Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1870-06-22
Affairs i'm Cuba.

MR.. W LIZARD. MT. speaker, rise to-day
to speak not for Spain nor the Spaniard-
not for tyranny nor despotism on the Ameri-
can Continent or elsewhere-not for Cuba
nor the Cubans-not for the Cuban Junta,
which for nearly two years has had its organ
izations in New York and Washington-not
for liberty and equal rights for other lands or
other peoples. But / rise here to ask the
serious and careful and candid attention of
the representatives of the American people
to the grave question that has been present
ed TO us by the message from the President,
read in our hearing two days ago, and by the
reports which have been made TO this body
from the majority and from the minority of
the Committee on Foreign Affairs. When
the chairman of the committee, at the COM
mencemeut of his very able speech yesterday,
said that this was a question which must be
settled, that it was question which would
force itself upon our attention month after
month, and year after year, until we settled
it finally and forever, l gave to that express
sion my cordial assent. l am in favor of
settlement of the question, and of such set
Element as will remain for all coming time.
But such settlement will not be reached by
establishing by our action the new and
strange doctrines urged by the majority re-
port. Whatever may be pressed upon our
attention in behalf of the Cubans, what we
need most to look at, and what we ought to
be governed by, are the propositions of
international law which have been establish
ed almost from the very foundation of our
Government, which have been decided over
and over apd over again and the record of
those decisions, clear and uniform, is found
all through our diplomatic correspondence
with foreign powers from our earliest politi
cal history. These questions have been set
tied by the declarations of our Executives
from the time of Washington to the present
period: they have been more than ever set
tied, they have moro than ever received the
decisive judgment of the American people,
within the last six or eight years.
These propositions involve questions of the
utmost gravity, because the relations which
one nation sustains to the government of any
other nation or people is a matter of the
highest concern to national honor and ma
tional existence, and is one of the most i'm
portant questions which can be decided by
the Executive or by the representatives of
the people of any government. We ought
not to bring to its discussion the heated and
passionate declarations of debate and we
shall get very little valuable help in settling
it by inquiring whether Spain has liberal
government, or whether it is an effete and
decayiDg despOtism whether the insurrec
ton in Cuba had good cause and is therefore
entitled to our sympathies, or whether both
sides in the contest are partly in the right or
partly in the wrong. We are to look simply
at the actual state of affairs as they now ex-
list in the island of Cuba, and apply to that
state of facts the well settled principles and
practice of the American people. and the
long established and everywhere recognized
principles of international law.
he struggle of the oppressed against the
oppressor is an enticing theme. and we are
almost irresistibly drawn into its discussion
here and elsewhere, whenever an opportunity
offers TO express our sympathy with strug-
Cling peoples who are asking for free govern
ment and resisting oppression in foreign
lands. L know that all along the records OF
our Congressional history the warmest ex-
pressions of sympathy, the finest specimens
of Oratory and the noblest fights of eloquence
have found voice under the inspiration of
what we have for the moment believed to be
revolutions in other countries for freedom
and independence.
We remember the eloquence of Webster
when appealing for the Liberties of Greece.
We remember the elOquence of Clay, often
heard in the hall of the House of Represen-
tatiyes, asking some expression of sympathy
from this nation for the Spanish American
republics, when they were breaking away
from the despOtism of Spain. We remember
when speech has kindled into eIequence I'm
our national assemblies in deg!oring Re
of tie island of Crete. And we shall Ield
with the utmost pleasure. we listened
with the utmost pleasure, to the glowing pc
RODS that were uttered here Yesterday by
the chairman Of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs. These struggles for liberty always
awaken our sympathy and kindle our enthu-
siasm.
But it may sometimes be true, and think
it is sometimes true, that distance lends en-
chaDtment to these instructions ; that We
not seldom give our sympathies without
full understanding of the issues at stake or
of the nature of the contest. Only the other
day | saw a statement in the newspapers
that some of the " struggling patriots OF
Crete, for whom some years ago we expressed
the lIveliest concern, were now the brigands
in Greece who have startled the civilized
world with their atrocious assassination Of
English travellers ; and the present condition
of government in some at least of the South
American republics, hardly realizes the bril-
liant expectations of those who years ago
welcomed them to the family Of nations.
Not unfrequently also we lose sight Of
some of the characteristics of these revolu-
tions in the high-sounding terms Of a. liber-
ty" and - freedom which are given to
them by those who choose to go before the
world as the apostles of those glorious prin-
ciples. 1t is within the memory of US all
that the rebellion of the Southern States of
this Union, the rebellion against which we
fought for four years, started on it's mad ca
reer of war and destruction in the name of
liberty. equal rights, and the government Of
| the people. 1t gained sympathy abroad IN
der that fair pretense, and no doubt in other
lands men welcomed that Instruction and
prayed for its success because it stole as its
watchword those glorious names. Those
Who wear the livery of heaven do not always
preach the true gospel, and we must 90
deeper than the surface to find the true char
acteristics of revolutions as well as the true
character of men. And although this insurrec-
ton IN Cuba appeals to us in the name of liber-
ty, and it's advocates on this floor demand
favorable action at our hands in the name of
freedom and humanity, before we rush madly
away from the dictates of sound Judgment,
before we break wholly with the conclusions
of facts, it will perhaps be worth our while
to look seriously at the condition of affairs
which calls upon us for action. This ques-
ton is one of hard, it may be, in some of it's
phases, of unpleasant facts, but it is facts
and not visions, the truth and not the painted
phantasms of excited imaginations, which
ought to control the judgment of the House
Mr.. Speaker, the chairman of the com
mlICee stated yesterday at the outset OF DIS
remarks that this instruction in Cuba bad
its origin in the fact that the insurgents, be-
fore they rose in arms, asked that they
might be allowed to participate in the liber-
al reforms inaugurated in Spain-that the
revolution which had driven Queen Isabella
from the throne of that kingdom might be
extended in its benefcent influences to that
island. | regret to be obliged to cay that
the facts do hot warrant this assertion.
Mr.. BANKS. 1t is reported in the docu-
ments transmitted to US by the President.
DIR. WILLARD. l was Just about to refer
to those very documents to shsw that the
facts do not sustain the assertion.
On page 182 of the documents which have