property or to perform the international obligations essential to an
independent State? Could we have left them in a state of anarchy and
justified ourselves in our own consciences or before the tribunal of
mankind? Could we have done that in the sight of God or man?

Our concern was not for territory or trade or empire, but for the people
whose interests and destiny, without our willing it, had been put in our
hands. It was with this feeling that from the first day to the last not
one word or line went from the Executive in Washington to our military
and naval commanders at Manila or to our Peace Commissioners at Paris,
that did not put as the sole purpose to be kept in mind, first after the
success of our arms and the maintenance of our own honor, the welfare
and happiness and the rights of the inhabitants of the Philippine
islands. Did we need their consent to perform a great act for humanity?
We had it in every aspiration of their minds, in every hope of their
hearts. Was it necessary to ask their consent to capture Manila, the
capital of their islands? Did we ask their consent to liberate them from
Spanish sovereignty or to enter Manila Bay and destroy the Spanish
sea-power there? We did not ask these; we were obeying a higher moral
obligation which rested on us and which did not require anybody's
consent. We were doing our duty by them, as God gave us the light to see
our duty, with the consent of our own consciences and with the approval
of civilization. Every present obligation has been met and fulfilled in
the expulsion of Spanish sovereignty from their islands, and while the
war that destroyed it was in progress we could not ask their views. Nor
can we now ask their consent. Indeed, can any one tell me in what form
it could be marshaled and ascertained until peace and order, so
necessary to the reign of reason, shall be secured and established? A
reign of terror is not the kind of rule under which right action and
deliberate judgment are possible. It is not a good time for the
liberator to submit important questions concerning liberty and
government to the liberated while they are engaged in shooting down
their rescuers.

We have now ended the war with Spain. The treaty has been ratified by
the votes of more than two-thirds of the Senate of the United States and
by the judgment of nine-tenths of its people. No nation was ever more
fortunate in war or more honorable in its negotiations in peace. Spain
is now