Aguinaldo, having established himself at Malolos, ordered the congress provided for in his decree of June 23, 1898, to assemble at the capital on September 15,1898, and appointed a number of provisional representatives for provinces and islands not under his control. [377] It has often been claimed that Aguinaldo’s government controlled at this time the whole archipelago, except the bay and city of Manila and the town of Cavite. [378]

Blount quotes the following statement from the report of the First Philippine Commission:—­

“While the Spanish troops now remained quietly in Manila, the Filipino forces made themselves masters of the entire island except that city.” [379]

I signed that statement, and signed it in good faith; nevertheless, it is untrue.  The Filipino forces never controlled the territory now known as Ifugao, Bontoc, Kalinga or Apayao, much less that occupied by the Negritos on the east coast of Luzon, but this is not all.  There exists among the Insurgent records a very important document, prepared by Mabini, showing that when the call for the first session of the Filipino congress was issued, there were no less than sixty-one provinces and commandancias, which the Insurgents, when talking among themselves, did not even claim to control, and twenty-one of these were in or immediately adjacent to Luzon. [380]

The men who composed this congress were among the ablest natives of the archipelago; but representative institutions mean nothing unless they represent the people; if they do not, they are a conscious lie devised either to deceive the people of the country or foreign nations, and it is not possible for any system founded upon a lie to endure.  A real republic must be founded not upon a few brilliant men to compose the governing group but upon a people trained in self-restraint and accustomed to govern by compromise and concession, not by force.  To endure it must be based upon a solid foundation of self-control, of self-respect and of respect for the rights of others upon the part of the great majority of the common people.  If it is not, the government which follows a period of tumult, confusion and civil war will be a government of the sword.  The record the Philippine republic has left behind it contains nothing to confirm the belief that it would have endured, even in name, if the destinies of the islands had been left in the hands of the men who set it up.

The national assembly met on the appointed day in the parish church of Barasoain, Malolos, which had been set aside for the meetings of congress.  This body probably had then more elected members than at its subsequent meetings, but even so it contained a large number of men who were appointed by Aguinaldo after consultation with his council to represent provinces which they had never even seen.

From a “list of representatives of the provinces and districts, selected by election and appointment by the government up to July 7, 1899, with incomplete list of October 6, 1899” [381] I find that there were 193 members, of whom forty-two were elected and one hundred fifty-one were appointed.  This congress was therefore not an elective body.  Was it in any sense representative?  The following table, showing the distribution of delegates between the several peoples, will enable us to answer this question.