and going over to the Spanish doctrine of taxing dependencies at the discretion of the governing State. Already one of these dependencies is in arms struggling for liberty against us. Read the threats of the imperialists against these people, who dare to rebel against us, and see whether I am misstating or exaggerating the corruption of imperialism on ourselves. The question is once more, whether we are prepared to repudiate the principles which we have been insisting on for one hundred and fifty years, and to embrace those of which Spain is the oldest and most conspicuous representative, or not.
In regard to this matter of taxation and revenue, the present English colonial system is as unjust to the mother-country as the old system was to the colonies, or more so. The colonies now tax the mother-country. She pays large expenses for their advantage, for which they return nothing. They set up tax barriers against her trade with them. I do not believe that the United States will ever consent to any such system, and I am clear in the opinion that they never ought to. If the colonies ought not to be made tributary to the mother-country, neither ought the mother-country to be made tributary to them. The proposition to imitate England's colonial policy is evidently made without the necessary knowledge of what it means, and it proves that those who thrust aside prudent objections by declaring off-hand that we will imitate England have not any serious comprehension of what it is that they propose to us to do.
The conclusion of this branch of the subject is that it is fundamentally antagonistic to our domestic system to hold dependencies which are unfit to enter into the Union. Our system cannot be extended to take them in or adjusted to them to keep them out without sacrificing its integrity. If we take in dependencies which, as we now
