In the first place, then, as respects the inhabitants of the vastly greater number of the dependencies already acquired, and, under the policy of imperialistic expansion, hereafter to be acquired. It is argued that we, as a people at once dominant and Christian, are under an obligation to avail ourselves of the opportunity the Almighty, in his infinite wisdom, has thrust upon us,--some say the plain call he has uttered to us,--to go forth, and impart to the barbarian and the heathen the blessings of liberty and the Bible. A mission is imposed upon us. Viewed in the cold, pitiless light of history,--and that is the only way we here can view them,--"divine missions" and "providential calls" are questionable things; things the assumption and fulfilment of which are apt to be at variance. So far as the American is concerned, as I have already pointed out, the historic precedents are not encouraging. Whatever his theories, ethnical, political, or religious, his practice has been as pronounced as it was masterful. From the earliest days at Wessagusset and in the Pequot war, down to the very last election held in North Carolina,--from 1623 to 1898,--the knife and the shotgun have been far more potent and active instruments in his dealings with the inferior races than the code of liberty or the output of the Bible Society. The record speaks for itself. So far as the Indian is concerned, the story has been told by Mrs. Jackson in her earnest, eloquent protest, entitled "A Century of Dishonor." It has received epigrammatic treatment in the saying tersely enunciated by one of our military commanders, and avowedly accepted by the others, that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." So far as the African is concerned, the similar apothegm once was that "the black man has no rights the white man is bound to respect;" or, as Stephen A. Douglas defined his position before an applauding audience, "I am for the white man as against the black man, and for the black man against the alligator." Recent lynching and shotgun experiences, too fresh in memory to call for reminder, and too painful in detail to describe, give us at least reason to pause before we leave our own hearthstone to seek new and distant fields for missionary labors. It remains to consider the Asiatic. The racial antipathy of the American towards him has been more intense than towards any other species of the human race. This, as an historical fact, has been recently imbedded in our statute-book, having previously been illustrated in a series of outrages and massacres, with the sickening details of some of which it was at one time my misfortune to be officially familiar. Under these circumstances, so far as the circulation of the Bible and the extension of the blessings of liberty are concerned, history affords small encouragement to the American to assume new obligations. He has been, and now is, more than merely delinquent in the fulfilment of obligations heretofore thrust upon him,