WE have seen that the republic of Rome governed her foreign possessions and tributary subjects by a system that was “absolutely incompatible with the Roman constitution;” and that her constitution was abandoned, and its principles repudiated, in order that this should be done. We have seen the republic of the United States do precisely these same things; by direct legislative acts specifically and repeatedly refusing to allow any provision of her Constitution of her foreign possessions and tributary subjects.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.1

All see that this has been done by the republic of the United States, since it has been openly done before the eyes of all; but not all see the real meaning and the true bearing of it. Most observers think that in doing this the United States has reverted to the British system of colonial government. But this is not so; indeed, if it were so, it would be complete apostasy from her own fundamental principles; for it was in absolute repudiation of the British system of colonial government that the thirteen American-British colonies founded their existence as thirteen American independent States.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.2

But this action of the United States is not a reversion to the British system, nor to the British principles; it is a sheer abandonment of all principles of Anglo-Saxon government—a clear leap back beyond all Anglo-Saxon, all constitutional government, beyond all government even of law; even beyond Magna Charta itself.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.3

Look at it: John Lackland was king of England. He was ruling without law, by his own will alone. This was what had been done for hundreds of years in England, since the pope had assumed the over-lordship. The king was subject only to the pope. The government was Roman with the pope supreme.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.4

In John Lackland, the evils of that system culminated. With the support of the pope, King John declared that he would be “for the first time king and lord of England.” But “the time was come when no man should be ‘kind and lord in England’ with a total disregard of the rights of other men; a time when a king should rule in England by law, instead of by force, or rule not at all.”—Knight.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.5

Magna Charta was drawn up and demanded of the king. “It preserved all the proper attributes of the kingly power, while it guarded against the king being a tyrant.” In it the king was required to declare the great principle of the supremacy of the law of the realm, in the words: “No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or banished, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or delay, right or justice.” He was also required to agree that if the king or any of his officers violated any of the provisions of the Charter, there might be petition for redress of grievance; and if the grievance were not redressed in forty days, the barons, “together with the community of the whole kingdom, shall distrain and distress us all the ways possible; namely, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other way they can, till grievance is redressed according to their pleasure; saving harmless our own person, and those of our queen and children; and when it is redressed, they shall obey us as before.”SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.6

Of course this was all fought by both King John and the pope—the pope excommunicating the barons, and annulling Magna Charta. But since it is always the disposition of a king to do anything rather than not be king, John surrendered; and since the pope’s real power always lies in possessing kings, his opposition fell powerless with the king’s surrender. And thus there was first fixed in a written constitution the Anglo-Saxon principle of government by virtue of written law, instead of by mere force and caprice of human will; the principle that government is by consent of the governed, and not by absolutism of a superior set arrogating to themselves “divine right” to rule wrong.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.7

John’s son, King Henry III., in league with the pope, also resisted the governed and rejected Magna Charta. He declared: “Whensoever, and wheresoever, and as often as it may be our pleasure, we may declare, interpret, enlarge, or diminish the aforesaid statutes, and their several parts, by our own free will, and as to us shall seem expedient for the security of us and our land.” But he, as John, was firmly met by the kingdom’s insistence upon the right of the people and the supremacy of the law.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.8

In answer to King Henry’s pronunciamento, the English judge Bracton set the voice of English law. “The king must not be subject to any man, but to God and the law; for the law makes him king. Let the king, therefore, give to the law what the law gives to him—dominion and power; for there is no king where will, and not law, bears rule. The king can do nothing on earth, being the minister of God, but what he can do by law. So that if the king were without a bridle—that is, the law—they ought to put a bridle upon him.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.9

That is the principle of Anglo-Saxon government, of free government—government by consent of the governed—everywhere. That is the principle of Anglo-Saxon government, of free government—government by consent of the governed—against that principle of the apostate republic of Rome perpetuated in the Papacy, and then adopted by the apostate republic of the United States in her following the course of the apostate republic of Rome. For compare with the principle of Anglo-Saxon government, as expressed in Magna Charta and the voice of English law, and in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution,—compare with this the principle repeatedly expressed and postively [sic.] fixed in the legislation of Congress regarding the Philippines, as already given in these articles—SIGNS of July 17, 24, 31, 1901. There see how that, when every other principle of constitutional liberty had been repudiated, and when, to prevent the slaughter of this last principle of constitutional liberty a senator offered an amendment expressly providing that “it may be a government of laws and not of men,” even this was repudiated.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.10

And this repudiation of the primary principle of Anglo-Saxon government—the principle of Magna Charta—was seen, and was deliberately sanctioned, by the United States Supreme Court in its latest decision—its decision on this great subject. Read the words of that decision:—SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.11

If those possession are inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation, and modes of thought, the administration of government and justice according to Anglo-Saxon principles MAY for a time BE IMPOSSIBLE; and the question at once arises whether large concessions ought not to be made for a time, that, ultimately, our own theories may be carried out and the blessings of free government under the Constitution be extended to them. We decline to hold that there is anything in the Constitution to forbid such action.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.12

Therefore, as to principle of government, where stand the government of the United States to-day?—No longer upon the true ground of Anglo-Saxon principle; but upon the despotic ground of Roman principle only. Not upon the free principle of Magna Charta and English law, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution; but upon the despotic principle of Rome as perpetuated in the Papacy and maintained by the popes. For back of Magna Charta there is nothing but Rome as perpetuated in the Papacy.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.13

And by this wild plunge of the United States from her own native, and from all Anglo-Saxon, principles of government, down the declivity, and sheer into the gulf to the principles of Rome as perpetuated in the Papacy and maintained by the popes, Leo XIII. sees opened the way to the fulfilment of his declared purpose that “what the church has done for other nations, she will not do for the United States.” There is no doubt that she will, for what is to hinder? Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines are the peculiar ground of the new activities of the United States upon her newly chosen principles of Rome. Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines are solidly Catholic, and subject to the Papacy in the Latest appointed apostolic delegate, Archbishop Chapelle. Here, the Papacy in full possession, and the United States inextricably in her net, and indeed do for this nation now what she has done for other nations. The public of Rome which had apostatized into imperial despotism, she inveigled and sunk in the abyss of eternal ruin. the barbarians who were the instruments of the divine wrath in sweeping away the corrupted Roman Empire, these also she corrupted, and filled Europe with her own anarchy throughout her own Dark Ages. And now the republic of the United States, which has so fast and so far followed the course of the republic of Rome to imperial despotism, will also sink in the abyss of eternal ruin; and through this, and at the same time, she will fall with her anarchy to the same annihilation, all the other nations.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.14

And this dire work of Rome is made the more speedily certain from the fact that professed Protestantism in the United States and the whole world has completely espoused papal principles, stands so fully upon papal ground, and is so entirely friendly and at one with the Papacy. It has abandoned the principle of the Gospel, and puts its dependence only upon law. It has repudiated the principle of freedom of choice in the divine government—government by consent of the governed—and has espoused only the principle of force. As a consequence “all that dwell upon the earth” must be compelled to worship the beast and his image, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Revelation 13.SITI August 7, 1901, page 4.15

And thus “Babylon the great”—mother and daughters—“is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird;” and the “voice from heaven” sounds, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” She has “made all nations drunk with the wine of the wrath of her fornication;” and “by her sorceries were all nations corrupted.”SITI August 7, 1901, page 501.1

ALONZO T. JONES.

July 31, 1901

August 14, 1901