ial traits elements of difference which give to each of
them in more or less degree the character of a distinct nationality.
These peoples all possess aspirations to become independent states, and
yet, throughout the negotiations at Paris and since that time, the
Government of the United States has repeatedly refused to recognize the
right of the inhabitants of these territories to determine for
themselves the sovereignty under which they shall live. It has, on the
contrary, declared in favor of a "Great Russia" comprising the vast
territory of the old Empire except the province which belonged to the
dismembered Kingdom of Poland and the lands included within the present
boundaries of the Republic of Finland.

I do not mention the policy of President Wilson as to an undivided
Russia by way of criticism because I believe the policy was and has
continued to be the right one. The reference to it is made for the
sole purpose of pointing out another example of Mr. Wilson's frequent
departure without explanation from his declared standard for the
determination of political authority and allegiance. I think
that it must be conceded that he has by his acts proved that
"self-determination" _is_ "a mere phrase" which ought to be discarded
as misleading because it cannot be practically applied.

It may be pointed out as a matter of special interest to the student of
American history that, if the right of "self-determination" were sound
in principle and uniformly applicable in establishing political
allegiance and territorial sovereignty, the endeavor of the Southern
States to secede from the American Union in 1861 would have been wholly
justifiable; and, conversely, the Northern States, in forcibly
preventing secession and compelling the inhabitants of the States
composing the Confederacy to remain under the authority of the Federal
Government, would have perpetrated a great and indefensible wrong
against the people of the South by depriving them of a right to which
they were by nature entitled. This is the logic of the application of
the principle of "self-determination" to the political rights at issue
in the American Civil War.

I do not believe that there are many Americans of the present generation
who would support the proposition that the South was inherently right
and the North was inherently wrong in that great conflict. There were,
at the time when the sections were arrayed in arms against each other,
and there may st