William Howard Taft on America and the Philippines: Equality, Natural Rights, and Imperialism

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William Howard Taft on America and the Philippines

Equality, Natural Rights, and Imperialism

John Grant1

The Two Traditions in American Foreign Policy

William Howard Taft stood at the juncture of two traditions in Amer-ican foreign policy: the Founders’ tradition, and the Progressives’.

Taft’s recent predecessor Grover Cleveland understood the principles that should guide America in foreign affairs in essentially the same way as America’s Founders. Cleveland thought the social compact theory of the founding provided the correct theoretical framework to address con-temporary foreign policy issues; he did not think that changed historical circumstances necessitated new principles. Cleveland opposed American annexation of Hawaii for two reasons: the Hawaiians had not consented to American intervention, and the rights of American were not threat-ened. He believed that America could legitimately occupy the islands only “by consent or as . . . necessitated by dangers threatening American life and property.”2

These two points— consent and the protection of individual rights— summarize the central issues of the social compact theory that animated the American founding and provide coherence and meaning to the Con-stitution. The public consensus of the founding, manifested in documents such as the Declaration of Independence, held that “all men are created equal” and “endowed . . . with certain inalienable rights” and that “to secure

Tom West

Text Box

copied from Toward an American Conservatism: Constitutional Conservatism during the Progressive Era, ed. Joseph Postell and Johnathan O’Neill (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

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these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”3

Cleveland still accepted the social compact theory of the founding, but the burgeoning Progressive movement challenged the primacy of that teaching in the late 1800s. Progressive thought openly rejected the core principles of the founding. Political scientist Charles Merriam, writing in 1904, offered a clear summary of the Progressive consensus on the social compact theory and foreign policy, as that consensus had emerged over the previous two decades. First, the idea that legitimate government is a social contract made by free, equal, and independent human beings was denied.4 “The notion that political society and government are based upon a con-tract between independent individuals and that such a contract is the sole source of political obligation is no longer tenable,” Merriam explained.5 The Progressives especially repudiated the teaching of the Founders that all men are equally endowed with a natural right to liberty: “Liberty . . . is not a right equally enjoyed by all. It is dependent upon the degree of civiliza-tion reached by the given people, and increases as this advances.”6

The denial of the natural liberty and equality of all human beings explains the Progressives’ rejection of the principles of the founding as they relate to foreign policy. Merriam succinctly described the rationale for the Progressive embrace of imperialism.7 He maintained that “the Teu-tonic nations are particularly endowed with political capacity. Their mis-sion in the world is the political civilization of mankind.”8 This means “the Teutonic races must civilize the politically uncivilized. They must have a colonial policy.” The Teutonic races occupy a station that entails harsh con-sequences for the non- Teutonic peoples: “Barbaric races, if incapable, may be swept away; and such action ‘violates no rights of these populations which are not petty and trifling in comparison with its transcendent right and duty to establish political and legal order everywhere.’”9 Adherents of the social compact theory, from the Founders to Lincoln and Cleveland, thought that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed. Rule without consent is only licit when the necessity to secure American rights from injury requires it.10

Taft partly rejected and partly accepted the social compact theory of the founding in his foreign policy. He rejected the need for the consent of the governed for legitimate government, but he retained the belief that the primary purpose of government is the security of rights. We will see that Taft’s belief in natural rights places him outside the mainstream of Progressive thought. Taft’s adherence to natural rights and the policy con-sequences of that view point back to a consideration of the wisdom of the principles of the founding, but his turning away from the consent of

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the governed helped promote the tendency toward Progressive imperial-ism undertaken for the benefit of less advanced peoples.

A summary view of the foreign policy that follows from the principles of the social compact theory of the founding will help us grasp Taft’s argu-ments with greater clarity.

The Social Compact Theory and American Foreign Policy: The Security of Rights

The basic principles of the foreign policy of the social compact theory of the founding are unambiguous and relatively easy to grasp.11 The connec-tion between principles and policies is less obvious: we will focus on inde-pendence or freedom of action as the key policy necessary to making the foreign policy of the founding effectual. It is also important to consider how the Founders would respond to the Progressive claim that changes in historical context require new principles.

The Founders thought the chief purpose of government was the secu-rity of the rights of those human beings who had agreed to live together in the same social compact. All human beings have rights, but government is bound to secure only the rights of its own citizens. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 has a clear formulation of the consensus view of the founding on the principles that should inform sound foreign policy: “The end of the institution, maintenance and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic; to protect it; and to furnish the individuals who compose it, with the power of enjoying . . . in safety and tranquility, their natural rights.”12

The careful articulation of this doctrine is very instructive. The first purpose of government is to preserve the “body politic,” which includes the physical existence of the territory as well as the whole regime or way of life of the people who have agreed to live together in civil society; we should think first of the perpetuation of the whole political order. The security of the “natural rights” of the “individuals” who make up the society is second-ary to the preservation of the regime. Individual rights will obviously not be secure if the whole is not preserved. The security of individual natural rights should always be a consideration, but it is not the fundamental pri-ority of the regime.13

The Massachusetts Constitution’s account of the role of the gover-nor as commander- in- chief further clarifies the principles that animated the social compact theory of the founding. The governor is to train and assemble the armed forces “for the special defence and safety of the Com-monwealth.”14 The armed forces are to employ force at home and abroad

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against “all and every such persons as shall, at any time hereafter, in a hos-tile manner, attempt . . . the destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance of this Commonwealth.”15 For the Founders, foreign policy was fundamen-tally defensive. They understood enemies to be those who have harmed or who intend to harm the body politic. There was no mandate to go forth and civilize other nations in the social compact theory of the founding.

The Social Compact Theory and Foreign Policy: Equality and Consent

Such a mandate to spread republican government would be incompatible with the fundamental principles of the political theory of the founding. The chief purpose of government for the Founders was the preservation of the body politic and the security of individual rights. Government must respect the rights of all human beings, but it is bound only to secure the rights of its own citizens. The Founders held that the basis of legitimate government was the consent of the governed. The Massachusetts Consti-tution explained the ground of legitimate government in equality and the consequent necessity for consent in the following way: “The body- politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: It is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by laws for the common good.” Consent, or “voluntary association,” is required because “all men are born free and equal.”16 Being “born free” means that all human beings are born free of nonconsensual political rule; being born equal means that consent or “volun-tary association” is necessary for political rule to be legitimate.17

The Founders thought that government’s primary responsibility is to secure the existence of the body politic and the natural rights of the mem-bers of that body politic or social compact. The natural equality of all men mandates that legitimate government be based on the consent of the gov-erned. These principles necessarily preclude denying the rights of others for any other reason than securing American rights that have been harmed or are threatened with harm. In other words, imperialism or rule without con-sent, even for the benefit of those ruled involuntarily, cannot be legitimate.

The most obvious denial of equality and consent as the necessary corol-lary to equality is slavery.18 Slavery is the domestic parallel to imperialism in foreign affairs. The Founders understood slavery to include not only the black chattel slaves widely held in the Southern states but also any kind of political rule without the consent of those who are ruled. During the pre- Revolutionary dispute with Britain over taxation without representation, Founder John Dickinson declared that “those who are taxed without their


own consent, expressed by themselves or their representatives, are slaves. We are taxed without our own consent, expressed by ourselves or our rep-resentatives. We are therefore— SLAVES.”19 An official publication of Essex, Massachusetts, expressed the same idea this way: “political liberty is the right every man in the state has, to do whatever is not prohibited by laws, TO WHICH HE HAS GIVEN HIS CONSENT.”20 To rule human beings without their consent is slavery; conversely, liberty cannot exist where con-sent is denied. It is not possible to provide liberty while denying consent and the equality principle.

The connection between slavery and foreign policy can be seen in John Quincy Adams’s famous attack on the idea that America should seek to vindicate the freedom and independence of other nations. He argued that American involvement in the purely internal affairs of other peoples would cause the “fundamental maxims of [American] policy . . . [to] insensibly change from liberty to force.” America “might become the dictatress of the world.” But in that case “she would no longer be the mis-tress of her own spirit.”21 Adams meant that ruling other peoples with-out consent in the absence of a threat to the security of American rights would corrupt the American character.

This discussion parallels Thomas Jefferson’s explanation of the corrupt-ing effects of slavery on the character of both the rulers and the ruled: “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.”22 The Founders taught that a class of despots ruling over a people habituated to servility is inimical to free government and the security of rights.23

The Principles of the Founding and Historical Progress

By 1900, the Progressives commonly claimed that the historical circum-stances had changed, rendering the founding principles obsolete. The rise of large corporations and a superior knowledge of science were often cited to prove that these changes necessitated new principles. America in the late eighteenth century was not the world power it had become by Taft’s day.24 The social compact doctrines of human equality and individual natural rights were rejected; instead of free and equal individuals possessing rights by nature, the state or society was often portrayed as an organic unity that was going through a human life cycle— from infancy to adulthood. History and historical facts rather than abstract principle became the new standard by which justice should be understood.25 The Progressive rejection of the

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doctrines of equality and individual natural rights was essential to justify the new foreign policy of imperialism.

The Founders certainly understood that historical circumstances could and would change in important ways; political science rightly understood must take account of different contexts and advances in knowledge. For instance, in The Federalist Hamilton famously noted that there had been important improvements in the science of politics that made republican government possible in America: “The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients.”26 They understood that progress in the science of politics had occurred, and they also understood that differences in historical con-text must be taken into account. But, unlike the Progressives, they denied that advances in knowledge or changes in circumstances could require new principles. Historical events do not cause a change in principles; a study of these experiences instead confirms that human nature does not change.

Federalist 6 provides us with a cogent example of the Founders’ under-standing of the relationship between history and human nature. In this paper, Hamilton addresses the arguments of “visionary, or designing men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the states, though dismembered and alienated from each other.” The funda-mental presupposition of those who believe that neighboring states can live in a state of perpetual peace is that “Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual amity and concord.” The proponents of perpetual peace based their arguments on the advent of the modern commercial repub-lic; the “spirit of commerce” that animates the commercial republic, as opposed to the armed camps of ancient Greece, supposedly “has a ten-dency to soften the manners of men, and to extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into wars.”27

Hamilton rejected the possibility of a permanent peace between com-mercial republics. He argued that these “visionary men” ignored “the uni-form course of human events” and “the accumulated experience of ages.” The study of these phenomena proves that “men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.”28 Hamilton employed a series of examples from ancient Greece and Carthage to recent conflicts between modern commercial republics to prove that human nature does not change: human beings tend to follow their immediate passions and struggle to think clearly about their genuine interests in whatever historical circumstances in which they find themselves.29 Madison expressed the same point when he maintained that it was impossible to remove the causes of faction. It is not possible to remove the causes of faction because “the latent causes of faction are . . .


sown in the nature of man.”30 In the Founders’ view, in short, different historical circumstances or institutional arrangements do not alter human nature: increased trade, arms control agreements, or open diplomacy will not change the human propensity toward ambitious, vindictive, and rapa-cious behavior.

Independence as the Key Foreign Policy Following from the Principles of the Founding

For the most part, particular policies dealing with foreign affairs must be changeable according to circumstances. Policy must be subordinated to the overall goal of securing American rights. However, there is one particular policy that, according to the social compact theory of the founding, must be followed with uncompromising rigidity. For the Founders, it was never acceptable for the United States to forgo freedom of action or indepen-dence in international affairs.

The Founders thought that independence was the chief means to the end of securing American rights in foreign policy.31 As we have seen, inde-pendence, freedom, and equality were convertible terms in the political theory of the founding. A nation that is not independent lacks the freedom to determine how best to secure the existence of the whole nation and the natural rights of individual citizens. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, only a free nation can occupy the “separate and equal sta-tion” that makes it possible “to do all . . . Acts and Things which Indepen-dent States may of right do.” The “Acts and Things” that free and equal nations can perform include the “full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, [and] establish commerce.” A nation that is dependent or unfree cannot exercise the “full Power” of making choices concerning the use of force and commercial intercourse with other nations in order to best secure rights and promote national prosperity.

A foreign policy of independence is necessary, in the words of George Washington’s farewell address, if the United States is to “choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall Counsel.”32 This pithy phrase summarizes the criteria employed by the Founders in foreign policy. We must consider our interest or what is good for us, but considerations of our interest can never be divorced from justice, which requires respect for other nations’ right to liberty and independence. Washington employed this formulation because he wanted to make it clear that following the social compact theory of the founding is both good for us and just toward other nations. He advised the United States to “observe good faith and justice toward all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion

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and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?”33 The Founders thought that there would generally be no disjunction between justice and effective policy; a foreign policy that secures our rights while respecting the rights of others will be both just and efficacious.

Washington famously advocated a number of means to avoid com-promising American freedom of action. For instance, “inveterate antipa-thies” as well as the “passionate attachment of one Nation for another” are both to be eschewed. Washington argued that “the Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.” This form of slavery or dependence is pernicious because it often harms the “peace” and “liberty” of nations that indulge in irrational passions toward other nations.34 Policymakers must keep themselves free of unreasonable affections or hatreds if they are to apply the principles of the social compact theory properly.

Freedom from passion must be accompanied by freedom from what Washington termed “political connections” or “permanent alliances.” He argued that “the Great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little politi-cal connection as possible.” Political connections and permanent alliances should be kept to a bare minimum because nations have different “primary interests.”35 Different nations cannot always share the same critical inter-ests because each nation, occupying its separate and equal status under the laws of nature and nature’s God, must first and foremost seek its own preservation. Political connections and permanent alliances deny nations the freedom of action necessary to secure their rights in the most effective way possible.

The only constraint a nation should freely accept is to be bound by the laws of nature and nature’s God to respect the rights of all human beings while securing the rights of its own citizens. In “extraordinary emergen-cies,” it is acceptable for a nation to “trust to temporary alliances.”36 In other words, a temporary alliance or minimal political connection is acceptable when needed to ensure the security of American rights.

John Quincy Adams further developed this point. We have seen that Adams thought that ruling other peoples without their consent when there is no threat to American rights would corrode the American character. He also explained the problems associated with compromising our indepen-dence through political connections with other nations even in the cause of promoting freedom in other nations. America is “the well- wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” America can only seek to secure her own rights because “enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners


of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue . . . which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.” If we were to go forth “in search of monsters to destroy,” the principles that animate our policies “would insensibly change from liberty to force.” America “might become the dic-tatress of the world,” but “she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”37 Political connections, even those formed to advance a humanitar-ian imperialism, not only lead to the corruption of our principles; they also hinder the freedom of action necessary to the security of American rights.

The Debate on the Philippines and the Turn to Imperialism

The defeat of Spain by the United States in the Spanish- American War raised the question of what was to be done with the former Spanish ter-ritories. This chapter concentrates on William Howard Taft’s views on how America should deal with the Philippines in particular in the wake of the war. Taft dealt with this question as governor of the Philippines and later as president and chief justice of the Supreme Court. The various roles Taft held gave him a unique view of the theoretical, practical, and legal issues relating to the American turn to acquiring a foreign empire.38 The arguments he made relating to the Philippines are also especially reveal-ing because American rule there was not based on a threat to American national security and did not involve the Monroe Doctrine. In other words, there were no pressing concerns related to geographic proximity or secu-rity driving American policy in the islands. The argument for American empire in this instance was not encumbered by considerations of urgent necessity; Taft’s case for ruling the Filipinos without their consent was based on philanthropic arguments.

Taft rejected the anti- imperialist arguments advanced by defenders of the social compact theory, such as Massachusetts Republican Senator George F. Hoar, but he did not fully adopt the Progressive imperialism advocated by Indiana Republican Senator Albert Beveridge. It is impor-tant to note that while not all Progressives were imperialists, the politically dominant, electorally successful element of the Progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century endorsed imperialism.39

A small minority of Republicans and parts of the Democratic Party criticized American rule in the Philippines on the basis of the social com-pact theory of the founding. Hoar restated the position of the Founders with great clarity. He understood the great issue to be “whether Congress may conquer and may govern, without their consent and against their will, a foreign nation, a separate, distinct, and numerous people, a territory

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not . . . to be formed into American states.”40 The idea that America could rule the Philippines entailed the “right to conquer, hold, and govern a subject people of ten millions, without any constitutional restraint, such people being entitled to no constitutional rights, but subject to the uncon-trolled will of the American Congress.” Hoar saw, with the Founders, that the denial of consent deprived the Filipino people “of the equality which the Declaration of Independence . . . declares they were created.”41 He believed that imperialism abroad was the equivalent of slavery at home. Hoar related Abraham Lincoln’s argument on slavery to imperialism in this way: “Mr. President, Abraham Lincoln said, ‘No man was ever created good enough to own another.’ No nation was ever created good enough to own another.”42

The Democratic Party Platform of 1900 also criticized the acquisition of the Philippines from the perspective of the Declaration of Independence. The platform states: “We hold . . . that the Declaration of Independence is the spirit of our government, of which the Constitution is the form and the letter. We declare again that all governments instituted among men derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The platform goes on to specifically condemn imperialism: “To impose upon any people a government of force is to substitute the methods of imperialism for those of a republic.” The Democratic Party of 1900 still agreed with the Found-ers and Lincoln that there is an intrinsic relationship between imperial-ism and domestic slavery: “We assert that no nation can long endure half republic and half empire, and we warn the American people that imperial-ism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.”43 The Democrats were echoing Lincoln’s famous remark on the eve of the Civil War: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.”44

The turn to imperialism led to a major change in the character of consti-tutional government insofar as it affects the government of American terri-tory. Before the Spanish- American War, all territory acquired by the United States was obtained with a view to eventual statehood. There was no doubt that the Constitution applied in the territories; in other words, the Consti-tution followed the flag. This view follows from the social compact theory of the founding, and it was clearly summarized by Chief Justice John Mar-shall in the 1818 case Loughborough v. Blake. Marshall maintained that ter-ritories of the United States were “in a state of infancy advancing toward manhood, and looking forward to complete equality so soon as that state of manhood shall be attained.”45 Territories of the United States must be nascent states if the principles of the founding are followed. Perpetual ter-ritorial status would necessarily entail a denial of equality, since territories are not represented in Congress. This is why Marshall, as an adherent of the


social compact theory of the founding, saw that territories were as children in relation to the adult states; the children must be allowed to grow up and assume their place among the adults.

Progressives such as Senator Beveridge simply rejected all the key ele-ments of the social compact theory of the founding. Beveridge maintained that the principles of the founding were not relevant to the question of governing the Philippines: “The Declaration has no application to the present situation. It was written by self- governing men for self- governing men.” Not all men have the right to govern themselves. “Self- government is no base and common thing to be bestowed on the merely audacious. It is the degree which crowns the graduate of liberty, not the name of liberty’s infant class, who have not yet mastered the alphabet of freedom.” For Beveridge, liberty is not an inalienable natural right possessed equally by all human beings. Progressives such as Beveridge and Merriam held that liberty is earned through a process of historical education and develop-ment. Americans are adults in the full possession of liberty; the Filipinos are in the “infant class” because they are racially inferior and have no expe-rience of self- government, according to Beveridge: “They are not capable of self- government. How could they be. They are not of a self- governing race. They are Orientals, Malays, instructed by the Spaniards in the lat-ter’s worst estate.” It would require a miracle to transform the supposedly racially inferior Filipinos into a people capable of self- government: “What alchemy will change the Oriental quality of their blood and set the self- governing currents of the American pouring through their Malay veins?” Another miracle would be required to make up for the lack of historical experience related to self- government: “How shall they, in the twinkling of an eye, be exalted to the heights of self- governing peoples which required a thousand years for us to reach, Anglo- Saxon though we are?”46

Beveridge did not merely maintain that it was acceptable for the United States to rule the Philippines without the consent of the Filipino people; he claimed that America had a divine right to govern the Philippines with-out the consent of the governed. For Progressives like Beveridge, American rule in the Philippines was not merely a matter of partisan politics or a constitutional question. American governance of the islands raised a more fundamental question than ordinary politics or constitutional law— it was “elemental” and “racial.” Beveridge proclaimed that “God has not been pre-paring the English- speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self- contemplation and self- admiration. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction through-out the earth.” The “spirit of progress” and American ability in government were given by God “to administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this, the world would relapse into

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barbarism and night.” Beveridge was happy to admit that America should and would obtain economic benefits through occupation of the Philip-pines, but this was a secondary consideration.47 The primary point was the spread of progress; American rule would bring civilization and security to the Filipino people.48

American expansion and governance of “savage” and “senile” peoples was necessary if progress was to be furthered. For Beveridge, if America were to adhere to the principles of the founding, which entails a rejection of imperialism, it would have meant a “relapse into barbarism and night.” Government that operated according to the consent of the governed was right for developed peoples, but rule by consent was not for benighted non- Teutonic races that lacked long experience with self- government. Beveridge and Merriam represent a powerful strain of Progressivism that denied the equality of all human beings and hence the necessity for govern-ment to obtain the consent of the governed; the idea that human beings possess rights as human being was also rejected.

Taft’s Semi- Progressivism: America’s Mission in the World

Unlike many of the Progressive figures we have just examined, Taft did not defend American rule in the Philippines based on the goodness of the expan-sion of Teutonic civilization and political power. He was initially opposed to annexation of the islands. Taft’s recollection of the advice he gave to Presi-dent Roosevelt illustrates his general view of imperialism in relation to the militant Progressivism of Beveridge and the attempt to defend the prin-ciples of the founding made by Hoar: “I told [Roosevelt] I was very much opposed to taking [the Philippines], that I did not favor expansion . . . I dep-recated our taking the Philippines because of the assumption of a burden by us contrary to our traditions and at a time when we had quite enough to do at home.”49

The grounds of Taft’s early opposition to annexation of the Philippines are a clear instance of his partial acceptance and partial rejection of the Progressive position. He lacked the messianic fervor that animated Bev-eridge, Roosevelt, and Merriam to bring Progressive civilization to non- Teutonic peoples, but his opposition to annexation was not based on the natural law principles of the social compact theory of the founding. Taft first disapproved of annexation because it was against our “traditions” and inexpedient given the press of domestic concerns. In other words, he did not have any principled basis on which to base his opposition to governing the Filipinos without their consent.


Taft was keenly aware of the arguments advanced by Senator Hoar maintaining that American rule in the Philippines violated the principles of the Declaration of Independence. He told Roosevelt, “I did not agree with Senator Hoar and his followers, that the Philippines were capable of self- government or that we were violating any principles of our govern-ment or the Declaration of Independence so far as they were concerned, that I thought we were doing them great good.”50 Taft’s initial disapproval of American annexation of the Philippines was not principled, and he made it clear from the very beginning that he thought it was good for the Filipino people.

Taft disagreed with Beveridge, Merriam, and Roosevelt insofar as he did not think that America had a duty to expand to bring advanced Teutonic civilization to the inferior people of the Philippines. We will see that he consistently defended American imperialism in the islands on the basis that it was good for the Filipinos; on this point Taft’s imperialism was in agreement with Beveridge, Merriam, and Roosevelt.

True, Taft did not demand that America expand to rule less developed peo-ples, but he did think that America had not only the right but also the duty to rule other nations in some circumstances: “We are living in an age when the intervention of a stronger nation in the affairs of a people unable to maintain a government of law and order to assist the latter to better government becomes a national duty and works for the progress of the world.” Taft specifically praised the Japanese rule of Korea as an instance of the beneficent rule of a less- advanced nation by an advanced people: “No matter what reports come . . . the world will have confidence that Prince Ito and the Japanese Government are pursuing a policy in Korea that will make for justice and civilization and the welfare of a backward people.”51

In defending his part in America’s policy toward the Philippines as a candidate for president, Taft described America’s obligation in this way: “As a great rich nation . . . whenever fate shall thrust a poor, unfortunate people upon our hands, it is our duty, exactly as it is the duty of the fortunate in a community, to aid the unfortunate, and we cannot escape . . . the direct responsibility that we now have to the Filipino people.”52 As president, he offered a similar account of America’s duty: “[I] do believe that nations are like members of a community . . . where the wealthy and the power-ful and the more fortunate owe it to the weaker and the less fortunate to assist them when circumstances point in that direction.”53 This, of course, means that at least in some cases stronger, richer, Progressive nations have a duty to rule weaker, poorer peoples without their consent. Taft clearly maintained that the United States had a moral obligation to engage in the imperialism condemned by the Founders.

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Taft did think that American imperialism should be limited by Ameri-can traditions and domestic concerns. But these limits were not principled obstacles for Taft; they are trumped, at least in some circumstances, by a moral obligation to bring progress to less developed peoples. There is at least one grave problem with this position. Who is to judge when our tra-ditions and problems at home do not inhibit imperialism? The lack of a principled standard encourages willfulness; the indigenous peoples have no right to consent, and there is no permanent natural law standard to guide the leader or ruling class making the decision. If we set aside the fun-damental problem of ruling human beings without consent, we still have to ask what restrains the advanced peoples from making decisions about the less advanced peoples that are not based on considerations of progress and civilization.

Taft’s Tie to the Founding: The Security of Rights and Race

For Progressives like Beveridge and Merriam, there were no inherent limits to the rule of less developed peoples by advanced Teutonic nations such as the United States. Merriam even went so far as to suggest that races “inca-pable” of development “may be swept away.”54 Taft denied the right of a progressive nation to sweep away other peoples under any circumstances. His belief in the natural rights of all human beings prevented him from adopting the radical ideas advanced by unmitigated Progressive imperial-ists like Beveridge and Merriam.55

It is striking that Taft’s justification for imperialism is also his argu-ment that limited the rule of the less- advanced Filipino people by the advanced United States. Taft believed that it was just to rule the Filipino people without their consent, but he always affirmed that the Filipinos possessed rights. He consistently maintained that it was the duty of the United States to secure the rights of the Filipinos until they had learned to govern themselves.

Taft was president of the commission appointed to govern the Philip-pines. He was the final authority in the islands on what measures were to be taken.56 The instructions to the Second Philippines Commission from President McKinley were drafted by Taft and his immediate supe-rior, Elihu Root, the secretary of war; Taft was the author of the document that described his authority and its limits.57 His political biographer, Henry Pringle, succinctly described the great powers wielded by Taft in the Philip-pines: “Taft was, to a marked degree, a dictator in the archipelago . . . The politicos of the Philippines disagreed with his policies, of course, but in the last analysis Taft could impose his own will. His voice was the law.”58


The dictatorial powers wielded by Taft were also limited by Taft. In an early speech to the Filipinos, Taft explained the self- imposed limits on American rule this way: “The high and sacred obligation to give protec-tion for property and life, civil and religious freedom and wise and unself-ish guidance in the paths of peace and prosperity to all the people of the Philippine Islands is charged upon us . . . by the President of the United States.”59 Six years later, Taft expressed the parameters of American policy in the islands in the same manner. America had only two options in Taft’s view: “One is a permanent maintenance of a popular government of law and order under American control, and the other, a parting with such con-trol to the people of the Islands . . . after they have become fitted to main-tain a government in which the right of all the inhabitants to life, liberty, and property shall be secure.”60 The Philippines may or may not be inde-pendent, but the rights of the Filipino people must be secured.

It is obvious that Taft used the language of the founding in describing the rights of the Filipinos: government exists to secure life, liberty (includ-ing religious liberty), and property. These abstract principles found con-crete expression in the actual government of the Philippines. It is true that the Filipinos were not promised independence. The United States would decide if independence would be granted, and in the meantime Amer-ica was the ultimate authority in the islands. But American government “secured to the Philippine people all the guaranties of our Bill of Rights except trial by jury and the right to bear arms.”61 The Philippines Act of 1902, the congressional statute that provided for American rule in the Islands, contained a very thorough list of rights described in Article I, sec-tions 9 and 10 of the US Constitution as well as most of the Bill of Rights. These rights included the equal protection of the laws and habeas corpus.62

Taft’s recognition of the rights of Filipinos sets him apart from Pro-gressives such as Beveridge and Merriam. As we have seen, Beveridge and Merriam both justified American imperialism by the right of a superior Teutonic people to rule inferior races without the consent of the inferior peoples.63 Taft consistently refused to adopt this position.64 He ascribed the lack of political development in the Philippines principally to climate rather than race: “The parts of the earth which have been retarded, the places where there is the greatest field of progressive work, both mate-rial, intellectual, and moral, are in the tropical countries.” Taft thought advances in medicine made it possible for the advanced peoples inhabit-ing the temperate zones to bring progress to the tropics; it was necessary to bring advanced civilization to the tropics because the temperate zones had been largely occupied: “If we demonstrate that it is possible for people purely tropical to be educated and lifted above the temptations to idleness and savagery and cruelty and torpor that have thus far retarded the races

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born under the equatorial sun, we shall be pointing another important way to improve the civilization of the world.”65

Taft described this as the “Philippine Question.” To be more precise, the question was “Can the dominion of a great and prosperous civilized nation in the temperate zone exercise a healthful and positively beneficial influ-ence upon the growth and development of a tropical people?” It seems that for Taft climate exercised a determinative influence on the nature of a people. This means that America had to alter the nature of the Filipino people, which had hitherto been controlled by the tropical climate: “What we have to do is in a sense to change their nature; it is to furnish it, by developing their physical and intellectual wants, a motive for doing work which does not exist under their present conditions.” This change had to come from without: “The tropical people cannot lift themselves as the Anglo- Saxons and other peoples of the cold and temperate zones, where the inclemency and rigors of the climate demand effort and require labor, have lifted themselves.”66

Taft believed that the Filipinos had rights, but they were not able to develop the capacity for independence themselves due to the influence of the tropical climate. If free government was to take root in the Philippines, it would have to be transplanted by Anglo- Saxons formed in a temperate clime. It seems that the rights of the Filipinos recognized by the American government were the essential rights of human beings, although Taft mostly avoided the language of abstract principles of justice; the rights not recog-nized were apparently regarded as latent or potential. They would be fully developed under the generous tutelage of the wise and good United States.

Official United States policy in the islands involved the recognition of a robust set of rights for the Filipinos from the beginning. For Taft, the security of rights was to be coupled with eventual independence. His initial instructions were that the people of the Philippines “were to be given the greatest possible degree of influence in their own affairs.”67 In a speech at Yale, Taft said that “the great principle to guide us is that we are to govern the Philippine Islands in accordance with the maxim ‘the Philip-pines for the Filipinos.’”68 This remained his position as long as he was responsible for American policy in the Philippines. In a speech opening the Philippine Assembly, Taft described the program of the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations in this manner: “The avowed policy . . . under these two Presidents has been and is to govern the Islands . . . and by the spread of . . . education and by practice in partial political control to fit the people themselves to maintain a stable and well- ordered government affording equality of right . . . to all citizens.”69

In the presidential campaign of 1908, Taft defended Republican policy against Democratic charges of imperialism: “The Republican Party . . .


policy . . . is that of continuing a government in which every effort is being made to give the people of the Islands education and also experience in self- government, in order that the time may come . . . when it will be safe . . . to give them complete control.” He thought this may take “one generation or two.”70 Shortly after this, Taft clarified his position: “It is quite unlikely that the people, because of the dense ignorance of 90 percent, will be ready for complete self- government and independence before two generations have passed.” Independence may take decades to attain, but in the meantime he advocated a “policy of increasing partial self- government step by step as the people shall show themselves fit for it.”71

Taft denied the charges of imperialism for the following reasons: first, the United States was securing the rights of the Filipinos; second, the Fili-pinos were not prepared for self- government, but they would be granted independence when they were ready. Taft was concerned with justice, but he did not fully agree with the social compact theory of the founding about the meaning of justice. He did think that the first purpose of government was the security of rights, and he was concerned about independence for the Filipinos. But he did not think the consent of the governed was neces-sary. His sincere concern for Philippine independence was tempered by his argument that the United States would decide when the Filipinos were ready for self- government.

There is another aspect of Taft’s teaching on rights that merits consid-eration. He never attempted to justify American rule of the Philippines as necessary for the security of the rights of American citizens. From the per-spective of the Founders, a threat to individual rights of American citizens or to American national independence is the one thing that would have justified ruling the Filipinos without their consent.72 Taft instead empha-sized American responsibility to secure the rights of the Filipinos. This is inconsistent with the social compact theory of the founding: the social compact exists only to secure the rights of the citizens who make up that social compact through their voluntary consent.

Taft’s Rejection of the Founding: Consent, Imperialism, and Slavery

The point where Taft simply parted ways with the Founders was on the issue of consent: he was closest to the theory of the founding in his position on the rights of individual Filipinos to life, liberty, and property. But there are problems with Taft’s argument on rights that relate to his denial of the need for legitimate government to obtain the consent of the governed. Taft was proud of the fact that the Filipinos were granted all the constitutional rights of Americans with the exception of the right to bear arms and the

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right to a jury trial. It is illustrative to consider why he considered it neces-sary to deny the Filipinos these rights.

In testimony to Congress, Taft argued that “it would be a great mistake” for the United States to grant the Filipinos all the rights provided for in the US Constitution. The right to bear arms and the right to a jury trial “should be withheld from the people until they learn a self- restraint that can only be learned after practice, and the advantage of the example of self- government which, by a gradual course, we hope to give them.”73 As noted, it seems that Taft considered these rights to be latent or to exist merely in potential. The task of the United States was to make the rights actual.

A consideration of what it means to deny these rights points us to the connection between rights, equality, and consent. Taft believed that it was important to secure the right to life. But the denial of the right of the Fili-pinos to bear arms meant that they were effectively prevented from exer-cising this right for themselves. The contrasting view of the Founders is illustrated by the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. From the perspective of the founding, “the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state.”74 The Filipino people were denied the right to bear arms, essentially making it impossible for them to defend their own rights. American rule would secure the lives of the Filipinos, or they would not be secured. The Founders also understood that the denial of the right to bear arms renders the natural right to liberty insecure. St. George Tucker, a prominent early American legal commentator, argued that “wherever . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”75 From this perspective, a situation where the rights to life and liberty are only held at the sufferance of others is essentially slavery.

The denial of the right to a jury trial presents similar problems. This measure effectively precluded inclusion of the Filipinos in the judicial system; the people of the Philippines simply had to trust that they would be treated justly by the courts. The consent or free choice of the Filipino people was not recognized in relation to their right to preserve their own lives or participate in a judicial process that should secure their rights. The Philippines Act of 1902 guaranteed the Filipinos the equal protection of the laws and due process, but the denial of the right to bear arms and the right to a jury trial meant that they were effectively prevented from having a role in making sure they actually enjoyed these protections. The Founders thought that trial by a jury composed of one’s peers was a key protection against tyrannical government. Alexander Hamilton maintained that “the trial by jury has been considered, in the system of English jurisprudence, as the palladium of public and private liberty. In all the political disputes of that country, this has been deemed the barrier to secure the subjects from


oppression.” Juries composed of one’s peers secure rights by offering pro-tection “from the weight of state prosecutions.”76 The Founders thought that trial by jury would prevent the arbitrary exercise of state power from harming rights in individual cases; citizens serving on juries would be a check against malicious prosecution. The Filipinos were not allowed to exercise this right to secure their liberty against despotic state action.

Of course the most obvious practical denial of Filipino consent was the lack of elections and representation. As noted, the Philippines were gov-erned by a commission authorized by congressional statute. The Philip-pines Act of 1902 suspended section 1891 of the Revised Statutes of 1878; this section applied the Constitution to territories of the United States.77 Taft and the American government considered the Philippines American terri-tory, and they thought that most of the rights possessed by American citizens were also possessed by Filipinos. But the Filipinos were excluded from the American social compact. The most important consequence of this exclu-sion was the lack of Filipino representation in Congress or a territorial legislature. In one way this was not new. No territory of the United States had ever had representation in Congress, but they were able to establish representation for the territory. The other important difference was, as mentioned earlier, that the lack of representation in Congress had always been understood as a temporary condition.78 The position espoused by Congress and Taft envisioned the Filipinos eventually having the right to representation in a Philippine Assembly and assuming the powers exer-cised by Taft and the commission.79

Even the right to representation in a Philippine Assembly would only come at the discretion of the United States. When a Filipino Assembly was allowed to meet, Taft frankly told them that Congress would decide when the Filipinos were ready for full self- government.80 There was never any serious consideration given to the possibility of the Philippines becoming a state and hence obtaining the right to representation in Congress and participation in federal elections.81 The Filipinos could not be members of the American social compact.

The official American position, reiterated by Taft repeatedly, envi-sioned self- government for the Philippines. But it turns out this position was not unequivocal. Taft stated that the American policy of gradually extending self- government to the Filipinos “must logically reduce and finally end the sovereignty of the United States, unless it shall seem wise to the American and Filipino peoples . . . that the bond shall not be com-pletely severed.”82 Taft told the congressional committee responsible for the Philippines that the islands might obtain independence, or they could theoretically achieve statehood, or they could have a relation with the United States akin to that of Great Britain’s political connection with

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Canada or Australia.83 The United States did in fact embrace a version of the last alternative, a commonwealth style arrangement, with Puerto Rico. There is of course no provision in the Constitution for this condi-tion.84 At any rate, Taft thought an ongoing political relationship without full union under the same social compact was constitutionally permis-sible. The Filipinos were not asked to consent to American rule— would they really have been asked for their consent in a commonwealth or related arrangement? None of the vast overseas territories of the United States that have not been admitted as states have expressly consented to their colonial status.85

We have seen that from the first Taft denied Senator Hoar’s charge that America was not following the principles of the Declaration by ruling the Philippines without the consent of the Filipino people. He did not address the issue of consent at this time; he merely asserted that “we were doing them [the Filipinos] great good.”86 Ten years later, as president, Taft sim-ply refused to answer the criticism that America denied the right of the Filipinos to consent. Senator Tillman, a Democrat from South Carolina, had criticized American policy in the Philippines because the Filipinos were taxed without representation, the example par excellence of tyranny from the American Revolution. Taft replied, “Now my friend the Senator is troubled about taxation without representation and about the Declara-tion of Independence. I am not going into those arguments.” After refusing to answer criticisms based on the principles of the founding, Taft said, “I believe that ten years of government in the Philippines has made that peo-ple a far happier people than they would have been under any other condi-tions that might have been presented by our taking a different course.”87 He acknowledged that the Filipinos would complain and criticize the United States, but “[the Filipinos’] attitude ought not in the slightest degree to affect ours or to take from us the sense of obligation that we should put them on their feet.”88

Closing one’s ears to what Filipinos thought of American rule is cer-tainly one way of responding to the fact that the United States did not have the consent of the Filipino people to rule the Islands. Taft was constant in his views on this matter: American rule is not justified by the consent of the governed; it is legitimate because the United States is serving the common good of the Filipinos, a people wholly incapable of providing for its own common good. In principle this argument is identical to the case made by John C. Calhoun for slavery as a positive good; a principal justification for rule without consent consists in the purported benefits to the ruled.89 Yet, as Lincoln noted, those who argue for the goodness of slavery or rule with-out consent based on the benefits it conveys to the enslaved never choose this alleged good for themselves.90


Taft was careful to differentiate American rule in the Philippines from other forms of contemporary imperialism that he viewed as less humane.91 He contrasted American benevolence with the “enlightened selfishness” of English colonialism. The English “opium policy with respect to Oriental colonies has not been controlled by the highest and purest motives,” he argued. Taft admitted that England had “generally looked after the mate-rial comfort and growth and prosperity of her subjects in tropical colonies” and that the British had promoted “better civilization, justice, and security of life and property.” But Britain, unlike America in the Philippines, tended to devote much less effort to the development of the individual and par-ticipation in limited self- government in her tropical colonies.92

There are good reasons to doubt Taft’s assurances about the altruistic character of American government in the Philippines. Senator Hoar, for one, had as very different assessment: “You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps . . . You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture.” But even if we accept Taft’s boasts of American beneficence, we are still left with the grave problem that the Filipinos had not consented to American rule of the Islands. This was, as Senator Hoar noted, essen-tially a case of claiming “the right to hold in subjugation an unwilling peo-ple, and to impose on them such constitution as you, and not they, think best for them.”93 As we have seen, the Founders were clear that to be ruled in the absence of consent is slavery.

Imperialism, American Independence, and American Character

We mentioned earlier that John Quincy Adams anticipated that any Amer-ican involvement in benevolent imperialism would be detrimental to the character and independence of America. The experience of the Philippines would seem to have vindicated Adams’s fear. Americans became accus-tomed to ruling without consent. At the same time that American admin-istrators were ruling the Filipinos without their consent, Progressives at home were making the case that Americans should accept partial rule by unelected bureaucrats at home.94 As Tiffany Miller has demonstrated, the rejection of freedom abroad was accompanied by domestic measures lim-iting the rights of non- Teutonic peoples on the domestic front.95

Taft was a firm advocate of moral virtue in general and self- control in particular.96 He maintained that popular government could not subsist unless the citizens possessed self- restraint; if self- restraint is lacking, then

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the majority will oppress the minority. All the citizens must submit them-selves equally to the law for free government to work. Elections will inevi-tably be followed by revolutions if self- restraint is lacking: “Now you can not have a decent, popular government unless [the] majority can conquer itself; that is, unless that majority exercises the self- restraint that men with great power ought to exercise if it is to be exercised justly.”97

Taft argued that the Filipinos could not govern themselves because they lacked these necessary virtues. He thought that 90 percent of the people were simply servile, with no desire for self- government, and the 10 per-cent who wished to govern would fall prey to factional infighting among themselves. In Taft’s eyes, the lack of the virtues necessary for free gov-ernment on the part of the Filipinos was a key justification for American governance.98

The Founders and Taft are in agreement with the idea that the virtues of self- restraint and self- assertion are necessary to self- government.99 But the Founders argued that rule in the absence of consent cannot lead to the promotion of these virtues. Nonconsensual rule, as Jefferson observed in regard to the deleterious moral effects of slavery, involves “boisterous pas-sions” and promotes “unremitting despotism” on the part of rulers and “degrading submissions” on the part of the ruled.100 The Founders held that these are not characteristics that assist in the development of the self- restraint and appropriate self- assertion required for free government on the part of both rulers and ruled.

Adherents of the social compact theory of the founding thought that the character needed to perpetuate American independence is undermined by imperialism as well as by slavery. As John Quincy Adams argued, the practice of imperialism will lead America to “be no longer the mistress of her own spirit.”101 A nation that is no longer the ruler of its own spirit is not independent— it is enslaved.

Washington argued that the goal of American foreign policy is to be able to “choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.”102 But if America has a duty, at least in some instances, to rule other peoples without their consent when there is no threat to the rights of Americans, then Washington’s policy is not possible.

Taft’s philanthropic imperialism provides an excellent example of this problem. In 1907, there were tensions between the United States and Japan. Theodore Roosevelt, not known for his timidity, was gravely concerned that American involvement in the Philippines was compromising Amer-ica’s ability to defend herself. He thought that the Philippines were “our heel of Achilles. They are all that makes the present situation with Japan dangerous.”103 America’s rule of the Philippines did not make American rights more secure; the United States was actually made less secure due to


its humanitarian imperialism in the islands.104 America was not allowed to choose peace or war based on her “interest, guided by justice.” Her inde-pendence of action was compromised.

Taft’s Qualified Historicism and the Relevance of the Founding Principles

The Progressives justified their break with the founding by claiming that the core principles of the Founders had been made irrelevant by changing historical circumstances. Taft also argued that America’s changing role in the world justified important changes in American foreign policy.105 At the time of the founding, Taft explained, America was an “infant nation.”106 The “guiding principles” of the founding need to be “adjust[ed] to the con-ditions of today,” he argued.107 Taft asserted that an adult nation that is now a great power must alter its principles to fit the present historical context.

Taft did not claim that changing historical circumstances had altered human nature; yet the Founders would have thought it necessary to dem-onstrate that human nature had changed to justify abandoning their prin-ciples. I suspect that Taft merely accepted the conventional Progressive view that history, and not an unchanging human nature, was the critical standard by which to judge political principles.108 Taft criticized the idea of the social contract as unhistorical. He maintained that “the theory of an original contract . . . is of course not a true statement of what has happened in history.” Taft did, however, admit that the abstract idea of the social con-tract may be helpful as a “working theory” that is “sometimes useful to test the correctness and justice of institutions.”109

The teaching that the Founders’ principles need to be “adjust[ed] to the conditions of today” does not cohere with Taft’s belief that all human beings possess rights, which, if true, is an abstract principle beyond the reach of historical circumstance or fact. The incoherence of Taft’s position is disappointing. His acceptance of the idea of universal rights that exist regardless of historical circumstance points away from the Progressive con-sensus and toward a reconsideration of the principles of the founding. His thought therefore remains stuck in an incoherent halfway house between two coherent but contradictory positions: the Founders’ idea of equality and the Progressives’ rejection of that idea.

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Notes

1. I am indebted to Rebecca Burgess for helpful insights on empire and the American regime and to Thomas G. West and Joseph Postell for numerous useful comments that improved this chapter.

2. Grover Cleveland, “Message to Congress December 18, 1893,” in A Compi-lation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, ed. James D. Richardson (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1909), 9: 467.

3. Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, ed., The Founders’ Constitution (Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 1: 9.

4. In the social compact theory of the founding, the terms free, equal, and inde-pendent all have the same meaning. See, for instance, the first articles of the bills of rights of the Virginia Constitution of 1776 and the Massachusetts Con-stitution of 1780 in Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 6, 11.

5. Charles Merriam, A History of American Political Theories (New York: Mac-millan, 1903), 307.

6. Ibid., 313. 7. I understand imperialism to be rule of foreign peoples without their consent

in the absence of a threat to the security of American rights. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 314. Merriam is quoting prominent political scientist John W. Burgess. 10. The domestic parallel is the incarceration of criminals. This can be seen in

section 1 of the Thirteenth Amendment. 11. In spite of their clarity, standard histories of American foreign policy gen-

erally do not attempt to understand the principles of the founding when describing America’s relations with the world. See the following standard texts for examples: Walter LaFeber, The American Age: United States Foreign Policy from 1750 to the Present (New York: Norton, 1994); Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy: A History (New York: Norton, 1975); Walter McDou-gall, Promised Land, Crusader State (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997); Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).

12. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 11. 13. Abraham Lincoln’s defense of his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is

a useful example of this reasoning in practice. See his “Message to Congress in Special Session” in Roy Basler, Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writ-ings (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2001), 600– 601. Jefferson also has a cogent explanation of this issue in a letter to Colvin. See Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 4: 127.

14. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1:17. 15. Ibid.,1: 18. 16. Ibid., 1: 11. 17. The language of the Virginia Declaration of Rights helps clarify this point.

It teaches that “all men are by nature equally free and independent.” To be born free and independent means to be born independent of political rule. See Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1:6.


18. See Thomas G. West, Vindicating the Founders (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), 1– 36, for a comprehensive and clear treatment of slavery and its relationship to the principles of the founding. Harry V. Jaffa’s Crisis of the House Divided (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) has a very useful account of the relationship of slavery to foreign policy in antebellum America. See especially chapters 4 and 20.

19. John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer, in The Political Writings of John Dick-inson, 1764– 1774, ed. Paul L. Ford (New York: Da Capo, 1970), 356.

20. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 115. 21. John Quincy Adams, “An Address Delivered in Washington, July 4th,

1821,” accessed August 18, 2012, http:// www .freespeaker .org/ policydebate/ foreignpolicy/ johnqadams .html.

22. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 536. 23. See West, Vindicating the Founders, 147– 79, on the consensus view of the

founding on the virtues needed to establish and maintain free government. 24. See Woodrow Wilson, “What Is Progress?” and Theodore Roosevelt, “The Right

of the People to Rule,” in American Progressivism: A Reader, ed. Ronald Pestritto and William Atto (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 51, 256ff.

25. See for instance Woodrow Wilson, “The Ideals of America,” The Atlantic Monthly 90, no. 6 (December 1902): 721– 34, and Merriam, A History of American Political Theories, 305– 13.

26. Alexander Hamilton et al., The Federalist (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001), No. 9, 38.

27. Hamilton, Federalist, No. 6, 23. 28. Ibid., 21. 29. Ibid., 21– 26. 30. Ibid., No. 10, 43. 31. See Matthew Spalding, We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Prin-

ciples, Reclaiming Our Future (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2009), 161– 86. 32. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 685. 33. Ibid., 1: 684. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 1: 685. 36. Ibid. 37. Adams, “An Address Delivered in Washington.” 38. I have benefitted from the comprehensive and erudite treatment of Taft’s

political thought found in Will Morrissey, The Dilemma of Progressivism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 107– 70.

39. From 1900 to 1920, self- described Progressives who approved of imperialism occupied the White House and generally obtained approval of their policies from Congress and the Supreme Court. See Robert L. Beisner, Twelve against Empire (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1968), for a survey of the anti- imperialist movement.

40. George Hoar, No Constitutional Power to Conquer Foreign Nations and Hold Their People in Subjection against Their Will (Washington, DC:, n.p. 1899), 8.

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41. Ibid., 11. 42. Ibid., 25. 43. “Democratic Party Platform of 1900,” accessed August 9, 2012, http:// www

.presidency .ucsb .edu/ ws/ index .php?pid =25987. 44. Robert W. Johannsen, The Lincoln- Douglas Debates (New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1965), 14. 45. Loughborough v. Blake, 18 U.S. 5 Wheat. 317 (1820). The problem of the

justice and constitutionality of American rule of territories that are not destined to become states is examined in Robert Statham, Colonial Con-stitutionalism: The Tyranny of United States’ Offshore Territorial Policy and Relations (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002). See Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman, The Constitution of Empire: Territorial Expansion and American Legal History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), on the history of constitutional law and expansion. The transformation of American consti-tutional law needed to justify American imperialism is thoroughly described by Bartholomew Sparrow, The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006).

46. Albert Beveridge, “Speech in the Senate of 1/9/1900,” 56th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 33, 711.

47. Social scientists like economist Charles Conant made arguments linking race and economics to justify imperialism. This position is complementary to the more overtly idealistic case made by Beveridge, Merriam, and Theo-dore Roosevelt. See Charles Conant, “The Economic Basis of ‘Imperialism,’” North American Review 167, no. 502 (September 1898): 326– 40.

48. Ibid. Theodore Roosevelt held a similar position. See his “Expansion and Peace,” in The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (New York: Century, 1902), 25– 40.

49. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft (New York: Far-rar and Rinehart, 1939), 1: 160.

50. Ibid. 51. William Howard Taft, “Japan and Her Relations to the United States,” Sep-

tember 30, 1907 in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, ed. David Burton (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001), 1: 117. This is also the ratio-nale of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

52. William Howard Taft, “In Defense of the Philippine Policy,” September 19, 1908, Collected Works, 2: 64– 65.

53. William Howard Taft, “The Philippine Islands,” in Collected Works, 3: 447. 54. Merriam, History of American Political Theories, 314. See note 8. 55. Theodore Roosevelt believed in the necessity of imperial expansion and

the consequent rule of inferior peoples, but it seems he also believed in the natural rights of all people in some way. It is not clear that he held a fully developed, cogent position on this issue. See Morrisey, The Dilemma of Pro-gressivism, 63ff, for a discussion of Roosevelt’s ambiguous or incoherent teaching on natural rights.


56. Taft was president of the Second Philippine Commission. The second com-mission established civil government— the first commission focused on reporting on conditions in the islands. Taft later oversaw the governance of the islands as secretary of war under Roosevelt before becoming president himself. See Pringle, Life and Times, 1: 163– 255.

57. Ibid., 1: 182. 58. Ibid., 1: 165. 59. Taft, “Inaugural Address as Civil Governor of the Philippines,” Collected

Works, 1: 81. 60. Taft, “The Inauguration of the Philippine Assembly,” Collected Works 1: 99. 61. Pringle, Life and Times, 1: 182– 83. 62. Ibid., 1:183– 84. See “The Philippines Act of 1902,” accessed August 16, 2012,

http:// www .chanrobles .com/ philippinebillof1902 .htm .Taft notes that the right to bear arms and the right to a jury trial were not given to the Filipinos. There is also no mention of the privileges and immunities of citizenship or the prohibition on the quartering of troops in the Philippines Act of 1902.

63. For a helpful treatment of the Progressive emphasis on race, see Tiffany Jones Miller, “Freedom, History, and Race in Progressive Thought,” Social Philosophy and Policy 29, no. 2 (July 2012): 220– 54.

64. See Morrisey, Dilemma, 121– 23, for a useful discussion of Taft’s stand against domestic racism.

65. Taft, “From the Standpoint of Colonial Administration,” Collected Works, 1: 49. By way of contrast, Beveridge thought that the Filipinos were incapable of being raised to self- government. See John Braeman, Albert J. Beveridge (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1971), 56– 57.

66. Taft, “From the Standpoint of Colonial Administration,” Collected Works, 1: 49– 50.

67. Pringle, Life and Times, 1: 183. 68. Taft, “From the Standpoint of Colonial Administration,” Collected Works, 1:

46. 69. Taft, “The Inauguration of the Philippine Assembly,” Collected Works, 1:

84– 85. 70. Taft, “In Defense of the Philippine Policy,” Collected Works, 2: 58. 71. William Howard Taft, “Speech of Acceptance,” July 28, 1908, Collected Works

of William Howard Taft, ed. David Burton (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002), 3: 28. Taft’s estimate of two generations proved prescient. The Philip-pines were granted full independence in 1946. It is not clear whether or not he would have thought the Filipinos were actually ready for freedom then.

72. As an example, a very strong case can be made that the theory of the found-ing would support the occupation of Japan and Germany after World War II. The Allied occupation of these nations entailed rule without consent, but it seems obvious that a failure to occupy these regimes would have posed a grave threat to American national security.

73. Sparrow, Insular Cases, 149– 50. 74. Kurland and Lerner, The Founder’s Constitution, 5: 210.

148 JOHN GRANT1

75. Ibid., 5: 212. It seems obvious that the denial of the right to bear arms is a great obstacle to the ability of a people to exercise the right to revolution.

76. Alexander Hamilton, “Speech in the Case of Harry Croswell,” in The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge (Federal Edition, 1904), accessed August 15, 2012, http:// oll .libertyfund .org/ ?option =com _staticxt&staticfile =show .php%3Ftitle =1385&chapter =92675&layout =html&Itemid =27.

77. See section 1 of “The Philippines Act of 1902,” accessed August 16, 2012, http:// www .chanrobles .com/ philippinebillof1902 .htm; “Section 1891 of the Revised Statutes of 1878,” accessed August 16, 2012, http:// memory .loc .gov/ cgi - bin/ ampage?collId =llsl&fileName =018/ llsl018 .db&recNum =405. Accessed on August 16, 2012.

78. The Philippines Act of 1902 explicitly barred the Philippines from becoming part of the United States. See Sparrow, Insular Cases, 38. Section 13 of the Northwest Ordinance was the model of the earlier method of dealing with territories in accordance with the social compact theory of the founding. The Articles of Confederation were in full force (the parallel in 1787 to the Consti-tution), rights were protected, and the territory was destined to become states with full representation in Congress. See Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 28.

79. Sections 6 and 7 of the Philippines Act of 1902 described the process whereby the Filipinos could obtain at least the right to local representation.

80. Taft, “The Inauguration of the Philippine Assembly,” October 16, 1907, Col-lected Works, 1: 85.

81. See Sparrow, Insular Cases, 63– 64. 82. Taft, “The Inauguration of the Philippine Assembly,” October 16, 1907, Col-

lected Works, 1: 85. 83. Sparrow, Insular Cases, 240. Taft’s mention of statehood was, I believe,

merely notional. He did not propose statehood, and I have not found any prominent politician of the era who did. Some thought that the Philippines should be granted nominal independence under the supervision of the United States; this was the position of Cuba under the Platt Amendment.

84. See Statham, Colonial Constitutionalism, 33– 35, for a discussion of the seri-ous problems with the constitutionality and justice of this arrangement. The Northern Marianas Islands also have a status as a commonwealth in relation to the United States.

85. Ibid., 140; Sparrow, Insular Cases, 217– 18. Sparrow points out that the United States controls more colonial or unincorporated territory than any other nation in the world. This is a strange situation for a nation that origi-nated in a revolution against this condition.

86. Pringle, Life and Times, 1: 160. 87. Taft, “The Philippine Islands,” January 22, 1910, Collected Works, 3: 446. 88. Taft, “From the Standpoint of Colonial Administration,” Collected Works, 1: 46. 89. See John C. Calhoun, “Speech on the Reception of Abolition Petitions,” in

The US Constitution: A Reader, ed. Hillsdale College Politics Faculty (Hills-dale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2012), 417– 18.


90. See Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment: On Slavery,” in Basler, Abraham Lincoln, 477– 78.

91. See Morrisey, Dilemma, 152– 55. 92. Taft, “From the Standpoint of Colonial Administration,” Collected Works, 1: 47. 93. See George Hoar, “The Subjugation of the Philippines Iniquitous,” accessed

October 21, 2012, http:// www .bartleby .com/ 268/ 10/ 25 .html. 94. See Thomas G. West, The Progressive Transformation of American Politics

(Washington, DC: Heritage, 2007). 95. Miller, “Freedom, History, and Race,” 238ff. 96. William Howard Taft, “He Who Conquers Himself Is Greater Than He Who

Takes a City,” October 10, 1909, Collected Works, 3: 263– 67; see Morrisey, Dilemma, 109.

97. Taft, “He Who Conquers Himself,” Collected Works, 3: 265. 98. Ibid.; Taft, “From the Standpoint of Colonial Administration,” Collected

Works, 1: 42– 44. The meaning of Americans speaking of the importance of colonial administration should not be overlooked.

99. See West, Vindicating the Founders, 147– 79. 100. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 536. 101. Adams, “An Address Delivered in Washington.” 102. Kurland and Lerner, The Founders’ Constitution, 1: 685. 103. Pringle, Life and Times, 1: 301– 2. 104. The events of 1941 should be considered in this light. 105. See Morrisey, Dilemma, 142– 52, for an extensive treatment of Taft’s views on

the changing historical circumstances and how they affect American foreign policy.

106. William Howard Taft, “Annual Message to Congress,” December 3, 1912, Collected Works, 4: 283.

107. Ibid., 4: 311. 108. See Merriam, A History of American Political Theories, 305– 12, for a survey

of the Progressive consensus, originating with Francis Lieber and John C. Calhoun, to rely on historical fact rather than abstract principle as the chief guide to the meaning of justice.

109. William Howard Taft, “Popular Government,” Collected Works, 5: 26.

William Howard Taft on America and the Philippines: Equality, Natural Rights, and Imperialism

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