March 2, 1899
LIBERTY is not a thing of race or color; when it is made such, it becomes despotism for all the weak.
THE real question is not, What have I power to do? but, What ought I to do? To exercise power unlawfully leads surely to the loss of the power.
FREE government recognizes every man as a son of Adam, and Adam as a son of God.
EVERY real American of the first class, recognizes every other American as being on a legal equality with himself.
[Inset.] AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AMS IT SEEMS LIKELY TO BE SET UP IN THE PHILIPPINES. AMERICAN Government in the Philippines, without those constitutional safeguards of liberty which apply alike to individuals of every race and color and without the Declaration of Independence which affirms the principle upon which these safeguards are set up, would be something vastly different from American government as it has been understood for one hundred years past in the United States. But if the Declaration of Independence should be taken there, that part would have to be cut out which affirms that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, since it is not proposed to govern the natives by their voluntary consent at all. And the principles of government having been repudiated, the Constitution would be equally useless so far as concerns the security of the rights of the governed. Such a government would be in no sense free government.