Problems of Expansion. As Considered in Papers and Addresses

The Government of the United States will at its own cost return to Spain, and the Government of Spain will at its own cost return to the United States, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, according to the situation of their respective homes, prisoners released or caused to be released by them, respectively, under this article.

Article VII. The United States and Spain mutually relinquish all claims for indemnity, national and individual, of every kind, of either Government, or of its citizens or subjects, against the other Government, which may have arisen since the beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba, and prior to the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty, including all claims for indemnity for the cost of the war. The United States will adjudicate and settle the claims of its citizens against Spain relinquished in this article.

Article VIII. In conformity with the provisions of Articles I, II, and III of this treaty, Spain relinquishes in Cuba and cedes in Porto Rico and other islands in the West Indies, in the island of Guam, and in the Philippine Archipelago all the buildings, wharves, barracks, forts, structures, public highways, and other immovable property which in conformity with law belong to the public domain and as such belong to the Crown of Spain.

And it is hereby declared that the relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, to which the preceding paragraph refers, cannot in any respect impair the property or rights which by law belong to the peaceful possession of property of all kinds of provinces, municipalities, public or private establishments, ecclesiastical or civic bodies or any other associations having legal capacity to acquire and possess property in the aforesaid territories renounced or ceded, or of private individuals, of whatsoever nationality such individuals may be.

The aforesaid relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, includes all documents exclusively referring to the sovereignty relinquished or ceded that may exist in the archives of the Peninsula. Where any document in such archives only in part relates to said sovereignty a copy of such part will be furnished whenever it shall be requested. Like rules shall be reciprocally observed in favor of Spain in respect of documents in the archives of the islands above referred to.

In the aforesaid relinquishment or cession, as the case may be, are also included such rights as the Crown of Spain and its authorities possess in respect of the official archives and records, executive as well as judicial, in the islands above referred to, which relate to said islands or the rights and property of their inhabitants. Such archives and records shall be carefully preserved, and private persons shall, without distinction, have the right to require, in accordance with the law, authenticated copies of the contracts, wills, and other instruments forming pact of notarial protocols or files, or which may be contained in the executive or judicial archives, be the latter in Spain or in the islands aforesaid.

Article IX. Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or may remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the right to sell or dispose of such property or of its proceeds; and they shall also have the right to carry on their industry, commerce, and professions, being subject in respect thereof to such laws as are applicable to other foreigners. In case they remain in the territory they may preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making, before a court of record, within a year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance; in default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced it and to have adopted the nationality of the territory in which they may reside.

The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.

Article X. The inhabitants of the territories over which Spain relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty shall be secured in the free exercise of their religion.

Article XI. The Spaniards residing in the territories over which Spain by this treaty cedes or relinquishes her sovereignty shall be subject in matters civil as well as criminal to the jurisdiction of the courts of the country wherein they reside, pursuant to the ordinary laws governing the same; and they shall have the right to appear before such courts and to pursue the same course as citizens of the country to which the courts belong.

Article XII. Judicial proceedings pending at the time of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty in the territories over which Spain relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty shall be determined according to the following rules:

First. Judgments rendered either in civil suits between private individuals or in criminal matters, before the date mentioned, and with respect to which there is no recourse or right of review under the Spanish law, shall be deemed to be final, and shall be executed in due form by competent authority in the territory within which such judgments should be carried out.

Second. Civil suits between private individuals which may on the date mentioned be undetermined shall be prosecuted to judgment before the court in which they may then be pending, or in the court that may be substituted therefor.

Third. Criminal actions pending on the date mentioned before the Supreme Court of Spain against citizens of the territory which by this treaty ceases to be Spanish shall continue under its jurisdiction until final judgment; but, such judgment having been rendered, the execution thereof shall be committed to the competent authority of the place in which the case arose.

Article XIII. The rights of property secured by copyrights and patents acquired by Spaniards in the island of Cuba, and in Porto Rico, the Philippines, and other ceded territories, at the time of the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, shall continue to be respected. Spanish scientific, literary, and artistic works not subversive of public order in the territories in question shall continue to be admitted free of duty into such territories for the period of ten years, to be reckoned from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty.

Article XIV. Spain shall have the power to establish consular officers in the ports and places of the territories the sovereignty over which has either been relinquished or ceded by the present treaty.

Article XV. The Government of each country will, for the term of ten years, accord to the merchant-vessels of the other country the same treatment in respect to all port charges, including entrance and clearance dues, light dues and tonnage duties, as it accords to its own merchant-vessels not engaged in the coastwise trade.

This article may at any time be terminated on six months' notice given by either Government to the other.

Article XVI. It is understood that any obligations assumed in this treaty by the United States with respect to Cuba are limited to the time of its occupancy thereof; but it will, upon the termination of such occupancy, advise any Government established in the island to assume the same obligations.

Article XVII. The present treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and by Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain; and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington within six months from the date hereof, or earlier if possible.

In faith whereof we, the respective plenipotentiaries, have signed this treaty and have hereunto affixed our seals.

Done in duplicate at Paris, the tenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight.

(Seal) William R. Day.

(Seal) Cushman K. Davis.

(Seal) William P. Frye.

(Seal) George Gray.

(Seal) Whitelaw Reid.

(Seal) Eugenio Montero Rios.

(Seal) B. de Abarzuza.

(Seal) J. de Garnica.

(Seal) W. R. de Villa Urrutia.

(Seal) Rafael Cerero.

1

At this time it was still a secret that among the many intrigues afoot during the negotiations at Paris was one for the transfer of the Philippines to Belgium. But for the perfectly correct attitude of King Leopold, it might have had a chance to succeed, or at least to make trouble.

2

The request of the editor for the preparation of this article was received just after the British and American forces had their conflict with the natives in Samoa.

3

One of the author's colleagues at Paris, the Hon. Cushman K. Davis, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, and among the most scholarly students of International Law now in American public life, says in a private letter:

"I was at first very much struck by the unanimity of action by the South American republics in the assumption of debts created by Spain. But some reflection upon the subject has caused that action to lose, to me, much of its apparent relevancy. There was in none of those cases any funded debt, in the sense of bond obligations, held in the markets of the world. There were two parties in the various Spanish provinces of North and South America, one of which supported Spanish ascendancy, and the other of which was revolutionary. The debts created by the exactions of Spain and of the revolutionary party alike were, mainly if not entirely, obligations due to the people of the colonies themselves. As to the continuance of pensions, endowments, etc., it must be remembered that these were Catholic countries, and that these obligations ran to a state church, which continued to be a state church after the colonies had achieved their independence. As to the Napoleonic treaties cited by the Spanish Commissioners, they were mere matters of covenant in a special case, and were not, in my judgment, the result of any anterior national obligation."]

4

It might, of course, have run away and left them to disorder. That is what a pirate could have done, and would have compelled the intervention of European governments for the protection of their own citizens. Or it might have restored them to Spain. Besides the desertion of natives whose aid against Manila had been encouraged, that would have been to say that while the United States went to war because the injustice and barbarity of Spanish rule in the West Indies were such that they could no longer be tolerated, it was now so eager to quit and get peace that it was willing to reëstablish that same rule in the East Indies!

5

Much attention had been attracted, as the date for this celebration approached, to the numerous sons of this small college who had in one way or another become prominent; and the newspapers printed long lists of them. Among the names thus singled out in the press were Benjamin Harrison, of the class of 1852, President of the United States, 1889-93; William Dennison, class of 1835, Governor of Ohio, 1859-63, and Postmaster-General under Abraham Lincoln; Caleb B. Smith, 1826, Secretary of the Interior in the same Administration; General Robert C. Schenck, 1827, Chairman Ways and Means Committee in House of Representatives, Major-General in the Civil War, and United States Minister to Brazil and to Great Britain; William S. Groesbeck, 1834, Congressman, counsel for Andrew Johnson in the impeachment proceedings, and United States delegate to the International Monetary Congress, 1878; Samuel Shellabarger, 1841, Congressman, member of the Crédit Mobilier Investigation, and of the United States Civil Service Commission; Oliver P. Morton, 1845, War Governor of Indiana, and United States Senator; Charles Anderson, 1833, Governor of Ohio; James Birney, 1836, Governor of Michigan; Richard Yates, 1830, War Governor of Illinois, and United States Senator; Milton Sayler, 1852, Speaker House of Representatives; John S. Williams, 1838, the "Cerro Gordo Williams" of the Mexican War, United States Senator from Kentucky; George E. Pugh, 1840, United States Senator from Ohio; James W. McDill, 1853, United States Senator from Iowa; General Samuel F. Carey, 1835, Congressman from Ohio, and temperance orator; Albert S. Berry, 1856, Congressman from Kentucky; Dr. John S. Billings, U.S.A., 1857, head of New York Library; David Swing, 1852, the Chicago clergyman; General A. C. McClurg, 1853, the Chicago publisher; Henry M. MacCracken, 1857, Chancellor of New York University; William M. Thomson, 1828, author of "The Land and the Book"; Calvin S. Brice, 1863, railway-builder, and United States Senator; etc.

6

"My dear Sir: I have received your letter of the 23d inst., notifying me of my election as a vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League. I recognize the compliment implied in this election, and appreciate it the more by reason of my respect for the gentlemen identified with the league, but I do not think I can appropriately or consistently accept the position, especially since I learn through the press that the league adopted at its recent meeting certain resolutions to which I cannot assent.... I may add that, while I fully recognize the injustice and even absurdity of those charges of 'disloyalty' which have been of late freely made against some members of the league, and also that many honorable and patriotic men do not feel as I do on this subject, I am personally unwilling to take part in an agitation which may have some tendency to cause a public enemy to persist in armed resistance, or may be, at least, plausibly represented as having this tendency. There can be no doubt that, as a matter of fact, the country is at war with Aguinaldo and his followers. I profoundly regret this fact;… but it is a fact, nevertheless, and, as such, must weigh in determining my conduct as a citizen....

"Charles Jerome Bonaparte.

"Baltimore,

"May 25, 1899."

7

The Hon. Albert S. Berry, M.C., from the Covington, Kentucky, District.

8

Protocol No. 19 of the Paris Commission, Conference of December 5, 1898: "The President of the Spanish Commission having agreed, at the last session, to consult his Government regarding the proposal of the American Commissioners that the United States should maintain public order over the whole Philippine Archipelago pending the exchange of ratifications of the treaty of peace, stated that the answer of his Government was that the authorities of each of the two nations shall be charged with the maintenance of order in the places where they may be established, those authorities agreeing among themselves to this end whenever they may deem it necessary."

9

Some of these authorities have already been briefly presented in the address at Miami University, pp. 107-158. It may be desirable to consult a few additional ones, covering the main points that have been disputed. They are grouped for convenience in the Appendix.

10

London "Times," December 17, 1898.

11

See (pp. 70-105) article from "The Anglo-Saxon Review."

12

There has been so much misconception and misrepresentation about this payment of twenty millions that the following exact summary of the facts may be convenient.

When Spain sued for peace in the summer of 1898, she had lost control of the Philippines, and any means for regaining control. Her fleet was sunk; her army was cooped up in the capital, under the guns of the American fleet, and its capture or surrender had only been delayed till the arrival of reinforcements for the American Army, because of the fears expressed by foreigners and the principal residents of Manila that the city might be looted by natives unless American land forces were at hand in strength ample to control them. The Spanish army did so surrender, in fact, shortly after the arrival of these reinforcements, before the news of the armistice could reach them.

In the protocol granting an armistice, the United States exacted at once the cession of Porto Rico and an island in the Ladrones, but reserved the decision as to the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines for the treaty of peace, apparently with a view to the possibility of accepting them as further indemnity for the war.

When the treaty came to be negotiated, the United States required the cession of the Philippines. Its Peace Commissioners stated that their Government "felt amply supported in its right to demand this cession, with or without concessions," added that "this demand might be limited to the single ground of indemnity," and pointed out that it was "not now putting forward any claim for pecuniary indemnity, to cover the enormous cost of the war." It accompanied this demand for a transfer of sovereignty with a stipulation for assuming any existing indebtedness of Spain incurred for public works and improvements of a pacific character in the Philippines. The United States thus asserted its right to the archipelago for indemnity, and at the same time committed itself to the principle of payment on account of the Philippine debt.

When it became necessary to put the Philippine case into an ultimatum, the Peace Commissioners did not further refer to the debt or give any specific reason either for a cession or for a payment. They simply said they now presented "a new proposition, embodying the concessions which, for the sake of immediate peace, their Government is, under the circumstances, willing to tender."

But it was really the old proposition (with the "Open Door" and "Mutual Relinquishment of Claims" clauses added), with the mention for the first time of a specific sum for the payment, and without any question of "pacific improvements." That sum just balanced the Philippine debt—40,000,000 Mexican, or, say, 20,000,000 American dollars.

13

General Carl Schurz, at the Chicago Anti-Expansion Convention, October, 1899.

14

The exact proposition made by General Carl Schurz in addressing the Chicago Anti-Expansion Convention, October 17, 1899.

15

General Carl Schurz, at the Philadelphia Anti-Imperialist Convention, February 22, 1900.

16

Thomas Corwin of Ohio, in United States Senate, 1848.

17

Over a month after the above was delivered came the first recent judicial expression of a contrary view. It was by Judge William Lochren of the United States Circuit Court at St. Paul, in the case of habeas corpus proceedings against Reeve, warden of the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater, for the release of a Porto Rican named Ortiz. He was held for the murder of a private soldier of the United States, sentenced to death by a Military Commission at San Juan, and, on commutation of the sentence by the President of the United States, sent to this State Prison for life. Judge Lochren denied the writ on the ground that the conviction took place before the Treaty of Paris, by which Spain ceded sovereignty in Porto Rico to the United States, had been ratified by the Senate. The Judge went on, however, to argue that Ortiz could not have been lawfully tried before the Military Commission after the ratification of the treaty, because the island of Porto Rico thereby became an integral part of the United States, subject to the Constitution and privileged and bound by its provisions. As this point was not involved in the case he was deciding, this is, of course, merely a dictum—the expression of opinion on an outside matter by a Democratic judge who was recently transferred by Mr. Cleveland from a Washington bureau to the bench. It clearly shows, however, what would be his decision whenever the case might come before him. His argument followed closely the lines taken by Mr. Calhoun in the Senate and Mr. Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision.