Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1853-01-08

must always be rs good as their own;a distant
island, in another hemisphere, and one which,
by no ordinary or peaceful course of things, could
ever belong to either of them If the present
balance of power in Europe should be broken up,
if Spain should become unable to maintain the
island In her possession, and England and Franco
should be engaged in a death struggle with each
other, Cuba might then be the prize of the victor
Till these events all tnke place, the President
does not see how Cuba eau belong to any Euro
pean Power but Spain.
The United States, on the other hand, would
by the proposed convention, disable themselves
from making an acquisition which might take
place without any disturbance of existing foreign
relations, and in the natural order of things. The
| island ut Cuba lies at our doors. 1t commands
the approach to the Gulf of Mexico, which
washes the shores of five of our States. 1t bars
the entrance of that grear river which drains half
the North American continent, and with its trib-
utarles forms the largest system of internal water
communication in the world. 1t keeps watch at
the doorway of our intercourse with California
by the Isthmus route. Ifan island like Cuba.
belonging to the Spanish crown guarded the en-
trance OF the Thames and the Seine, and the
| United States should propose a convention like
this to England and France, those Powers would
assuredy feel that the disability assumed by
ourselves was far less serious than tina. which
| we asked them to assume.
1
| ent times and under varying circumstances, have
differed as to the disturbances of the acquisition
| Of Cuba by the United States. Territorallv and
commercially, it would in our hands be an ex-
| tremely valuable possession. Under certain con-
tngeuces it might be almost essential to cur safe
| ty. Still, for domestic reasons, Oh which, in Ia
communication of this kind, it might not be
proper to dwell, the President thinks that the
incorporation of the island into the Union at the
MI eff cfa1 wit tl,o
of Spain, would be hazardous measure; and he
would consider its acquisition by force except
\ in a ustwar with Spain, (shouid an event so
greatly to be deprecated take place,) as dis
grace to the civilization of the age.
The President has given ample proof of the
sincerity with which he holds these views. He
has thrown the whole force of his constitutional
power against all illegal attacks upon the island.
1t would have been perfectly easy for him, with-
out any seeming neglect of duty, to allow projects
of very formidable character to gather strength
by connivaace No amount of obloquy at home.
ne embarrassments caused by the indiscretions of
the colonial Government of Cuba, have moved
him from the path of duty in this respect. The
| Captain General of that island, an officer appa-
rently of upright and conciliatory character, but
probably more used to military command than the
management OF civil affairs, has on punctilio in
reference to the purser OF private steamship,
| (who seems to have been entirely innocent of the
matters laid to his charged refused to allow pas
sengers and the mails of the United States to be
landed from vessel having him on board. This
certainly is very extraordinary mode OF animal
verting upon the supposed abuse of the liberty of
the press, by the sub ect of foreign Government
in his native country. The Captain General i.
not permitted by his Government, three thousand
miles off, to hold any diplomatic intercourse with
the United States He is subject in no degree
to the direction ofthe Spanish Minister at Wash
| ington, and the President has to choose between
a resort to force to compel the abandonment of
| this gratuitous interruption OF commercial inter-
course, (which would result in war; and delay
of weeks and months necessary for negotiation
with Madrid. with all the chances of the most
deporable occurrences in the interval; and all for
n trihe that ought to have admitted settlement
by an exchange of notes between Washington and
| the Havana. The President, however, has pa
tiently submitted to these evils, and has
continued faithfully to give to Cuba the ad.
vantage of those principles of the public
law, under the shelter of which she has
departed in this case from the comfy of nations.
But the incidents to which | allude, and which
are still in train, are among many others which
point decsively to the expediency of some change
in the relations of Cuba; and the President thinks
that the influence of England and France with
Spain would be we'll employed in inducing her SO
to modify the administration of the government
Of Cuba as to afford the means OF some promptre-
nedy for evils of the kind alluded to- which have
done much to increase the spirit of unlawful Gu
terprise against the island.
That convention such as is proposed would be
transtory arrangement sure to be swept away
by the irresistible tide of aairs in new country,
is, to the apprehension of the President, too oby-
GUS to require labored argument. The project
rests on principles applicable if at all, to Europe,
where international relations in their basis of
great antiquity, slowly modified for the most part
in the progress oftme and events and not app-
cable to America, which. but lately waste is
filling up with intense rapidity, and adjusting, On
natural principles those territorial relations which,
on the first discovery of the continent, were in Il
good degree fortuitous.
The comparative history of Europe and Amer-
en-, for siugle century, shows this. In
1852, England, France and Spain were not ma
terially different in their political position in
Europe from what they now are. They were
ancient, mature, consolidated States established
in their relations with each other and the rest Of
the world-the leading Powers of Western and
Southern Europe. Totally different was the
state of things in America. The United States
had no existence people. A line of English
colonies, not numbering much million of
Inhabitants, stretched along the coast. France
extended from the Bay of St. Lawrence to the
Gulfof Mexico, and from the Aleghanes to the
Mississippi beyond which, westward, the cont
nent was wilderness, occupied by wandering
savages, and subject to conflicting and nominal
claim on the part of France and Spain. Every
thing IN Europe was comparatively fixed; every
thing in America provisional, incipient and tenn
porary, except the law of progress, which is as
organic and vital in the youth Of the Suites as of
individual men. A struggle between the provin-
cial authorities of Eng land and France for the
possession OF a petty stockade at the confluence of
the Monongahea aud the Allegheny kindled the
seven years war; at the close of which the great
European Powers, not materially affected in their
relations at home. had undergone astonishing
eli t1ia Il: