of
self-government, and the Declaration of Independence, and the
Constitution of the United States by preparing for the distracted,
warring tribes of that region such local government as they may be
found capable of conducting, in their various stages of development
from pure barbarism toward civilization. The American people know they
are thus proceeding to do just what Jefferson did in the vast region he
bought from France--without the consent, by the way, either of its
sovereign or its inhabitants. They know they are following in the exact
path of all the constructive statesmen of the Republic, from the days
of the man who wrote the Declaration, and of those who made the
Constitution, down to the days of the men who conquered California,
bought Alaska, and denied the right of self-government to Jefferson
Davis. They simply do not believe that a new light has been given to
Mr. Bryan, or to the better men who are aiding him, greater and purer
than was given to Washington, or to Jefferson, or to Lincoln.

And so I venture to repeat, without qualification or reserve, that what
is past cannot be changed. Candid and dispassionate minds, knowing the
American people of all political shades and in all sections of the
country, can see no possibility that any party in power, whether the
present one or its opponent, would or could, now or soon, if ever,
abandon or give back one foot of the territory gained in the late war,
and ours now by the supreme law of the land and with the assent of the
civilized world. As well may you look to see California, which your own
Daniel Webster, quite in a certain modern Massachusetts style, once
declared in the Senate to be not worth a dollar, now abandoned to
Mexico.

[Sidenote: No Abstractions or Apologies or Attacks.]

It seems to me, then, idle to thresh over old straw when the grain is
not only winnowed, but gone to the mill. And so I am not here to
discuss abstract questions: as, for example, whether in the year 1898
the United States was wise in going to war with Spain, though on that I
might not greatly disagree with the malcontents; or as to the wisdom of
expansion; or as to the possibility of a republic's maintaining its
authority over a people without their consent. Nor am I here to
apologize for my part in making the nation that was in the wrong and
beaten in the late war pay for it in territory. I have never thought of
denying or evading my own full share of responsibility in t