PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



637 



Message on Cuban Affairs. 



EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 18, 1870. 

 T<> the Senate and House of Seprettntativet : 



In my annual message to Congress, at the bcgln- 

 i' its present session. I referred to the contest 

 which had then for more than a year existed in the 

 island of Cuba, between a portion of its inhabitants 

 and the Government of Spain, and to the feelings 

 and sympathies of the people and Government of 

 t!i. I'uiU'.l States for the people of Cuba, as for all 

 peoples struggling for liberty and self-government, 

 and said that " the contest has at no time assumed 

 the conditions which amount to war, in the sense of 

 International law, or which would show the existence 

 of a de facto political organization of the insurgents 

 sufficient to justify a recognition of belligerency." 



During the six months which have passed since 

 the date of that message, the condition of the insur- 

 gents has not improved ; and the insurrection itself, 

 although not subdued, exhibits no signs of advance, 

 but seems to be confined to an irregular system or 

 hostilities carried on by small and illy-armed bands 

 of men, roaming without concentration through the 

 woods and the sparsely-populated regions of the 

 island, attacking, from ambush, convoys and small 

 bands of troops, -burning plantations and the estates 

 of those not sympathizing with their cause. 



But, if the insurrection has not gained ground, it 

 is equally true that Spain has not suppressed it. Cli- 

 mate, disease, and the occasional bullet, have worked 

 destruction among the soldiers of Spain, and although 

 the Spanish authorities have possession of every sea- 

 port and every town on the island, they have not 

 been able to subdue the hostile feeling which has 

 driven a considerable number of the native inhabit- 

 ants of the island to armed resistance against Spain, 

 and still leads them to endure the dangers and the 

 privations of a roaming life of guerrilla warfare. 



On either side the contest has been conducted, and 

 is still carried on, with a lamentable disregard of hu- 

 man life, and of the rules and practices which mod- 

 ern civilization has prescribea in mitigation of the 

 necessary horrors of war. The torch of Spaniard 

 and of Cuban is alike busy in carrying devastation 

 over fertile regions. Murderous and revengeful de- 

 crees are issued and executed by both parties. Count 

 Valmaseda and Colonel Boet, on the part of Spain, 

 have each startled humanity and aroused the indig- 

 nation of the civilized world by the execution, each, 

 of a score of prisoners at a time ; while General 

 Quesada, the Cuban chief, coolly, and with apparent 

 unconsciousness of aught else than a proper act, has 

 admitted the slaughter, by his own deliberate order, 

 in one day, of upward of six hundred and fifty pris- 

 oners of war. 



A summary trial, with few if any escapes from 

 conviction, followed by immediate execution, is the 

 fate of those arrested on either side, on suspicion of 

 infidelity to the cause of the party making the arrest. 



Whatever may bo the sympathies of the people or 

 of the Government of the United States for the cause 

 or objects for which a part of the people of Cuba are 

 understood to have put themselves in armed resist- 

 ance to the Government of Spain, there can be no 

 just sympathy in a conflict carried on by both parties 

 alike in such barbarous violation of the rules of civ- 

 ilized nations, and with such continued outrage upon 

 theplainest principles of humanity. 



We cannot discriminate in our censure of their 

 mode of conducting their contest between the Span- 

 iards and the Cubans. Each commit the same atroci- 

 ties, and outrage alike the established rules of war. 



The properties of many of our citizens have been 

 destroyed or embargoed, the lives of several have 

 been sacrificed, and the liberty of others has been 

 restrained. In every case that has come to the knowl- 

 edge of the Government, an early and earnest de- 

 mand for reparation and indemnity has been made, 

 and most emphatic remonstrance has been presented 



against the manner in which the strife is conducted, 

 and against the reckless disregard of human life, the 

 wanton destruction of material wealth, and the cruel 

 disregard of the established rules of civilized war- 

 fare. 



I have, since the beginning of the present session 

 of Congress, communicated to the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, upon their request, an account of the 

 steps which I had taken, in the nope of bringing this 

 sad conflict to an end, and of securing to the people 

 of Cuba the blessings and the right of independent 

 self-government. The efforts thus made failed, but 

 not without an assurance from Spain that the good 

 offices of this Government might still avail for the 

 objects to which they had been addressed. 



During the whole contest the remarkable exhibi- 

 tion has oeen made of large numbers of Cubans, es- 

 caping from the island and avoiding the risks of war, 

 congregating in this country at a safe distance from 

 the scene of danger and endeavoring to make war 

 from our shores, to urge our people into the fight 

 which they avoid, and to embroil this Government 

 in complications and possible hostilities with Spain. 

 It can scarce be doubted that this last result is the 

 real object of these parties, although carefully cov- 

 ered under the deceptive and apparently plausible 

 demand for a mere recognition of belligerency. 



It is stated, on what I have reason to regard as 

 good authority, that Cuban bonds have been pre- 

 pared to a large amount, whose payment is made 

 dependent upon the recognition by the United States 

 of either Cuban belligerency or independence. The 

 object of making their value thus contingent upon 

 the action of this Government is a subject for serious 

 reflection. 



In determining the course to be adopted on the 

 demand thus made for a recognition of belligerency, 

 the liberal and peaceful principles adopted by the 

 Father of his Country ana the eminent statesmen of 

 his day, and followed by succeeding Chief Magis- 

 trates and the men of their day. may furnish a safe 

 guide to those of us now charged with the direction 

 and control of the public safety. 



From 1789 to 1815 the dominant thought of our 

 statesmen was to keep the United States out of the 

 wars which were devastating Europe. The discus- 

 sion of measures of neutrality begins with the State 

 papers of Mr. Jefferson, when Secretary of State, 

 lie shows that they are measures of national right 

 as well as of national duty ; that misguided individ- 

 ual citizens cannot be tolerated in making war ac- 

 cording to their own caprice, passions, interests, or 

 foreign sympathies ; that the agents of foreign gov- 

 ernments, recognized or unrecognized, cannot be 

 permitted to abuse our hospitality by usurping the 

 Junctions of enlisting or equipping military or naval 

 forces within our territory. 



Washington inaugurated the policy of neutrality 

 and of absolute abstinence from all foreign entan- 

 gling alliances, which resulted in 179-t in the first 

 municipal enactment for the observance of neutrality. 



The duty of opposition to filibustering has been 

 admitted by every President. Washington encoun- 

 tered the efforts of Genet and the French revolution- 

 ists ; John Adams, the projects of Miranda ; Jeffer- 

 son, the schemes of Aaron JBurr ; Madison and sub- 

 sequent Presidents had to deal with the question of 

 foreign enlistment or equipment in the United States ; 

 and since the days of John Quincy Adams it has 

 been one of the constant cares of Government in the 

 United States to prevent piratical expeditions against 

 the feeble Spanish-Amencau republics from leaving 

 our shores. In no country are men wanting for any 

 enterprise that holds out promise of adventure or of 

 gain. 



In the early days of our national existence the 

 whole Continent of America (outside of the limits of 

 the United States) and all its islands were in colonial 

 dependence upon European powers. 



The revolutions which from 1810 spread almost 



