbids the policy of making the Hawaiiians, the Filipinos, and others subject to the jurisdiction of the United States without granting them the privileges of American citizenship.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.11

The Hawaiians, Filipinos, and others on the territory lately taken from Spain, are not, it is true, within the United States; but they are subject to its jurisdiction, and this being so, the place of residence becomes a secondary consideration. It is only necessary that the should be born or naturalized in the United States to comply with the letter as well as the spirit of this part of the fundamental law.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.12

The Government might deny to such individuals the right of naturalization: but it cannot deny them the right of being born in the United States, unless it should exclude all of them from the privilege of setting foot on these shores. The inhabitant of Porto Rico, or of Hawaii, or even the Filipino, may freely come to the United States, and his children born here will be citizens entitled to all the rights of the Anglo-Saxon, whether they remain here or return to the land of their fathers. To distinguish between individuals subject to the jurisdiction of this Government, and equal in point of intelligence and capability, merely because one happened to be born in this country while the other was not, would be an absurdity and utterly incapable of justification by the Constitution of the United States.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.13

The intent of Articles XIV. and XV. of the Constitution is clearly to provide that no person subject to the jurisdiction of this Government shall be treated as unworthy of the privilege of citizenship, save, of course, such as have forfeited this privilege on account of crime. These articles conferred citizenship upon the hitherto enslaved negroes, and clearly, the framers of this part of the Constitution did not contemplate that any other save criminals would afterwards be denied this privilege. To take such a step would be to retrograde from the position taken in these Amendments, to that maintained in support of negro slavery.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.14

The Government to-day can carry out the program of the imperialists only by going contrary to the plain intent and spirit of the Constitution, if not to the letter of it. And to go contrary to the spirit of the Constitution is in effect an actual repudiation of it. The practical result is not altered by mere technicalities which provide a loophole of escape from the charge of violating the exact letter of the law.AMS January 19, 1899, page 34.15

And under the lead of the imperialists and the religio-political associations, the nation to-day is fast repudiating every principle of republican government.AMS January 19, 1899, page 35.1

“Governing the Filipinos” American Sentinel 14, 3, p. 37.

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THERE is much force in the inquiry of Archbishop Ireland, addressed to a representative of the press, “Who in America knows anything about the Philippines?” There is practically no knowledge in this country of the Filipinos or the conditions under which they exist, yet it is proposed to take the whole responsibilities of government in the islands into American hands.AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.1

Some pointed remarks on this subject were made recently in Congress by Senator Mason, of Illinois. He inquired whether the chief of Tammany Hall should be sent to the islands “to teach the untutored Filipinos cleanliness and municipal reform. Shall we,” he continued, “teach them to worship money and the man who has it, regardless of how he got it? Shall we send special instructors to teach them how to kill postmasters and their wives and children, whose complexion does not suit them? We have murdered more men by mobs in Illinois than have been murdered in the Philippines. Shall we take that branch of our civilization and inject it in the Filipinos with 13-inch guns? Shall we change Mr. Lincoln’s famous words so as to make this a Government of some of the people, by a part of the people, for a few of the people? What senator is anxious to legislate for the Filipinos? We do not know their language or their religion. I never even saw one of them.”AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.2

Here, the American people govern themselves, under the advantages of being familiar with their own conditions and needs, and of bringing a popular judgment to bear upon every measure of government that is provided. And even under these circumstances the Government is none too good. What then would it be, and what must it be, where the governing power is in the hands of one man, or at most a few individuals, who are not familiar with the circumstances and needs of those who are to be governed?AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.3

Whatever abilities the Filipinos may possess in the matter of self-government, they can certainly evolve a better government for themselves than can be set up over them and carried into effect by a people who know nothing about them and are too far away to ever know or care what is going on among them.AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.4

But the archbishop’s query implied something more than this. There is a governing power in the Philippines which is familiar with the people and conditions there, since it has been there for hundreds of years; and that power is the Catholic Church. What could be more natural, therefore, than that the Catholic Church should become the adviser of the Government in solving the problem of government for the Philippine people?AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.5

This is just what the Catholic Church proposes to do, and is in a fair way to secure, through the position occupied by Archbishop Ireland as the confidential friend of the administration.AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.6

And how much will the Filipinos gain by their liberation from Spanish rule, if they are to be governed according to the suggestions of the Catholic Church?AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.7

THE United States has nothing to gain by descending from the high plane of a teacher of the principles of free government, to the level of a power which makes its conquests by the sword.AMS January 19, 1899, page 37.8

“Back Page” American Sentinel 14, 3, p. 48.

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NOT the extent of territory which it covers, but the soundness of its principles of government is the essential condition of national success.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.1

IF no person were allowed the privilege of self-government so long as in the opinion of some others he was unfit for it, there would be practically no self-government in the world to-day.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.3

THE Creator has supplied every individual with the power of self-government, and it is not for one man or one nation to decide for others whether they are capable of exercising that power or not.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.4

THE vital question as regards the national policy is not what the Government has the power to do, but what it has the right to do, in accordance with the principles of free government upon which it professes to rest.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.5

THE Creator never made a man good enough to lay down rules of moral conduct for other people, or a man bad enough to have no right to conduct himself according to his own inclinations, so long as he does not invade the rights of others.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.6

CHURCH people who disclaim against polygamy may well remember that the very worst form of “plural marriage” is seen when a church which professes to be joined to Christ seeks the support of the State.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.7

ALL questions of morality are settled by the law of God; for it alone can with truth and authority define what is moral transgression. No man or body of men has the wisdom or authority to add to the transgressions of that law by new prohibitions, or to define in what a transgression of that law consists.AMS January 19, 1899, page 48.8

January 12, 1899

January 26, 1899