farce! He "fulminated his scorn against such calumnies," and abandoned them to the contempt of the chamber. His alarmed patriotism impelled him to make his interpellation, and he would have addressed it to any ministry whatever under similar circumstances. The ministry had taken advantage of his interpellation to precipitate a crisis, which fortunately had shown that the radical party was divided upon an issue in which the government now claimed to represent the whole party, and even now one of the ministers refused to follow the rest in the pathway of perdition. This demonstrated that it was not a party issue, but a national question, affecting the integrity of the country.

What changes had taken place since Mr. Zorrilla made his elaborate declaration that the policy of the government in Cuba and Porto Rico would be the policy of the Cuban volunteers! That declaration, which had re-assured the minds of all, was seconded by Mr. Mosquera, who proclaimed his purpose to follow the policy of his predecessor, Mr. Ayala. He, who was now the chief paladin of reform, in 1869 denied that slavery was what it was alleged to be, and had again and again maintained that not a single reform could be given to Cuba and Porto Rico until material pacification should be followed by moral tranquillity. In this very Congress Mr. Zorrilla had answered Mr. Sanromá and opposed immediate reforms. Mr. Bugallal then added: "I cannot bring myself to believe, for the honor of my country, that the words of the message of the President of the United States could have had any direct influence upon the course of this government; but I tell the minister of state that, in view of such a declaration, I would have completely refused all reforms, and would never have permitted a foreign government to mark out for me not merely the path of the immediate abolition but also that of reforms."

Here Mr. Bugallal read extracts from the President's message.

"I leave it to the judgment of the house if, immediately upon this publication, it comports with our national dignity to undertake colonial reforms at such a time. When a foreign government dares to designate a specific question as a cause of perturbation in a Spanish province, and to indicate a specific solution and the necessity for adopting such reforms, it is not the time for a proud and dignified nation to undertake them."

Mr. Bugallal then argued that the status of Cuba and Porto Rico was identical socially, and that no discrimination could be made between them. A powerful secessionist element existed in both islands. Spanish liberties could not be extended to possessions where such ideas obtained, and where open enemies of Spain sought those liberties in order to conspire against her. The commissioners of 1867 had practically demanded Cuban independence by recommending an insular congress with power to vote their own budget. They were now rebels, and all the rights enjoyed by Spaniards were about to be put in their hands.

Mr. Bugallal then examined the municipal decree of Porto Rico. It gave the towns power to elect their alcaldes without governmental intervention; this privilege had worked great evils in Spain, and they would be worse in the Antilles. The schools and the clergy were under the control of the town-boards, whose moral influence was thus unlimited. The town-boards could levy taxes on articles of consumption, and if inimical to Spain-as they would be-they could exclude Spanish products and favor those of the United States. Worst of all they could arm a militia to fight against Spain. The decree was also unconstitutional under the 108th article, which limited the power of the government to proclaiming the municipal law of the constituent Cortes. And none of these grave evils were to be lessened by conceding a provincial assembly, and separating the military authority from the civil. On this point he had nothing to add to what General Gándara had said the day before. He concluded by saying that no one opposed abolition, for all were abolitionists by reason of being Christians and Europeans. The question was, should it be immediate or gradual? The former was dangerous and unconstitutional. The only safe path lay in the direction of slow, gradual, and steady reforms for the colonies. The inexperience of the liberals of 1812 and 1820 had caused great losses for Spain. If the lessons then given were unheeded, the remaining portions of the land of Columbus would be irreparably lost. Mr. Labra supported the motion in a most eloquent speech. He would say but little, the chamber was fatigued, and all were impatient to hear the eloquence of Castelar. But as a deputy from Porto Rico, he must reply to the attack lately made on the representation from that island. He and his colleagues represented the desire of the island for the termination of the statu quo and the concession of the reforms promised by the revolution. They represented not merely the liberal party of the island, but almost the whole population. They sought reforms constitutionally and through the action of the nation. They were accused of impatience and of disturbing public tranquillity, of avoiding public debate on the subject, and of being actuated by selfish motives. They had remained silent, however, for three years, awaiting the consolidation of the work of the revolution and a Cortes that should represent the liberal voice of the nation, knowing that when such a time arrived, reaction in the colonies would no longer be possible, and as Lincoln said on emancipating four millions

of men, "it was impossible that a people should be half free and half slave." But the sime had come for them to speak in behalf of the needs of the island. The Porto Rican deputation had sacrificed many individual views in order to reach a common and homogeneous accord. Some desired perfect assimilation with Spain; others, himself among them, sought colonial autonomy; but all had agreed to ask no more than what was promised by the constituent Cortes. They did not come to defend theories, but to demand the fulfillment of the laws, first, because these laws met the needs of Porto Rico, and secondly, because there was nothing more disturbing, more immoral in the life of a people than to leave laws unfulfilled, and through neglect or malice to convert a code into a dead letter. They demanded nothing more than obedience to the 10th article of the constitution, which provided that the government of the Antilles should be reformed as soon as deputies were present from Cuba or Porto Rico. And, therefore, they demanded, not colonial autonomy, but the fulfillment of the 3d and 4th articles of the two laws of June, 1870, which directed the government to promulgate them at once in the colonies. They asked the fulfillment of the 21st article of the preparatory abolition law, which promised a definitive law of abolition, with indemnity for those left in slavery by the law of 1870.

Those laws were not now under discussion. The Porto Rican delegation had not framed them. They were framed by many of those who to-day combated them.

He well knew what was the Achillean argument of those who opposed the execution of those laws in the Lesser Antilla. "All of us," it was said, "are partisans of reform, but with discretion, and at the proper time. All of us agree that reforms will work no harm in Porto Rico. The abolition of slavery is easy there, and political reforms will encounter but few obstacles. But the fact is, that whatever is undertaken or done now in Porto Rico anticipates what is to be done in Cuba, and we must not fall into the snare spread for us and reach Cuba, against our will, by the path of Porto Rico." From the time Mr. Labra first took his seat as a Porto Rican deputy until now, he had frankly maintained that the Cuban issue was not one of mere force. It was, however, sought to mystify the issue; to reach Porto Rico by the path of Cuba, and to withhold reforms from the lesser island under the pretext of the situation in the greater one. Under cover of this they were asked to deny and renounce for the colonies all the conquests of the revolution. Such a course meant national dishonor and suicide.

Porto Rico's record was loyal. She had resisted the secession movement of Latin America in 1822, and fought for Spanish integrity in the war of Santo Domingo. Till 1-37 she had had the same laws and municipal government as the peninsula. It was false that a secessionist party existed there. The Lares affair was a mere riot; it was unjust to condemn the whole island therefor.

What was the prime need of the island? The abolition of slavery. When, in 1866, Porto Rico was consulted for the first time as to her wants, she begged for abolition, for she felt herself unworthy to ask for her own liberties until she had given freedom to her slaves. And since that time her deputies had deemed it their first duty to demand the emancipation of the small and lessening number of slaves in that island. In this they had been ably seconded by their constituents, who, dissatisfied with the incomplete law of 1870, had since voluntarily manumitted many of their slaves. The die was cast. The colonial issue was now defined. "Liberty to all!" was their rallying

ery.

Mr. Labra then recounted the history of the peace of Amiens, by which the slavetrade was revived and the slaves already freed were re-enslaved, thus precipitating the tragedy of Santo Domingo, which was in no wise the result of abolition. The dying exile on Saint Helena was haunted by the memory of this act, and the curse of Toussaint l'Ouverture would forever rest on the dynasty of Napoleon.

He concluded by saying:

"Forward, radicals! Forward, men of September! Our work is just, and must redound to the welfare of the country. Henceforward we can close our opened arms to none because they think differently from us. It is impossible that there can be Spaniards and anti-Spaniards in the Antilles instead of conservatives and liberals. No; those islanders may dwell with us, free as in the United States, expansive and quivering with life as in South America, and happy as in the English West Indies. Together with us they may tread the path of the future and of humanity, for there is room for all parties-republican, monarchical, radical, and conservative alike--beneath the standard of Spain; and all shades and tendencies of opinion may dwell in the august bosom of our fatherland. I have done."

Mr. Castelar then delivered a thrilling oration in favor of the measure. His speech, translated from his own revised manuscript, will be found in Appendix H.

The MINISTER OF STATE, (Mr. MARTOS.) The speeches made against this proposition made a reply necessary on the part of the government; but a partial reply has been already made by the minister of fomento last night. You have just heard, deputies, the oration of Mr. Castelar, who is already fully aware that it is not because of my personal affection for him, but because I share the opinion of all those who have had the

good fortune to hear him, that I regard him as the first orator in the world. It is an honor for Spain that the most inspired accents heard in the whole world are uttered by a Spanish deputy, and are born in and spread abroad from the Spanish tribune. A great obligation rests upon the government in this debate; but under the present circumstances it cannot discharge it. The same thing occurs, gentlemen, in the moral life as in the physical life: when we journey on, oppressed with weariness and thirst, through desert sands, it is not possible for us to pass far from the cool spring that slakes our thirst, and when we are in the midst of darkness it were vain to hinder our eyes from drinking in the radiance of the light that shines through our gloom; and so, also, it were vain for me now to seek to enchain your attention. But I cannot, deputies, omit to make a few remarks in reply to certain phrases of most serious import uttered by Mr. Bugallal.

"The debate is closed. Mr. Castelar has spoken the last word; the slaves in Porto Rico are already free! [Great applause.]

"The law of abolition to be submitted to you by the government is the form by which we are about to realize this grand hope, but is the form and nothing more. since the inspired utterance of Mr. Castelar, which will be legally corroborated by the vote of the parliament, in reality is the final consecration of the liberty of those men henceforth.

"The senate yesterday was the scene of a great debate. Interests which I respect lifted up their voice then and there against reform; but the vote of that body was the same as the vote of this chamber the other day. The Spanish chambers have spoken. The abolition of slavery in Porto Rico shall soon be an accomplished fact. [Prolonged and repeated applause."]

But from whence do these reforms spring? I regret to have heard from the lips of a Spanish deputy that the purposes of this government, which, in fine, represents the dignity, the high bearing, and the independence of the Spanish nation, and the votes of the two chambers do not respond to the inspiration of our consciences, to the necessity of discharging solemn obligations we have publicly contracted, but that they are due to the dictation, to the menaces, perchance, of some foreign nation. No! No one can believe this, no one has the right to say this; and these words of Mr. Bugallal's have prompted me to rise and dispel the shadow which seems to linger in his mind.

Mr. Bugallal did not say, as it has been said, however, elsewhere, that we propose the abolition of slavery because we are forced to do so by England and the United States; but the honorable gentleman has regretted that this project of reform should have coincided with certain utterances in the message of the President of the United States.

Well, then, Mr. Bugallal is doubtless unaware that the ministerial crisis brought about by the measure which has given rise to this debate took place in the bosom of the cabinet toward the end of November last, and that the Congress of Washington was opened the first Monday in December; consequently, when this government had already resolved to extend reforms to the island of Porto Rico, and when its resolve to grant them was so firm that, because it would not recede from this path, it had to undergo the bitterness of losing several of its members, the message of President Grant was not yet read, and, perhaps, not yet written. Let Mr. Bugallal therefore give no heed to this coincidence, let him rejoice at it as a good Spaniard and understand that if there has been any influence at work it is more likely that the knowledge of this purpose of the Spanish government (which I, as minister of state, knowing the applause it would receive from all Europe, took good care to communicate by telegraph to all the world) may have led to the substitution of approbation for censure, and that, perhaps, to the knowledge of this intention it is due that the President of the United States has said what no President of those States has ever before said in speaking of Spain and Spanish governments.

Neither has Mr. Castelar any cause for alarm. He need not fulminate the invincible bolts of his eloquence against the opposition of the military aristocracy. Our worthy generals are not elements of discord nor instruments of reaction, either in America or in Spain. Our army, which is pouring out its blood in defense of the integrity of the country, would welcome with applause a peace that would end this cruel war; and there is a way of ending the war in Cuba otherwise than by the melancholy means of extermination, for extermination will never end it; and the time has come for the army of our soldiers to make room for the passage of the impatient army of our ideas.

It is not true that we have no minister of war now; neither is it true that we would have none if we were to suffer the misfortune of losing from our midst our worthy General Cordova, whose patriotic and honorable course was so justly lauded yesterday by the president of the council. If General Cordova should one day, abaudon this bench, we would have a minister of war.

But the time for voting is at hand, and "the government demands that the ayes and noes be taken. Would to God all party views might be merged in the sentiment of patriotism and love of Spain! And know this, deputies, this most laborious parlia

ment can give its labors no more glorious coronation than to decide now, in principle, and to-morrow when the law is before it for discussion, the immediate freedom of the slaves in Porto Rico." [Great applause.]

Mr. Lasala obtained the floor and asked that certain extracts from the debate on the "Labra proposition" of 1871 should appear in the official reports of this day's proceedings, which was accorded.

The proposition submitted by Mr. Becerra being again read, and the ayes and noes thereon being demanded, it was approved by 214 votes to 12.

The chamber adjourned at a quarter past seven o'clock.

[Appendix H.]

Speech of Emilio Castelar in the chamber of deputies, December 21, 1872, in favor of the imme diate abolition of slavery in the island of Porto Rico.

[Translated from the verbatim report corrected by Mr. Castelar.]

MESSIEURS DEPUTIES: I trust the chamber will pardon me if I begin my address by reading a few paragraphs from previous speeches of mine, which are necessary to explain and justify my personal position in this debate.

On the 20th of June, 1870, the most essential of the issues before us, the slavery question, was under discussion as it is to-day, and I then uttered the words I now deem needful to read to the chamber: "In the revolution of September there were two motive forces, one analogous to the French movement of 1830, the other analogous to that of 1848. The radical and conservative parties believed they had signed a compact in the constitution of 1869, whereas they had simply signed a truce; they believed they had found a common channel in which to mingle their currents, whereas they had in reality but found a new field of battle whereon to measure their strength." And afterward, when I was combating the first imperfect law, the product of a coalition, I proposed that it should be replaced by a radical law, and I spoke these words: "Your law is not a law of charity, it is not a law of humanity; your law aggravates the evils instead of curing them. When the cancering sore is deep, palliatives are of no avail; a cautery is needed. And the cautery is to be found in the amendment I have the honor to propose to you; it is to be found in the immediate abolition of human bondage."

Three years have passed, deputies, and the immediate abolition of slavery is now proposed in this place, and will be presented to you through the initiative of the government at an early day. And now I ask of you, I ask of all those of honest conscience, can any one be surprised at my personal attitude in this debate? Nevertheless, deputies, I do not speak of my own will and choice; although I might have invoked these precedents in support of my course, I have hitherto refrained from speaking because I do not seek to reap in politics an egotistical satisfaction; the triumph of principles and the good they may bring to the people can alone satisfy me. I do not speak of my own will; I speak because of exigencies-nay, more than exigencies, I speak because of commands; nay, more than commands, I speak because it is the authoritative will of the republican minority that I should do so. Those who hear me well know that, although in other legislatures I have spoken, perhaps, too often, in this Parliament and in this term I have not even broken silence.

Grave misinterpretations have elsewhere been given to this silence, inspired, in my judgment, by an exalted sentiment of patriotism and by the highest convictions of justice; grave misinterpretations whose wave shock has been withstood by the firm serenity of my conscience, and which have been lost in the just oblivion of public opinion. Subsequently, eminent deputies, of all the conservative parties, some of whom now hear my words, and others of whom, unfortunately for themselves and for us, are now absent from this place, spoke to me of my silence, and urged me to break it, employing terms of admiration which I attributed to affection, and which show how eminent orators illuminate all by the reflection of their speech, and how great minds raise all to the level of their own merit. I shall speak, gentlemen, and perhaps I speak discontenting all alike. [I shall speak of the policy of the government, of the fulfillment of its engagements, of the situation of the party that forms the majority of this chamber, of the nature and tendency of certain elevated powers, of the attitude we maintain, of the prudent conduct imposed upon us by the hazards of our country and of the complications of European policy; I shall speak of all this when I can do so without harm to liberty or democracy or federation or the republic; ideas to which I render fervent homage with a rare constancy not much in favor in these latter days, when new comers are accustomed to control at their own pleasure, the fortunes of the older parties. [Great applause.] A constancy I shall never be led to abandon by

ingratitude nor slights nor threats nor calumnies, because I do not cherish ideas of federal republicanism to please any one or to serve the whim of the multitude; for those ideas are incarnate in the fibers of my whole being, and will be the inseparable companions of my existence until the very hour of my death.

Having said this much, I now enter on the subject of the debate. The republican minority has voted in favor of taking under consideration the proposition for a vote of thanks to the president of the council for his utterances respecting colonial reforms. The republican minority will vote as one man for the approval of this proposition. In voting thus, the republican minority does not give its vote to a monarchical party; its vote is inspired by its own conscience and by its own principles; it means to adhere to the steadfast pole of its ancient doctrines. And if it chances that the government and the majority are with us in such an issue, even as in those days of sorrow, now passing into oblivion, in which we combated a traditional monarchy, an intolerant church, and a census which drove the people from the ballot-box-even as in those days we did not pause to reckon the number of our foes, so neither do we now count the number of our friends when it is sought to embody here and give to America the principles of liberty and of justice. The republican minority has heard a cry to which it can never be deaf, the cry of reforms already promised-already given, as it were— to long-oppressed peoples, victims of military despotism and bureaucracy, who, more than all others, have need to breathe the air of modern life; peoples who are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, bone of our bone, offshoots of our own soul, an integral part of the national domain, the essence of our country, having a right to our own rights, and who-if when emancipated proved ungrateful and turned against the nation that recognizes and proclaims their right, against the parliament that gives them and has also power to take them away-would merit the wrath of our justice, the condemnation of the civilized world, and the eternal curse of history, where from lies no appeal. [Boisterous and prolonged applause.]

Another question, deputies, of the utmost importance, still remains. As I have said, we advocated, in its good time, the immediate abolition of slavery, and we advocated it, not in order that our names might resound through the world, not as an academical theme serving as the frame-work for the display of mock sensibility, or whereon to hang the baubles of our rhetoric; no! We advocated it as an exigency of universal progress, and as a duty toward our country from which we could not shrink. It is hard, indeed, to confess that beneath the skies flooded with the radiance of liberty, and darkened, too, at times by tempests; beneath the shadow of your constitution whose first articles amplify the rights guaranteed by the descendants of the Puritans to the peoples who founded the great American Republic-there still subsist thousands of unhappy creatures, things rather than men, instruments of the work and wealth of others, feeling in their brain the generous warmth of human nature and in their eonscience the ignominy of the brute creation; who bear on their foreheads the helot's brand, on their backs the pariah's scars, and on their feet the fetters of the slave; a race anterior to the revolution, anterior to Christianity itself; it is a crime which should be done away with, to-day rather than to-morrow; for we should be unworthy to frame within our own minds the conception of right, and to stand forth before history as the defenders of liberty, if we should suppose that the strict fulfillment of duty and the realization of the purest ideas of justice would redound to the injury of our country. [Repeated applause.]

Ah! deputies, the republican minority seeks and desires this, absolutely, happen what will, come what may, for it is justice. And moreover it seeks and desires this because, like all acts of justice, it is also of the highest political expediency. However radical we may be, however rationalistic we may appear, however independent may be our desire to hold our own ideas of every circumstance of time and space, none of us will deny that a deed of the first magnitude in history descends as a legacy to all time and is inherent in all ages to come.

To Italy belongs the aesthetic education of the human race, for Italy is the mother of the renaissance; to Germany belongs the scientific education of the human race, for Germany is the mother of the reformation; to the United States belongs the political education of the human race, for they are the honored sires of republican federation; to France belongs the revolutionary initiative in Occidental Europe, for France is the mother of the revolution; to England belongs the principal of constitutional stability throughout the continent, for England is the illustrious land of parliamentary rights; and we, Spaniards, are, have been, and ever shall be the mediators between the old and the new world, between the old and the new continent; for we, our heroes, our sailors, our navigators, created rather than discovered between the Atlantic and the Pacific the new land of America, to be, from the very commencement of the modern epoch and the new birth of the genius of civilization, a living monument of freedom, and form with its splendid horizons and the beauties of its bounteous soil a worthy sanctuary for the spirit of modern times. [Applause.]

It matters little, very little, deputies, that the greater part of political and material ties that linked us with America have been severed. The Spanish race, from the sim