Page:Carl Schurz- 1900-05-24 For American Principles and American Honor.pdf/15

 battlefield of Gettysburg, that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Who will deny that this responsibility—our true, our paramount responsibility—imperatively demands the abandonment of a policy to subjugate as subjects to our arbitrary rule another people aspiring to liberty and independence? That there are difficulties in the way of that abandonment is true. But those difficulties, as I have shown, do not consist in their setting up an independent government with our aid and assistance, and in our protecting them against foreign interference. The main difficulty—the only real difficulty—is in ourselves. It is the difficulty of baffling the greed of some persons who want to rule that country for exploitation; it is the difficulty of curbing our own vanity and false pride, which would persevere in an ambitious course however wicked, because we have once entered upon it. These difficulties of meeting our true responsibility is great; but to quote Bishop Potter’s words again, it would indeed “be a source of national mortification if we gave up our responsibility because we find it difficult.” But if we do overcome those difficulties and fulfil the duty imposed upon us by our true responsibility, the American people will stand before the world in an attitude of moral greatness never surpassed in the annals of mankind; for we shall have shown that we cannot only take cities and conquer hostile armies, but that, which is infinitely more glorious, we can, when we have done wrong, conquer ourselves.

I have been told on very good authority that many of the leading Republicans are heartily sick of the whole Philippine business, and that they sincerely wish we had never taken a foot of ground on the Philipinnes and were now rid of the whole concern. I have good reason for believing it. But why have they not the moral courage frankly and publicly to say so? Why do they not in the open light of day appeal to the President, and to Congress, and to their party to give up that accursed