can be supreme at will; if as another of its results the crime of sedition has been created, and freedom of the press and of speech and a right to use the mails have been curtailed or placed at the disposal of the government, then the mere fact that the negro was emancipated in the course of the war does not prevent the conclusion that the deeper impulse projected to this day with studied care was the creation of an empire robed for effect in the apparel of a republic. The Panama episode is good proof that secession of itself is not nearly so reprehensible as the republican party pretended in the days when it inveighed against secession as the embodiment of treason. The powers which have been coaxed from the plausible surface of the 14th amendment, and through which organized wealth has its way in the Federal Courts, is one of the criteria of the meaning of the war of 1861.

The task of taking these courts in hand now devolves upon the people. There is no place in a republic for courts so constituted. Time has fully shown that the reasons advanced in their favor when the constitution was pending before the people were such as men might advance, whose motives were sinister, or such as men might advance from the recesses of the mind, based upon insufficient data and without that experience, which in all matters of policy, is necessary to true knowledge. Jefferson uttered a great truth when he said that better results might be obtained by appointing the judges, but it was doubtful, and in such a case principle should be consulted. The principle was, of course, that the people are the source of government, and necessarily of all of its departments, and

that the judges should hold their commissions from the people themselves. Progress points the way to this end. Despotism and retrogression, its accompaniment, look to the perpetuation of the present system.

DESPOTISM REVAMPED.

The barons of special privilege, all of whom are uniformly supporting the present revolutionary administration, threaten the American people with financial wreckage, unless the policy outlined by the Porto Rican bill shall be approved at the polls. The administration is attempting to distract public attention to a purely economic question and from the colonial question. And if the people, led by this deception, return the present administration to power that act will be construed as a popular approval of the present colonialism of Porto Rico and of the future colonialism of the Philippines. If then it becomes advisable to test in the Supreme Court what the people will be alleged to have approved at the polls that also will be done. And when the Supreme Court finds that despotic government over Porto Rico is constitutional the people will in vain protest that they believed that there was no such issue as imperialism and that the currency question was paramount in 1900. The contest at that conjuncture of affairs will have been lost to the monarchial principle.

But before the people are distracted from the overshadowing issue to a mere economic problem, and before they give it into the hands of the revolutionists to say that this republican form of government has

been changed by their vote, they should pause and consider the full import of the step to be taken.

The revolutionary press has already found the Porto Rican bill to be constitutional, or at least not to be incursive of anything in the constitution. The statement of the question proceeds upon a theory of interpretation entirely novel. The constitution in its entirety is not over the islands until Congress extends it to them; Congress is expressly prohibited from passing certain laws, prohibited generally and universally. These limitations are expressed in the bill of rights and in some other portions of the constitution, and, to speak specifically, as Congress is negatived from passing any bill of attainder, ex post facto law or law prescribing any form of religion, or where Congress is otherwise limited in its power, the constitution may be said to be over the islands. In all other senses it is not over the islands. Hence, to proceed with the argument, as Congress may collect taxes, duties and imposts and as they must be "uniform throughout the United States," and as the term United States means the states and territories but not the islands, and as there is no express negation upon Congress from making duties unequal as between the United States and disconnected territory like Porto Rico, the Porto Rican bill is not unconstitutional. This is the statement that the revolutionists make of the case.

Properly, then, a brief survey of the materials which were cemented into the fabric of the republic under which we live may be indulged in to ascertain how much of truth there is in these contentions and whether it be not the fact that the republican party has per

petrated revolution and is now clamoring to obtain a vote which may be tortured into a plebiscitum of revolution.

The Porto Rican law of April 12, 1900, apparently enacted at that late day so as to render its construction in the Supreme Court improbable before the election, is distinguished by the following provisions:

I. The Porto Ricans are not citizens of the United States, nor are they promised citizenship at any time whatever.

2. Porto Rico is not a territory of the United States preparing itself for statehood, but it is a colonial dependency and no statehood is promised or foreshadowed.

3. The Porto Ricans have no representation in Congress.

4. The Porto Ricans are taxed without such representation, which was formerly denounced as tyranny.

5. The Porto Ricans, while declared to be citizens of Porto Rico are under the effect, the provision and the spirit of the Porto Rican law subjects of the United States.

6. The upper house of Porto Rico is appointed by the president of the United States and is called the executive council, and this executive council has the power of passing upon the qualification of voters for the lower house.

7. No person can be a member of the lower house unless he possesses in his own right taxable property.

8. The governor is appointed by the president and has the power to veto all legislation.