FOLLOWING fast upon the suggestion made by one in close touch with the administration, that the chief executive might find it necessary to conclude treaties with foreign powers without securing either the advice or consent of the Senate, comes the announcement that a secret treaty has been made with Great Britain, which is regarded by the State Department as an offensive and defensive alliance for the protection of the Western Hemisphere. And this treaty, it is further stated, is intended to supplant the “Monroe doctrine,” under which the Western Hemisphere has been secured against European aggression from President Monroe’s time down to the present.
This treaty is meant, of course, to be binding upon the nation; that is, upon the people; but as the people did not make it, either themselves or through their representatives, it is clearly an instance in which one man has assumed the prerogative of ruler of the American people.
Naturally the announcement causes considerable excitement and “senators, representatives, and men of all parties,” we are informed, “declare that no British alliance shall ever set the Monroe doctrine aside.” The truth is the Monroe doctrine has already been set aside by the American invasion of the Eastern Hemisphere, and nobody ought to be surprised that a substitute is now proposed to take its place. Nobody ought to be surprised that the Monroe doctrine should be regulated out of the American political system simultaneously with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
THE so-called statesman who “loves” his country so much that he will maintain it in the wrong, will help his country along in the pathway of wrong, which never led anywhere else than to ruin. And as the most that a traitor can do is to bring ruin on the country he betrays, it is plain that these two men belong in the same class.