Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/528

504 consequence if we indefinitely add to it by bringing under this Republican Government big lots of other incompatible races—races far more intractable, too, than those with which we have so far had to deal?

But more. Owing to the multiplicity of churches, sects and denominations, and to their being mixed together in every part of the country and their pretty well balancing one another, there have been so far hardly any very serious difficulties of a religious nature in the United States. But if the imperial policy prevails, and all those countries, with their populations, are annexed, there will be for the first time in the history of the Republic, large territories inhabited by many millions of people who, with few exceptions, all belong to one church, and who, if they become a political force, may cause conflicts of influences from which the American people have so far been happily exempt.

I mention these things in order to indicate some of the difficulties we have to meet in considering the question how such countries and populations are to be fitted into our system of government. It is hard to see how the Spanish-American republics which are to be annexed could in the long run be refused admission as States, having, nominally at least, been governing themselves for many years. The Spanish-American islands would soon follow. Ambitious partisans, looking out for party votes in Congress and in the Electoral College, would certainly contrive to lug them in. There would then be a large lot of Spanish-Americans in the Senate and in the House and among the Presidential electors—more than enough of them to hold, occasionally at least, the balance of power in making laws not only for themselves, but for the whole American people, and in giving the Republic its Presidents. There would be “the Spanish-American vote”—being occasionally the decisive vote—to be