[394] As long as Mabini remained in power the constitution was mere paper.

Its adoption was not indicative of the capacity of the people to maintain self-government.

It expressed only the academic aspirations of the men who drafted it.

There is not the slightest evidence from any previous or subsequent experience of the people that it would have worked in practice.

It was enacted for the misleading of Americans rather than for the benefit of the Filipinos.
While the government of Aguinaldo was called a republic, it was in fact a Tagalog military oligarchy in which the great mass of the people had no share.