The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-12
tbs CUBAN PROSPECT AND SLAVE
EMANCIPATION

II 0eASo dah ZIG issue OF MS QUASI
liberal proclamation. The reservation of a
government censorship of the press ON the
subjects OF slavery and religion, however
proper and well meaning the motives which
inspired 1t, shows that the captain generals
ideas OF the franchises of speech and opinion
are somewhat medieval. They are behind
the spirit OF this age to say the least fact
that stamps their formal and explicit An.
nouncement as understandable and inoppor-
tune 1t will neither help to fortify the
Catholic Church in the affections of the
CuDans, nor to stave off the dangers and
shocks OF slave emancipation. On the con-
trary, the popular sentiment of contradiction
against the supreme authority of the home
| government viii be apt to concentrate itself
upon those very subjects which the vice.
| gerant of Spain is so solicitous to guard from
agitation and assault.
On the whole, it is to be feared that the
| proclamation of Captain General Dulce.
however conciliatory in tone and seeming.
SO far from promoting satisfactory solution
OF the Cuba question, will operate to put the
affairs OF that island in situation still more
complicated precarious and unassuring. Un-
less recent accounts from the insurrectionary
districts are erroneous, the insurgent leaders
have already proclaimed emancipation. Their
purpose in taking such step cannot be mis-
taken. The expedient is adopted as desper-
ate, final and irrevocable appeal to the arbitra-
ment of war of revolution. 1t means that |
they have made up their minds to throw off |
the existing Spanish rule at all hazards and |
to the last extremity. In contest such as
they have undertaken, the emancipation of
the slaves in the island must have come at
some time and in some way, in spite of any
present reluctance and delay on the subject
by either party. The revolutionary chiefs
have doubtless acted upon this assumption
and, satisfied that the Spanish authorities
would eventually proclaim emancipation as
war measure against the insurgents, they
have concluded to anticipate this contingency,
and to turn that weapon against the
enemy by being themselves the first to offer
freedom to the slaves. For like reason,
slavery was inevitably to be abolished in the
prolongation of an urcompromising war be-
tween the United States government and the
Southern Confederates. The latter would |
have liberated the slaves at last had the for
mer been content to fight on without taking
the formal initiative in that direction, One
side or the other would have come at length
to regard the act as one of the necessities of a
war to the utterance. AS to what the fate of
the South would have been in such case. it
is idle to speculate. This much may be as
sumed, however, that, even if she had won
by calling negro auxiliaries
into her service, she would have paid for the
event in concessions to the freed people con-
ferring political rights, and exciting social
pretensions, IN as large degree, perhaps, as
such rights have been conferred and such |
pretensions excited by the policy of Congress S
with reference to the same people. We need ?
say no more to indicate the fearful gravity s
md desperation of the decision of the insur- t
gent leaders in Cuba to bid for the co-opera- #
ion Of the slaves by offering them freedom. d
Their idesign is to harass the Spanish V
government as much as possible by L
omplicating the revolutionary struggle for d
struggle heretofore confined 81
the interior districts of the eastern half of q
aba, with servile war spreading into every 'c'
art of the island. 1t is not to be supposed Il
bat the Cuban negroes, once stirred up to ia
anticipate in such contest will be content N
D relapse, in any event. into their original
ondition. Having tasted of freedom in the
orm in which it is sweetest to barbarous ma %
Tres, that of revolutionary and anarchic az
cense, there can be no doubt that they would u
e utterly and permanently demoralized, in ID
hcient and improbable as slaves even if II
ley should have failed to accomplish their ht
rmal and defnitive reimbursement They pa
institute about one-half the total population IL
Cuba, and four-ffths of the laboring popu- an
ton. The effect of proclaiming their eman- at
patton and rouslng them to assert their III
eedom will be not only profound social ap
sturbance, but shock to the industry of sa
10 island from which it may not recover for iol
'ars. 1t will be fortunate, indeed, for the III
and, if it is not doomed, for a season at on
asst. to keen comnanv in industrial dooo thi
nee with Jamaica and Hayti. OF
At all events, the destiny of the seryile "
pulation is now and must be henceforth
g most inauspicious element in the Cuban 4,
oblem. Unless the future history of Cuba y
all take tangent which will lead her far %
t of the rut in which she is now moving nNi
tween the uncertainties of Spanish ~
minion on the one hand and the dangers p"'
negro barbarism on the other hand, the 90
TIA before her is one of increasing gloom r-c
sadness. But we can scarcely conceive a. -
It the American people, who should feel g ~
lcerned on SO many accounts about the 80
ure of this island, will stand quietly by ''''
see her touch the vortex of decay and Z
ditlon In which Hayt and Jamaica are MOI
TX. VIII,
, -. -, cess