PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



657 



Increased intercourse, the extension of commerce, 

 and the cultivation of mutual interests, have steadily 

 improved our relations with the large majority of 

 the powers of the world, rendering practicable the 

 peaceful solution of questions which from time to 

 time necessarily arise, leaving few which demand 

 extended or particular notice. 



The correspondence of the Department of State 

 with our diplomatic representatives abroad is trans- 

 mitted herewith. 



I am happy to announce the passage of an act by 

 the General (Jortes of Portugal, proclaimed since the 

 adjournment of Congress, tor the abolition of servi- 

 tude in the Portuguese colonies. It is to be hoped 

 that such legislation may be another step toward the 

 great consummation to be reached, when no man 

 shall be permitted, directly or indirectly, under any 

 guise, excuse, or form of law, to hold his fellow-man 

 in bondage. I am of the opinion also that it is the 

 duty of the United States, as contributing toward 

 that end, and required by the spirit of the age in 

 which we live, to provide by suitable legislation 

 that no citizen of the United States shall hold slaves 

 as property in any other country or be interested 

 therein. 



Chili has made reparation in the case of the whale- 

 ship Good Return, seized without sufficient cause 

 upward of forty years ago. Though she had hither- 

 to denied her accountability, the denial was never 

 acquiesced in by this Government, and the justice 

 of the claim has been so earnestly contended for 

 that it has been gratifying that she should have at 

 last acknowledged it. 



The arbitrator in the case of the United States 

 steamer Montijo, for the seizure and detention of 

 which the Government of the United States of Co- 

 lombia was held accountable, has decided in favor 

 of the claim. This decision has settled a question 

 which had been pending for several years, and 

 which, while it continued open, might more or less 

 disturb the good understanding which it is desirable 

 should be maintained between the two republics. 



A reciprocity treaty with the King of the Hawai- 

 ian Islands was concluded some months since. As 

 it contains a stipulation that it shall not take effect 

 until Congress shall enact the proper legislation for 

 that purpose, copies of the instrument are herewith 

 submitted, in order that, if such should be the 

 pleasure of Congress, the necessary legislation upon 

 the subject may be adopted. 



In March last an arrangement was made, through 

 Mr. Gushing, our minister in Madrid, with the Span- 

 ish Government, for the payment by the latter to 

 the United States of the sum of $80,000 in coin, for 

 the purpose of the relief of the families or persons 

 of the ship's company and certain passengers of the 

 Virginius. This sum was to have been paid in three 

 installments at two months each. It is due to the 

 Spanish Government that I should state that the 

 payments were fully and spontaneously anticipated 

 by that Government, and that the whole amount 

 was paid within but a few days more than two 

 months from the date of the agreement, a copy of 

 which is herewith transmitted. In pursuance of the 

 terms of the adjustment I have directed the distri- 

 bution of the amount among the parties entitled 

 thereto, including the ship's company and such of 

 the passengers as were American citizens. Pay 

 ments are made accordingly, on the application by 

 the parties entitled thereto. 



The past year has furnished no evidence of an ap- 

 proaching termination of the ruinous conflict which 

 has been raging for seven years in the neighboring 

 island of Cuba. The same disregard of the laws of 

 civilized warfare and of the just demands of human- 

 ity, which has heretofore called forth expressions 

 of condemnation from the nations of Christendom, 

 lias continued to blacken the sad scene. Desolation, 

 ruin, and pillage, are pervading the rich fields or 

 one of the most fertile and productive regions of the 

 VOL. xv. 42 A 



earth, and the incendiaries' torch, firing plantations 

 and valuable factories and buildings, is the agent 

 marking the alternate advance or retreat of contend- 

 ing parties. 



The protracted continuance of this strife seriously 

 affects the interests of all commercial nations, but 

 those of the United States more than others, by rea- 

 son of close proximity, its larger trade and inter- 

 course with Cuba, and the frequent and intimate 

 personal and social relations which have grown up 

 between its citizens and those of the island. More- 

 over 2 the property of our citizens in Cuba is large, 

 and is rendered insecure and depreciated in value 

 and in capacity of production by the continuance of 

 the strife and the unnatural mode of its conduct. The 

 same is true, differing only in degree, with respect 

 to the interests and people of other nations ; and the 

 absence of any reasonable assurance of a near ter- 

 mination of the conflict must, of necessity, soon 

 compel the states thus suffering to consider what the 

 interests of their own people and their duty toward 

 themselves may demand. 



I have hoped that Spain would be enabled to es- 

 tablish peace in her colony, to afford security to the 

 property and the interests of our citizens, and allow 

 legitimate scope to trade and commerce and the nat- 

 ural productions of the island. Because of this 

 hope, and from an extreme reluctance to interfere in 

 the most remote manner in the affairs of another and 

 a friendly nation, especially of one whose sympathy 

 and friendship in the struggling infancy of our own 

 existence must ever be remembered with gratitude, 

 I have patiently and anxiously waited the progress 

 of events. Our own civil conflict is too recent for 

 us not to consider the difficulties which surround a 

 Government distracted by a dynastic rebellion at 

 home, at the same time that it has to cope with a 

 separate insurrection in a distant colony. But what- 

 ever causes may have produced the situation which 

 so grievously affects our interests, it exists, with all 

 its attendant evils operating directly upon this coun- 

 try and its people. Thus far all the efforts of Spain 

 have proved abortive, and time has marked no im- 

 provement in the situation. The armed bands of 

 either side now occupy nearly the same ground as in 

 the past, with the difterence, from time to time, of 

 more lives sacrificed, more property destroyed, and 

 wider extents of fertile and productive fields and 

 more and more of valuable property constantly wan- 

 tonly sacrificed to the incendiaries' torch. 



In contests of this nature, where a considerable 

 body of people, who have attempted to free them- 

 selves of the control of the superior government, 

 have reached such point in occupation of territory, 

 in power, and in general organization as to consti- 

 tute in fact a body politic, having a government in 

 substance as well'as in name, possessed of the ele- 

 ments of stability, and equipped with the machinery 

 for the administration of internal policy and the ex- 

 ecution of its laws, prepared and able to administer 

 justice at home, as well as in its dealings with other 

 powers, it is within the province of those other pow- 

 ers to recognize its existence as a new and indepen- 

 dent nation. In such cases other nations simply 

 deal with an actually existing condition of things, 

 and recognize as one of the powers of the earth that 

 body politic which, possessing the necessary ele- 

 ments, has, in fact, become a new power. In a word, 

 the creation of a new state is a fact. 



To establish the condition of things essential to 

 the recognition of this fact, there must be a people 

 occupying a known territory, united under some 

 known and defined form of government, acknowl- 

 edged by those subject thereto, in which the func- 

 tions of government are administered by usual 

 methods, competent to mete out justice to citizens 

 and strangers, to afford remedies for public and for 

 private wrongs, and able to assume the correlative 

 international obligations, and capable of performing 

 the corresponding international duties resulting from 



