It is absurd now to say that we will not negotiate but will appropriate the whole subject-matter of negotiation.

It is my earnest wish that the United States in making peace should follow the same high rule of conduct which guided it in facing war.

It should be as scrupulous and magnanimous in the concluding settlement as it was just and humane in its original action.

I believed then, and believe now, that it was our duty to deliver them from Spain, to protect them against her, or against the cupidity of any other nation until her people could have tried fully the experiment of self- government, in…

I denounced with all the vigor of which I was capable the Treaty, and the conduct of the war in the Philippine Islands, in the Senate, on the platform, in many public letters, and in articles in magazines and newspapers.

But I thought that address, which was not only to utter the voice of public sorrow, but to give a careful and discriminating sketch of the public life of its subject, ought to be delivered by some person who agreed with him in regard to…

I could not undertake to state President McKinley's opinion, conduct or policy, without expressing my disapproval of it, and if I did not do that, I could not state it without being thought by those who heartily approved it, not to have…

But I thought the story of the important part of his life should be told from his point of view, and not from mine; that the reasons which governed him should be stated by a person sure to appreciate them fully.

I suppose nobody would have dreamed of asking a Free Trader to pronounce the eulogy on President McKinley if he had died soon after the beginning of his first term.

I think that under the lead of Mabini and Aguinaldo and their associates, but for our interference, a Republic would have been established in Luzon, which would have compared well with the best of the Republican Governments between the…

If we had treated them as we did Cuba, we should have been saved the public shame of violating not only our own pledges, but the rule of conduct which we had declared to be self-evident truth in the beginning of our history.

We should have been saved the humiliation of witnessing the subjection by Great Britain of the Boers in South Africa, without a murmur of disapproval, and without an expression of one word of sympathy for the heroic victims.

Mills of Newburyport, declared that the Treaty ought to be ratified, and then the United States should fulfil to Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands the pledge of self-government and independence made to Cuba.

In speaking of the habit of appealing to the love of the flag in behalf of this policy of conquest, I said that there was but one symbol more sacred than the American flag.

That was the bread and wine which represented the body and blood of the Saviour of mankind; adding, that a man who would use an appeal to the flag in aid of the subjugation of an unwilling people, would be capable of using the sacramental…

But I said I was opposed to raising soldiers to carry on the war in the Philippine Islands.

I meant that if the Legislature of Massachusetts were to reelect me, no man should ever have it to say that I had bought my reelection by silence on this question, or concealed my opinion, however extreme it might be, until after election.

I do not deny that many Democrats-- I dare say a majority of the Democrats--were as earnestly and seriously opposed to the acquisition of the Philippine Islands as I was myself.

If you can elect a Democratic House it will have power under the Constitution to determine the use to which the Army shall be put.

The Treaty would have been defeated, not only lacking the needful two thirds, but by a majority of the Senate but for the votes of Democrats and Populists.

After that it became impossible, not only to defeat the Treaty, but to defeat the policy which had inspired it.

It put the people of the Philippine Islands in the attitude of abandoning the Republic they had formed, and of acknowledging not only our supremacy but that they were neither entitled or fit to govern themselves or to carry on the war…

I do not mean to imply that, as I have said, a large number of the Democratic Party both in public life and out of it, were not sincere and zealous in their opposition to this wretched business.

So differing from him, I found nothing in his attitude or that of his party, to induce me to support him, or even to inspire my confidence in their settlement of the question of Imperialism or expansion.

I have been told by many Senators who voted for the Treaty, that they regretted that vote more than any other act of their lives.