He further announced that the North American nation had given its disinterested protection in order that the liberty of the Philippines should be gained.

[360] On May 25, 1898, the first American troops sailed from San Francisco for the Philippines.
Aguinaldo still had a month in which to seize enough Spanish territory to erect thereon what would appear to the Americans on their arrival to be a government of Luzon, of which he was the head.

The Hongkong junta and Aguinaldo himself intended to ask for the recognition of their government, but they had first to create it.

To obtain recognition it was necessary that the American commander on land should be able to report that wherever he or his troops had gone the country was ruled by Aguinaldo according to laws which showed that the people were capable of governing themselves.
As the United States is a republic it was natural that the directing group of insurgent leaders should decide upon a republican form of government.

That form would appeal to the people of the United States; the first "Christian Asiatic Republic" was a description which would inevitably awaken sympathy in that mother of republics.