TOPIC:

A stirring pro-Boer speech given by William Sulzer, of New York, in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, March 27, 1900.


Mr. Chairman: Since the commencement of this session of Congress several resolutions expressing sympathy with the South African Patriots have been introduced in this House by myself and other members. The Speaker has referred these resolutions to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and, although ample time has elapsed, that committee has taken, so far. as we know, no action, and apparently does not intend to take any action in regard to the same.

For that reason, and lest a more favorable opportunity shall not be available, I desire at this time to express and to place on record my condemnation of the unjust, the inhuman, the predatory, the cruel, and the barbarous war the Empire of Great Britain is ruthlessly and relentlessly conducting in South Africa to destroy and exterminate two brave little republics, sisters of our own, and as free and as independent as this Republic.

Mr. Chairman, the patriotic people of this country take a deep and an abiding interest in the life and death struggle between republic and empire now going on in South Africa. As an American citizen and a Representative in this Congress, I am not ashamed to have it known that my sympathy is now, always has been, and always will be with the heroic Boers in their magnificent struggle to maintain their freedom and their independence against the piracy of the corrupt oligarchy now controlling the policy of the British Empire.

I am with the Boers and I want to see them maintain their independence because they are right and because they are free and deserve to be free. In a contest between liberty and monarchy I want to see liberty win.

The cause of the patriots of South Africa is a just cause. No one who impartially reads history can honestly dispute it. They are defending their homes and repelling a tyrannical and a remorseless invader. England's attempt to steal their country is the outrage of the century, the culminating atrocity of criminal British aggression, and should be condemned by this Republic and by the Christian powers of the world.

In my judgment, if I mistake not public opinion, nine-tenths of the American people are against England in this bloody war of conquest for sordid gain and in sympathy with the Boers. The best thought of England condemns the conflict, and the awakening conscience of the British Empire demands peace with honor in the name of humanity, Christianity, and civilization.

In 1776 the patriot fathers of this Republic fought England to gain our independence. The South African patriots today are fighting the same country to maintain their independence. That is the only difference.

The courage of the Boers in the face of tremendous odds has challenged the admiration of mankind, and their heroism against almost insurmountable obstacles has won the respect of the civilized world. They are entitled to our sympathy, and we would be false to ourselves and to all our history if we did not give it to them. The sacrifices they have thus far made and the gallantry, heroism, and bravery they have exhibited are unequaled and un- paralleled in the history of the world.

The story of the struggles, the hardships, the trials, and the triumphs of these brave people in South Africa is one of the saddest and one of the greatest pages in all history— an imperishable heritage to every lover of liberty, and to their hardy and valorous descendants an incentive to maintain their freedom, that can never be crushed. No true American can impartially read the history of the Boers without feeling a deep sympathy for them in their present struggle to uphold and defend their independence against English greed for gold, English tyranny, and criminal British aggression for land.

In regard to all the facts of the case there may be some honest difference of opinion; but if there is, it is based, I believe, to a large extent on misinformation or a lack of knowledge of all the circumstances. English agencies have been sedulously at work for some time unceasingly disseminating misinformation in regard to the Boers and the true situation in South Africa. Let me ask you all to search out the truth ere you pass judgment on the brave republicans of South Africa.

Let us briefly review the situation. We must not rely too much on the colored, the doctored, and the censored British reports from English sources in Cape Colony. England is now and al- ways has been unscrupulous. In a war like this — a war against humanity — she has little regard for truth.

In South Africa there are two free and independent countries — one called the "South African Republic," the other called the "Orange Free State." They are duly organized Governments, republican in form, patterned to a great extent after our own, and recognized as free and independent throughout the world. As a matter of law and as a matter of fact, England has no more right to meddle with them or to interfere in their internal affairs than she has to meddle with Mexico or interfere in the internal affairs of the United States. These States are now and have been ever since the convention of 1884 free and independent States. There can be no controversy about this.

These brave South African patriots are a good deal like the patriots of our own Revolution. They love their homes, their freedom, and their liberty. They come from good old Saxon ancestors from the north of Europe. They love free institutions, the same as we do, for the sake of personal liberty. It comes to them naturally and by inheritance. Their love of liberty is not of a day or of a year, but of centuries.

They are a brave, a fearless, a patriotic, a liberty-loving, and a God-fearing people. Many years ago their ancestors emigrated from Holland, from France, and from other places in the north of Europe to Cape Colony in order to live under free institutions, enjoy the blessings of liberty, and worship their Maker according to the dictates of their own conscience.

The Puritan, the Hollander, the Irishman, the German, and the Cavalier came to this country for the same reason and for the same purpose.

These sturdy immigrants and their heroic descendants carved out unaided and alone their own destiny in the wilds of the Dark Continent amid unspeakable hardships and privations and gave to the world a civilization as good as our own. For a century and more, in sunshine and in storm, these brave people toiled and plodded on, and they builded, like the fathers of this Republic, better than they knew. Surrounded by savages, harassed by wild beasts, visited by famine and scourged by disease, in all the long weary and dreary years they never lost hope; they prayed to God and never despaired.

They are a simple Christian people, as honest as they are brave. They redeemed the wilderness, turned the desert wastes into sweep- ing fields of grain, made the jungle blossom and bloom like a rose, and dotted the hills with villages and towns. Notwithstanding- all they had to contend with, they grew, they prospered, and they were happy until perfidious Albion came. From that day to this England has made cruel war on the Boers. She has repeatedly robbed them of their lives, their property, and their lands.

But the spirit of their love of liberty has never been broken. You can not conquer a brave people inspired by the love of freedom and battling on their own soil for their homes and their liberties, They will never surrender their principles. They will resist oppression and tyranny until they are exterminated by overwhelming and superior force. They know, like Patrick Henry, that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. Their love of liberty is stronger and more tenacious than their love of life. Their history is an epic poem of one long heroic struggle against English greed, English tyranny, and English oppression.

These brave Boers are now fighting, perhaps for the last time, for republicanism against monarchy; for democracy against plutocracy; for home rule against the bayonet; for the ballot against the throne: for the love of home against the love of gold; for Saxon freedom against British tyranny; for the integrity of their country against a ruthless invader; for the schoolhouse against the army barracks; for religious freedom against foreign domination; for the fireside of civilization against the blazing torch of devastation; for free institutions against imperialism; and, above all and beyond all, they are fighting a battle for the rights of man. God grant that their liberties and their independence shall not be destroyed.

When we consider it all, how true seem the words of Lowell:

Truth forever on the scaffold, "Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch upon His own.

To-day in South Africa Truth is on the scaffold and in England Wrong is on the throne.

The absolute independence of the South African Republic was finally recognized by Great Britain in 1884, and ever since then it has been as free and as independent as our own great Republic.

Prior to the year 1884 these brave and fearless men and their ancestors had struggled and struggled for a century and more to establish what they now possess and what they are at present so gallantly fighting to maintain a free and independent government of their own. Once, twice, three times has England violated her solemn pledge to them and trespassed on their sacred rights. She saw what they had wrought, and her greedy sons coveted it. The Boers were compelled by English greed and tyranny and power to move farther and farther inland. When- ever they thought they were secure and had the right to enjoy the blessings of liberty and self-government, England encroached on their domain, waged pitiless and savage war against them, and drove them farther and farther from the sea.

To their credit and their glory, however, be it said that every encroachment on their land, their rights, and their liberties has been manfully and stubbornly resisted. They were forced to move on, but they never gave up their freedom; they never surrendered their independence.

Prior to the present conflict Majuba Hill marks the place of the last contest with Great Britain of these valorous people for their homes and their firesides. Majuba Hill! Forever glorious in the annals of the South African Republic's struggle to maintain its independence. Majuba Hill to them is the same as Bunker Hill to us, and both will live in history to the end of time as an inspiration to man.

After this disastrous blow to British arms the convention of 1884 was entered into, and all other and prior treaties were annulled. By this treaty the South African Republic became free and independent and took its place among the nations of the world. And Lord Derby, then secretary of state for the colonies and a very different man from Joseph Chamberlain, distinctly stated in Parliament that the South African Republic was independent and free to govern itself. The question of England's paramountcy in South Africa was not mentioned, and never a word was said about British "suzerainty."

That great English statesman, friend of the Boers, friend of liberty and of Irish home rule, William E. Gladstone, said the word “suzerainty" was dropped on purpose.

Even as late as May, 1896, after the Jameson raid, Mr. Chamberlain said in the House of Commons:

A war in South Africa would "be one of the most serious wars that could possibly be waged. It would be a long war, a bitter war, and a costly war. It would leave behind it the embers of a strife which I believe generations would hardly be long enough to extinguish. To go to war with President Kruger in order to enforce upon him reforms in the internal affairs of his State, in which secretaries of state, standing in this place, have repudiated all right of interference that would be a course of action as immoral as it would have been unwise.

Now, sir, I say, from the record, that it must be clear and plain to everyone who has reviewed the question from an English as well as a Boer standpoint that the South African Republic is and was since 1884 a sovereign and independent State. In proof of this I cite the additional fact that it was admitted to the International Postal Union, that it was a member of the Convention of Geneva, and that our own Government and ail the other powers recognized it and appointed to it consuls. The United States consul at Pretoria to-day is acting in that capacity, not only for us but for Great Britain as well.

Under all the circumstances, it seems to me England is now precluded from raising the question of the independence of the South African Republic. For England to raise this contention at this late day is a mere flimsy pretext, an afterthought of Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain, and constitutes a blunder worse than a crime.

The question of suzerainty was not raised at first in the differences with the South African Republic. There never would have been trouble if gold had not been discovered in the land. The rich find of gold there is at the bottom of it all. Love of gold is the cause of this cruel Anglo-African war.

Cecil Rhodes, the most daring and colossal grabber and manipulator of the century, coveted the Boers' golden land. He wanted it for his English chartered syndicate. He and Chamberlain instigated the Jameson raid, and Chamberlain repudiated it when the Boers made it a miserable failure. Cecil Rhodes plotted and planned against the Boers. He stirred up dissension among the people at Pretoria; he conspired in South Africa and in Europe to overthrow the Republics. He is the power behind the British ministry in this war, and Chamberlain is now, and always has been, his willing tool.

This conflict should be called Cecil Rhodes's war for gold and conquest in South Africa. He is responsible for all the woe, all the sorrow, all the despair, and all the misery this war has caused. He is the Pizarro of the nineteenth century.

Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Rhodes began the present trouble by taking up the alleged grievances of the English aliens or uitlanders in South Africa. Mr. Chamberlain practically demanded they be enfranchised without abjuring or renouncing their allegiance to the British Crown. This proposition is, and was, preposterous. No government on earth would submit to it.

If the English aliens in the Transvaal wanted to become citizens of the Boer Republic, they had to comply with the law, just the same as English aliens in this country, in order to become citizens of the United States, must comply with our law and renounce forever their allegiance to the British Crown. The law there regarding naturalization is just about the same as the law here. If anything, it is more liberal.

But be these grievances of the foreigners in the South African Republic regarding franchise, taxation, and representation just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable, it was no cause for this sanguinary war. As a matter of fact, however, the South African Republic was willing to comply with every request of the English Government regarding the franchise and all other alleged grievances of the uitlanders.

I think it can be safely stated that the Boers were willing to ar- bitrate all questions of difference between the two Governments: but England declined and began a systematic concentration of English troops on their frontier, which in itself constituted a practical declaration of war against them.

And, sir, let me say right here that if the friends and sympathizers of England urge as a reason for British interference and as a justification of this war the alleged grievances of the uitlanders in regard to the franchise, taxation, and representation in the Transvaal, the friends and sympathizers of the Boers answer that England's rules, laws, and regulations regarding American aliens in the British Klondike are more severe, more grievous, and more burdensome. And yet does anyone here urge a war with England on account of the grievances of American miners in the British Klondike?

From all the facts and circumstances in the case, I am convinced and clearly of the opinion that England has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Boers. Her pretexts for doing so are untenable, and her entire course in the matter has been selfish, cruel, unjustifiable, and dishonorable.

The war she is waging against them to-day is the most criminal, the most defenseless, and the most predatory war in all his- tory." The Boers at all times were willing to concede every fair and just demand England made. Nothing would satisfy Rhodes and Chamberlain, They wanted the land of the Boers because it contained gold, and all the other incidental demands were merely pretexts. As soon as one was conceded, another and a harder one was made.

The truth is, and history will so record it, that England wanted the control of this country because it is the richest in gold in the world. England always puts in a claim where gold is found.

England is nov7, and always has been, the aggressor against the Boers. The concentration of British troops on the frontier of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic was a virtual declaration of war. England forced the war. England began it. The Boers yielded everything but independence to satisfy England. If the Boers had not struck for their rights, their firesides, and their independence when they did and as they did, they would have been overwhelmed by superior British forces before they could have struck a blow and resistance would have been useless. They were right in striking when they did.

I glory in the spunk of grand old Paul Kruger. He is one of the world's great heroes. He knew only too well how dangerous was delay, and everything that has occurred since he issued his defiant ultimatum to the British Crown has demonstrated his wisdom and his foresight. He is a grand old man, one of the world's immortals, and will always stand out on the pages of history as a friend of man, a lover of liberty, and a champion of freedom.

The ultimatum he issued to England rang round the globe, and will live in the world's history.

The Boers will never surrender their love of liberty. They can only be conquered by being exterminated, and England must not be permitted to exterminate them and steal their homes. Her criminal march of devastation must and will be checked.

America should do its duty. The great Republic, the beacon light of the world, in the name of liberty, humanity, and justice, must demand peace and make that demand good. We have the right to insist on peace with honor. We have the right to express our sympathy. We have the right to aid the Red Cross Society. International law gives us these rights, and we should exercise them. Why are we silent?

We sympathized with Poland, with Hungary, with Greece, with all the South American Republics, with Armenia, and with Cuba in their struggles for freedom. Many we helped. Why, I ask, in the name of all that is just and honorable, in the name of our glorious past, should we now refuse to lend our moral support, our sympathy, and our aid to the patriots of South Africa? Is the great light of the Republic going out? Is American sentiment dead?

A republic that has sunk so low that it glories in the downfall of a sister republic is in danger of destruction itself. A republic that refuses sympathy to a sister republic struggling to maintain its independence against monarchical aggression is unworthy the name and in danger of monarchy itself. A republic that will secretly aid a monarchy to destroy a republic and blot out its free institutions is a republic rotten to the core, and will soon fall like a decayed tree on the banks of a turbulent stream to be swept away forever.

Mr. Chairman, in my opinion the defeat of the Boers will be the severest blow to republican institutions that has been struck in more than a century, and every friend of liberty the world over should fervently pray that Oom Paul may be successful. How patriotic citizens of this country can sympathize with Great Britain in this cruel, unjust, and unholy war against our two sister Republics is beyond my comprehension. Their defeat will be a terrible blow to free institutions on this hemisphere, and give thrones and empires a renewed lease of life at the very dawn of the twentieth century.

The Committee on Foreign Affairs, this Republican Congress, and this pro-English Administration of William McKinley will do nothing for liberty, nothing for the Boers, and secretly sympathize with Great Britain. Every liberty-loving citizen of the Republic should denounce and condemn these pro-English and imperialistic tendencies. This Republic should stand by republics — not against them. I want to see the right triumph, and if it does the Boers will maintain the independence of their country.

God bless the embattled farmers of South Africa is my fervent prayer, and from the ashes of the conflict may there arise a greater and a grander republic — the glorious United States of South Africa.
[Prolonged applause on the Democratic side]

Sulzer was an interesting and colorful character , not to mention just plain angry. I mean, look at him!


Congressman for New York 1895-1912
Governor of New York Jan-1913 until his impeachment and removal in October 1913. The first and only governor of NY to be so removed.

Reading the Wiki article, it looks like his populist "for the little guy" stance upset the political establishement (both right and left) and they decided to neutralize the threat he represented.

Nick