r of any
intention to enter upon a war of conquest, asserting its determination,
when Spanish domination was ended, to leave the government of Cuba, and
presumably of any other islands similarly acquired, to the people
thereof. As an incident to our naval operations on the Pacific, the
island of Hawaii was then annexed to the United States as an
extra-territorial possession, or coaling station, this being effected by
a joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress, under the precedent of
1845 established in the case of Texas,--a method of procedure the
constitutionality of which was at the time formally called in question
by the State of Massachusetts, and against which Mr. Webster made
vigorous protest in the Senate. In thus possessing ourselves of Hawaii,
the consent of the native inhabitants was not considered necessary; we
dealt wholly with an oligarchical _de facto_ government, representing
the foreign element, mainly American, there resident.

Shortly after the acquisition of Hawaii, we, as the result of brilliant
naval operations and successes, acquired possession of the harbor of
Manila, in the Philippine archipelago, and finally the city and some
adjacent territory were surrendered to us. A treaty was then negotiated,
the power of Spain being completely broken, under which she abandoned
all claims of sovereignty, not only over the island of Cuba, the
original cause of war, but over various other islands in the Philippine,
as well as in the West Indian, archipelagoes. These islands, in all said
to be some 1,200 to 1,500 in number, are moreover not only inhabited by
both natives and foreigners to the estimated number of ten to twelve
million of souls, but they contain large cities and communities speaking
different tongues, living under other laws, and having customs, manners,
and traditions wholly unlike our own, and which, in the case of the
Philippines, do not admit of assimilation. Situated in the tropics also,
they cannot gradually become colonized by Americans, with or without the
disappearance of the native population. The American can only go there
for temporary residence.

A wholly new problem was thus suddenly presented to the people of the
United States. On the one hand, it is asserted that, by destroying
Spanish government in these islands, the United States has assumed
responsibility for them, both to the inhabitants and to the world. This
is a moral obligation. On the other hand, trade and commerc