THE PERPETUAL CUBAN REVOLUTION

Cuba has played a large and interesting part in our history from the very earliest days. The article "Cuba," in the index (volume eleven), succinctly presents the salient facts regarding her natural resources, her history and her present condition. She was a bone of contention in our domestic politics. The South, represented by the Democratic party, was bent on annexing her; proffers were made of money to insolvent Spain, only to be spurned; if gold will not buy, force of arms must conquer, was the motto. With the encouragement of the South, filibustering expeditions were fitted out, and with the connivance of traitorous Southern agents of the Federal Government, escaped the vigilance of our cruisers only to be snapped up by the watchful Spaniards. Such violations of our treaties were likely to bring on war; far from dreading such a result, the South would have welcomed it with glee, for then the doctrine of "manifest destiny" with which they sought to palliate our unjust war on Mexico, would cloak the robbing of Cuba from Spain. Why did the South want Cuba? Simply because if annexed two or three new slave states could be created, four or six new slave Senators be elected, and their vanishing domination in Congress be restored. The illustrations are contemporary and truthful representations of scenes in the Cuban insurrection of 1868-1877. The post-bellum view of Cuban affairs will be found by consulting the discussions of the matter by the Presidents from Grant to McKinley, on the pages cited by the index under the heading "Cuba." On page 2701 President Fillmore states the reasons against annexation, and on page 3041 President Buchanan recommends it.

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 resistance 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 civilized nations and with such continued outrage upon the plainest principles of humanity.

We can not discriminate in our censure of their mode of conducting their contest between the Spaniards and the Cubans. Each commit the same atrocities 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 knowledge of the Government an early and earnest demand 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 warfare.

I have, since the beginning of the present session of Congress, communicated to the House of Representatives, upon their request, an account of the steps which I had taken in the hope 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 exhibition has been made of large numbers of Cubans escaping 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 covered 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 prepared 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 and the eminent statesmen of his day, and followed by succeeding Chief Magistrates 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 discussion of measures of neutrality begins with the State papers of Mr. Jefferson when Secretary of State. He shows that they are measures of national right as well as of national duty; that misguided individual citizens can not be tolerated in making war according to their own caprice, passions, interests, or foreign sympathies; that the agents of foreign governments, recognized or unrecognized, can not be permitted to abuse our hospitality by usurping the functions of enlisting or equipping military or naval forces within our territory. Washington inaugurated the policy of neutrality and of absolute abstinence from all foreign entangling alliances, which resulted, in 1794, in the first municipal enactment for the observance of neutrality.

The duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted by every President. Washington encountered the efforts of Genêt and of the French revolutionists; John Adams, the projects of Miranda; Jefferson, the schemes of Aaron Burr. Madison and subsequent 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 American Republics from leav ing 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 simultaneously through all the Spanish American continental colonies resulted in the establishment of new States, like ourselves, of European origin, and interested in excluding European politics and the questions of dynasty and of balances of power from further influence in the New World.

The American policy of neutrality, important before, became doubly so from the fact that it became applicable to the new Republics as well as to the mother country.

It then devolved upon us to determine the great international question at what time and under what circumstances to recognize a new power as entitled to a place among the family of nations, as well as the preliminary question of the attitude to be observed by this Government toward the insurrectionary party pending the contest.

Mr. Monroe concisely expressed the rule which has controlled the action of this Government with reference to revolting colonies pending their struggle by saying:

As soon as the movement assumed such a steady and consistent form as to make the success of the Provinces probable, the rights to which they were entitled by the laws of nations as equal parties to a civil war were extended to them.

The strict adherence to this rule of public policy has been one of the highest honors of American statesmanship, and has secured to this Government the confidence of the feeble powers on this continent, which induces them to rely upon its friendship and absence of designs of conquest and to look to the United States for example and moral protection. It has given to this Government a position of prominence and of influence which it should not abdicate, but which imposes upon it the most delicate duties of right and of honor regarding American questions, whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or colonies still subject to European dominion.

The question of belligerency is one of fact, not to be decided by sympathies for or prejudices against either party. The relations between the parent state and the insurgents must amount in fact to war in the sense of international law. Fighting, though fierce and protracted, does not alone constitute war. There must be military forces acting in accordance with the rules and customs of war, flags of truce, cartels, exchange of prisoners, etc.; and to justify a recognition of belligerency there must be, above all, a de facto political organization of the insurgents sufficient in character and resources to constitute it, if left to itself, a state among nations capable of discharging the duties of a state and of meeting the just responsibilities it may incur as such toward other powers in the discharge of its national duties.

Applying the best information which I have been enabled to gather, whether from official or unofficial sources, including the very exaggerated statements which each party gives to all that may prejudice the opposite or give credit to its own side of the question, I am unable to see in the present condition of the contest in Cuba those elements which are requisite to constitute war in the sense of international law.

The insurgents hold no town or city; have no established seat of government; they have no prize courts; no organization for the receiving and collecting of revenue; no seaport to which a prize may be carried or through which access can be had by a foreign power to the limited interior territory and mountain fastnesses which they occupy. The existence of a legislature representing any popular constituency is more than doubtful.

In the uncertainty that hangs around the entire insurrection there is no palpable evidence of an election, of any delegated authority, or of any government outside the limits of the camps occupied from day to day by the roving companies of insurgent troops; there is no commerce, no trade, either internal or foreign, no manufactures.

The late commander in chief of the insurgents, having recently come to the United States, publicly declared that "all commercial intercourse or trade with the exterior world has been utterly cut off;" and he further added: "To-day we have not 10,000 arms in Cuba."

It is a well-established principle of public law that a recognition by

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