266 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



sion is strongly felt by the latter, and especially 

 where years of relentless warfare have alienated the 

 parties, one from another ; more widely than they 

 are sundered by the ocean itself, their political sep- 

 aration is inevitable. It is one of those conclusions 

 which have been aptly called the inexorable logic of 

 events. 



Entertaining these views, the President at an early 

 day tendered to the Spanish Government the good 

 offices of the United States for the purpose of effect- 

 ing by negotiation the peaceful separation of Cuba 

 from Spain, and thus putting a stop to the further 

 effusion of blood in the island, and relieving both 

 Cuba and Spain from the calamities and charges of 

 a protracted civil war, and of delivering the United 

 States from the constant hazard of inconvenient com- 

 plications on the side either of Spain or of Cuba. 

 But the well-intentioned proffers ofthe United States 

 on that occasion were unwisely rejected by Spain, 

 and, as it was then already foreseen, the struggle 

 has continued in Cuba with incidents of desperate 

 tenacity on the part of the Cubans, and of angry 

 fierceness on the part of the Spaniards, unparalleled 

 in the annals of modern warfare. 



True it is that now, when the war has raged for 

 more than five years, there is no material change in 

 the military situation. The Cubans continue to oc- 

 cupy ; unsubdued, the eastern and central parts of 

 the island, with exception of the larger cities or 

 towns, and of fortified points held by the govern- 

 ment, but their capacity of resistance appears to be 

 undiminished, and with no abatement of their reso- 

 lution to persevere to the end in repelling the domi- 

 nation of Spain. 



Meanwhile this condition of things grows, day by 

 day, more and more insupportable to the United 

 States. The Government is compelled to exert con- 

 stantly the utmost vigilance to prevent infringement 

 of our law on the part of Cubans purchasing muni- 

 tions or materials of war, or laboring to fit out mili- 

 tary expeditions in our ports ; we are constrained to 

 maintain a large naval force to prevent violations of 

 pur sovereignty, either by the Cubans or the Span- 

 iards ; our people are horrified and agitated by the 

 spectacle, at our very doors, of war, not only with 

 all its ordinary attendants of devastation and car- 

 nage, but with accompaniments of barbarous shoot- 

 ing of prisoners of war, or their summary execution 

 by military commissions, to the scandal and disgrace 

 of the age' ; we are under the necessity of interposing 

 continually for the protection of our citizens against 

 wrongful acts ofthe local authorities of Spain in Cuba ; 

 and the public peace is every moment subject to be 

 interrupted by some unforeseen event, like that which 

 recently occurred, to drive us at once to the brink of 

 war with Spain. In short, the state of Cuba is the 

 one great cause of perpetual solicitude in the foreign 

 relations ofthe United States. 



While the attention of this Government is fixed on 

 Cuba, in the interest of humanity, by the horrors of 

 civil war prevailing there, we cannot forbear to re- 

 flect, as well in the interest of humanity as in other 

 relations, that the existence of slave-labor in Cuba, 

 and its influence over the feelings and interests ofthe 

 Peninsular Spaniards, lie at the foundation of all the 

 calamities which now afflict the island. Except in 

 Brazil and in Cuba, servitude has almost disappeared 

 from the world. Not in th Spanish- American re- 

 publics alone, nor in the British possessions, nor in 

 the United States, nor in Kussia not in those coun- 

 tries alone, but even in Asia, and in Africa herself 

 the bonds of the slave have been struck off, and per- 

 sonal freedom is the all but universal rule and public 

 law, at least to the nations of Christendom. It can- 

 not long continue in Cuba, environed as that island 

 is by communities of emancipated slaves in the other 

 Wes,t India Islands and in the United States. 



Whether it shall be put an end to by the voluntary 

 act ofthe Spanish Government, by domestic violence, 

 or by the success of the revolution of Yara, or by 



what other possible means, is one of the grave prob- 

 lems of the situation, of hardly less interest to the 

 United States than the independence of Cuba. 



The President has not been without hope that all 

 these questions might be settled by the spontaneous 

 act of Spain herself, she being more deeply interested 

 in that settlement than all the rest of the world. It 

 seemed for a while that such a solution was at hand, 

 during the time when the Government of Spain was 

 administered by one ofthe greatest and wisest ofthe 

 statesmen of that country, or indeed of Europe, Pres- 

 ident Castelar. Before attaining power, he had an- 

 nounced a line of policy applicable to Cuba, which, 

 though falling short of the concession of absolute 

 independence, yet was of a nature to command the 

 approbation of the Unijted States. 



" Let us," he declared, on a memorable occasion, 

 " let us reduce to formulas pur policy in America. 



"1. The immediate abolition of slavery. 



" 2. Autonomy of the islands of Porto Eico and 

 Cuba, which shall have a parliamentary Assembly of 

 their own, their own administration, their own gov- 

 ernment, and a federal tie to unite them with Spain, 

 as Canada is united with England, in order that we 

 may found the liberty of those states, and at the 

 same time conserve the national integrity. I desire 

 that the islands of Cuba and Porto Eico shall be our 

 sisters, and I do not desire that they shall be trans- 

 atlantic Polands." 



I repeat, that to such a line of policy as this, espe- 

 cially as it relates to Cuba, the L nited States would 

 make no objection; nay, they could accord to it 

 hearty cooperation and support, as the next best 

 thing to the absolute independence of Cuba. 



Ot course, the United States would prefer to see 

 all that remains of colonial America pass from that 

 condition to the condition of absolute independence 

 of Europe. 



But we might well accept such a solution of pres- 

 ent questions as, while terminating the cruel war 

 which now desolates the island and "disturbs our po- 

 litical intercourse, should primarily and at the out- 

 set abolish the iniquitous institution of slavery, and, 

 in the second place, should place Cuba practically in 

 the possession of herself by means of political insti- 

 tutions of self-government, and enable her, while 

 nominally subject to Spain, yet to cease to be the 

 victim of Spanish colonial interests, and to be capa- 

 ble of direct and immediate relations of interests and 

 intercourse with the other states of America. * * * 



In these circumstances, the question what decision 

 the United States shall take is a serious and difficult 

 one, not to be determined without careful consider- 

 ation of its complex elements of domestic and for- 

 eign policy, but the determination of which may at 

 any moment be forced upon us by occurrences either 

 in Spain or in Cuba. 



Withal the President cannot but regard indepen- 

 dence, and emancipation, of course, as the only cer- 

 tain, and even the necessary, solution ofthe question 

 of Cuba. And, in his mind, all incidental questions 

 are quite subordinate to those, the larger objects of 

 the United States in this respect. 



It requires to be borne in mind that, in so far as 

 we may contribute to the solution of these questions, 

 this Government is not actuated by any selfish or 

 interested motive. The President does not medi- 

 tate or desire the annexation of Cuba to the United 

 States, but its elevation into an independent repub- 

 lic of freemen, in harmony with ourselves and with 

 the other republics of America. 



You will understand, therefore, that the policy of 

 the United States in reference to Cuba at the present 

 time is one of expectancy, but with positive and 

 fixed convictions as to the duty of the United States 

 when the time or emergency of action shall arrive. 

 When it shall arrive, you will receive specific in- 

 structions what to do. "Meantime, instructed as you 

 now are as to the intimate purposes of the Govern- 

 ment, you are to act in conformity therewith in tho 



