THE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN RESPECT TO THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF THE LESSER REPUBLICS OF AMERICA AND THE GREAT POWERS OF EUROPE.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE MARSHAL SANDERS POST, No. 48, G. A. R., IN THE TOWN HALL, LITTLETON, N. H., DECEMBER 26, 1895, ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION OF A MEMORIAL RECORD VOLUME TO THIS POST.

Gentlemen of Marshal Sanders Post, No. 48:

Your service at a critical period of American history is the occasion of this meeting. I am here to present to you a blank book, in which you may record your names and the names of your associates, now deceased, with appropriate remarks in each case. The connection between those services and the salvation of our great republic, at a time when its very existence was imperiled, furnishes me fit opportunity, not only for retrospection, but for speculation as to the future, and for consideration as to present duty. I will not stop to dwell upon the dire necessities of the country and the impending ruin that threatened it in the doubtful hour when you donned the soldier's garb and enlisted under its banner. A grateful people, whom your strong arms succored in the hour of need, have remembered you, and are remembering you now. Your work was well done. Peace came, and it came to stay. The warring states were reunited in a Union which has grown so strong that we might today safely defy all the world to break it. Out of feeble, disunited, and scattered colonies, the wisdom of our fathers laid the foundation of our republic, and in it made liberty secure by constitutional limitations upon power. This work of our fathers, the patriotism of our people has nurtured and sustained, and through the favor of Divine Providence we have grown into a great nation, wherein free institutions are firmly established. Upon us, the people of the United States, rests the responsibility of directing the ad

ministration of the government. It is our duty to look after our rulers (who are our servants) and to see that they act honestly and wisely in respect to affairs at home and affairs abroad.

In view of the fact that our republic is the great republic of the world, and has a government and institutions that are free, and guarded by safe muniments, and is today, as I maintain, the strongest government on earth, I propose to consider especially the protection which we owe to the lesser republics of America, and the policy we ought to pursue in our dealings with the great powers of Europe.

My theme will be, "The Rights and Responsibilities of the United States in Respect to the International Relations of the Lesser Republics of America and the Great Powers of Europe.'

All the world have been spectators of the origin and growth of our people, and during the entire period of the experimental stage of our national existence, our theories in regard to the equality of all men and the sovereignty of the people, were regarded by our foes with derision and contempt, and by our friends as too good to be ever practically realized. Our government and institutions, based on these theories, were considered by the philosophers and statesmen of the old world, as resting on the impracticable ideas of dreamy enthusiasts, as of little importance, and as sure, on the occurrence of the first popular commotion, to be utterly demolished. Time passed on, and the republic of small beginnings, tested by many trying ordeals, grew stronger, and the prophets of evil spoke less frequently and with greater caution. At length the final ordeal came, and the strength of our government and institutions was tested by the throes and convulsions of a civil war, in magnitude without precedent in ancient or modern history. That ordeal was passed triumphantly and the strength of our government fully established. The spectacle afforded by our tremendous Civil War, together with its result, was an object lesson for all the nations of the earth. They saw the immense armies we marshalled, the great battles we fought, rivalling the armies and battles of Napoleon's wars. They beheld the maintenance of successive campaigns on this vast scale, while the men, supplies, money, munitions of war necessary for the support of all the armies on both sides, were

drawn from the resources of the United States alone. They beheld American invention revolutionizing naval construction the world over, causing the then existing navies to become useless, and limiting naval warfare to iron-clad vessels. They beheld such improvements in artillery and in death-dealing machinery of every description, either made or suggested, as to awaken competition among nations in the art of destruction, and to cause progress to be made therein so far that now war threatens absolute annihilation to all combatants.

The termination of this extraordinary exhibition of warlike strength, skill and invention, was the settlement of the controversy, the removal or adjustment of all matters of difference, and the union of the contending forces under one flag. A Union that will endure, a flag that is beloved at home and must be respected abroad. Devotion to the Union and to the flag is the common sentiment of our people everywhere. Our fellow citizens, whether dwelling on the Pacific or Atlantic coast, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, or in the forests of Maine, all alike feel their bosoms thrill with patriotic devotion to the great republic. War is always to be avoided, if it can be with honor, but if, in the providence of God, war should come, there can be no doubt that the united forces of our whole country would promptly rally in its defense, and with unyielding fortitude and valor maintain its cause. Our late Civil War, ending as it did, demonstrated to ourselves and to all the world, that we are a nation which must be reckoned among the great powers of the earth. This position puts a responsibility upon us which we cannot avoid. Momentous consequences, fraught with either weal or woe, must result from what we do or refrain to do. It is incumbent upon us to act in a broad and liberal spirit, and with such consideration and wisdom as will best promote the welfare, not only of ourselves, but of all mankind. We should have a foreign policy, with definite ends in view, and we should steadily labor in all legitimate ways to secure those ends. If we speak in one voice today and in another voice tomorrow, the influence we ought to exert is not felt. Our own interests, and the interests of those who seek and are entitled to our protection, are sure to suffer. If we would be respected abroad we

must act wisely and carry a steady hand. We must speak language comporting with our standing as a nation among nations. Our government must always be ready to vindicate the rights of American citizens, and to cause them to be everywhere respected. The maintenance of our own peculiar institutions, as against antagonistic institutions, is subserved by upholding in neighboring countries, institutions kindred with our own. Our government was the first independent government established by civilized man in the western hemisphere, and is republican. Its form has been the model that has guided the formation of all the other governments on this half of the globe. Monarchies and despotisms varying in form are the governments that control, with a few exceptions, the eastern hemisphere. Our position as a first class power, demonstrated and acknowledged, entitles us to take part and be heard in making those general arrangements which the welfare of the world requires, and which to be effectual must be approved and upheld by the controlling powers of the earth. Our neighbors are sister republics. Their maintenance and well being as such will make our own free institutions more secure. Having chosen our form of government as the model of their governments, as against outside interference seeking to force upon them monarchies or despotisms, they are entitled to our countenance and support. The fact that our republic is the great republic of the world, and that its arm is strong, imposes upon us the moral obligation to shield and protect all lesser republics so far as it is necessary in order to secure for them the enjoyment of the institutions and government of their choice. The additional fact that all the governments on the western continent are republican, imposes the further duty upon us to inquire what arrangements in reference to the western continent, as it respects the other parts of the world, does its welfare demand, and to use all legitimate measures to have such arrangements made and carried out. The dominion of European powers over any portion of the western hemisphere causes entanglements, is a constant source of annoyance, and a clog to progress therein. Controversies are constantly being raised by one or the other of the European powers either against ourselves or some of the other American

republics. It is about boundaries, fishing rights, sealing rights, shore rights, and it would be hard to name anything about which such a controversy might not arise.

A gold bearing region has been discovered in Venezuela, and Great Britain claims it is within the boundaries of her dominion. This contention has raised a first class controversy. Our government is properly taking the ground that, according to its established policy, the gold bearing region, if within the proper boundaries of Venezuela, cannot be taken from Venezuela, and that Great Britain, under a pretense of fixing a boundary, must not encroach upon the territory of any of the countries upon this continent, or plant new colonies upon it.

Gold having been found in Alaska, it is said that Great Britain is about to start a controversy in which she will claim that the newly discovered gold there has been found within the limits of her dominion.

England maintains impregnable fortifications at Halifax, Bermuda, Esquimault, and various other places on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America as naval stations, from whence she can send, on a moment's notice, sufficient force to bombard and burn our seaport cities or like cities of any of our sister republics. It is certainly not pleasant for us or for any other America republic to realize that these fortifications that darken all the coasts of America are stations for the colossal navies of Great Britain, and that iron-clad ships, armed with all the modern implements of swift destruction, may issue from those stations and, within twenty-four hours after orders received, assail and destroy the seaports of America. And it is especially unpleasant and embarrassing for us and our sister republics to be compelled to hold debates with Great Britain for the settlement of these constantly recurring controversies while she stands with her arm of power uplifted ready to strike us or them on the instant at a vital point.

Spain, having given up her once extended possessions on the American continent, now claims dominion in the western hemisphere only over the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. The past history of Cuba, and the desperate revolutionary struggle now going on there, sufficiently demonstrate that the