"Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" — John Shaqi
"Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers"Adams, Charles Francis
Philosophy
"Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers"
Adams, Charles Francis
Imperialism; United States -- Colonial question
or knowingly assumed. In this respect his instinct has proved much more
of a controlling factor than his ethics,--the shotgun has unfortunately
been more constantly in evidence than the Bible. As a prominent
"expansionist" New England member of the present Congress has recently
declared in language, brutal perhaps in directness, but withal
commendably free from cant: "China is succumbing to the inevitable, and
the United States, if she would not retire to the background, must
advance along the line with the other great nations. She must acquire
new territory, providing new markets over which she must maintain
control. The Anglo-Saxon advances into the new regions with a Bible in
one hand and a shotgun in the other. The inhabitants of those regions
that he cannot convert with the aid of the Bible and bring into his
markets, he gets rid of with the shotgun. It is but another
demonstration of the survival of the fittest." (Hon. C.A. Sulloway,
Rochester, N.H., Nov. 22, 1898.)
Next as regards our fundamental principles of equality of human rights,
and the consent of the governed as the only just basis of all
government. The presence of the inferior races on our own soil, and our
new problems connected with them in our dependencies, have led to much
questioning of the correctness of those principles, which, for its
outspoken frankness, at least, is greatly to be commended. It is argued
that these, as principles, in the light of modern knowledge and
conditions, are of doubtful general truth and limited application. True,
when confined and carefully applied to citizens of the same blood and
nationality; questionable, when applied to human beings of different
race in one nationality; manifestly false, in the case of races less
developed, and in other, especially tropical, countries.[2] As
fundamental principles, it is admitted, they were excellent for a young
people struggling into recognition and limiting its attention narrowly
to what only concerned itself; but have we not manifestly outgrown them,
now that we ourselves have developed into a great World Power? For such
there was and necessarily always will be, as between the superior and
the inferior races, a manifest common sense foundation in caste, and in
the rule of might when it presents itself in the form of what we are
pleased to call Manifest Destiny. As to government being conditioned on
the consent of the governed, it is obviously the bounden duty of the
superior race to hold the inferior race in peaceful tutelage, and
protect it against itself; and, furthermore, when it comes to deciding
the momentous question of what races are superior and what inferior,
what dominant and what subject, that is of necessity a question to be
settled between the superior race and its own conscience; and one in
regard to the correct settlement of which it indicates a tendency at
once unpatriotic and "pessimistic," to assume that America could by any
chance decide otherwise than correctly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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