I paid
the debt. I brought in conciliation and peace instead of war. I devised
the homestead system. I covered the prairie and the plain with happy
homes and with mighty states. I crossed the continent and joined
together the seas with my great railroads. I declared the manufacturing
independence of America, as my fathers affirmed its political
independence. I made my country the richest, freest, strongest, happiest
people on the face of the earth."
And now what have we to say? Are we to have a place in that honorable
company? Must we engrave on that column, "We repealed the Declaration of
Independence. We changed the Monroe doctrine from a doctrine of eternal
righteousness and justice, resting on the consent of the governed, to a
doctrine of brutal selfishness, looking only to our own advantage. We
crushed the only republic in Asia. We made war on the only Christian
people in the East. We converted a war of glory to a war of shame. We
vulgarized the American flag. We introduced perfidy into the practice of
war. We inflicted torture on unarmed men to extort confession.
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