Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/504

480 trust us again when we appear once more before mankind with fine words about our unselfish devotion to human freedom and humanity! I ask them whether as patriotic men they really think it will become or profit this great American Republic to stand before mankind as a nation whose most solemn professions cannot be trusted!

If these questions cannot be satisfactorily answered, this might be the end of the discussion. But in these days of ours it is, perhaps, well to go on proving that honesty is really the best policy. What shall we do with these Spanish colonies if we annex them? They will either have to become States of this Union, on an equal footing with the other States, or they will have to be governed as subject provinces. These are questions which concern not only our commercial interests, but which touch the working and perhaps even the very existence of our democratic institutions.

There may be men who have ceased to care much about those democratic institutions, and who confess themselves tired when we talk about the government of the people, by the people and for the people, preferring that a debate like this should be confined to matters commercial. I trust we do not belong to that class. At any rate, I think that those democratic institutions are worth preserving. I believe that it is our greatest responsibility and our highest mission to transmit those institutions unimpaired to our children, and to maintain and develop them for the esteem and emulation of mankind in their greatest possible perfection and beneficence. I believe, therefore, that at this hour the most important question before us is, not how we can acquire the largest territory or make the most money, but how the annexation of the Spanish colonies would affect the character of our Government.

Are those colonies or any of them such that we could