The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-25

or because you are Jew. or a Turk, or black,
or brown, or yellow, you shall not? Mast
history ever repeat itself. and preiu!i Vice give
to tyrants and vicious imbeoiles and dema-
gogues the power to govern the worldg Above
all, must Christianity. rich with her intell-
gence and genius, shut up her talent in a
napkin, and hide her light and her example
from the suffering world, whose paganism she
affects to despise!
PRESIDENT GRANT ON BELLTGERENCY.
From the Pail Mau Gazette.
President Grants message to Congress on
the relations of the United States with Cuba
oonttins an admirable exposition of the con-
ditions under which insurgents become enti-
tied to recognition as a bellgerent power.
THE question of belligerency.' he saws. sis
one of fact, not to be decided by sympathies
for or prejudice against either party The
recognizing State, that is to say, is in no way
concerned with the cause of the quarrel
1t may view the insurgents as men in arms
against intolerable oppression, or as men
Offering wanton resistance to the lust
authority of benefcent government. 1t
may hold that the freedom of the human
race will be served either by their success or
by their discontinue. 1t may entertain this
or that opinion as to the moral and pruden-
tial justification of the outbreak, as to the
chances of its success. and as to the senti-
ments with which that success is to be
regarded. 1t may lament the weakening of
friend. or congratulate itself on the weaken
ing of a rival. No matter what it's feelings
on all these subjects may be, it will be de-
termined in dealing with the question of bel
ligerency by the plain facts of the case 1t
will put aside sympathies and preiudices with
en- impartial hand, and ask itself the simple
question, Do the relations between the
parent State and the insurgents ''amount in
fact to war in the sense of international law?
President Grant here condemns by implica-
tion the position taken up by Mr.. Seward
with regard to the Queens proclamation of
neutrality. The foundation of half Mr..
Stewards complaints against England was
that the concession of belligerent rights to
the Southern States was unfriendly. An ally
of Great Britain, he said, between whom and
herself there existed relations of kinship and
peculiar intimacy, had been suddenly con-
fronted by a causeless insurrection. The
sympatHes of Englishmen ought to have been
on the side of the Federal Government, and,
if so they would have prevented, or at
least delayed, the recognition of the Rebels
as belligerent power. The reply of Eng
lish diplomatists has always been:-"The
question of belligerency Is one of fact, not
to be decided by sympathies for or prejudice
against either party Mr. Stewards line of
Wdo ana 6AU9QQeQ DV
the friends of the North, both in America and
to some extent in this country. You ought,
we were told, to have put off the recognition
OF belligerency as long as possible, because
the cause of the Federal Government was the
cause of human freedom, while the South
were striving to build up their independence
on the foundation of negro slavery. Some
times this plea was met by a reference to
MIR. Lincoln's disclaimer of all intention
fNFH
else but the preservation of the Union, or by
reasoning directed to show that the ultimate
results of Southern independence would be
beneficial to the position of the slave. But
the real answer-the answer consistently
given by persons in authority-was expressed
over and over again in words almost identical
with those of President Grant. Our dislike
of slavery and our speculations as to the way
in which 1t will be affected by the success of
this or that combatant are considerations
wholly beside the mark. ''The question of
belligerency is one of fact, not to be decided
by sympathies for or prejudice against
either party"
President Grant goes on to apply this test
of fact to the insurrection in Cuba; and the
grounds on which he rests his conclusion that
the United States ought not to concede bel
ligerent rights to the insurgents have an Incl
dental bearing of great value on the conduct
of Great Britain when she had to determine
how to act in the American civil war; ''Fight-
ing, the President truly says, ''though fierce
and protracted, does not alone constitute
war;" War must be invested with certain
pomp and circumstance; it must have passed
beyond the stage of a mere guerilla contest.
''There must be military forces, acting in
accordance with the rules and customs of
war, flags of truce, cartels, exchange
of prisoners. Whatever sanction is
conferred by the existence of
these conditions was certainly not wanting in
the case of the American civil war. There
were armies large in English estimation even
at the outset and already promising to be-
come, as they shortly did become, the greatest
the modern world had seen: there were gene
rails on both sides who had been trained in
military schools and might be trusted to en-
force military traditions. But President
Grant rightly attaches even more Importance
to the political conditions of the struggle.
''To justify a recognition of belligerency there
must be, above all, a de faeto political organi-
zation of the insurgents sufficient in char
acter and resources to constitute, if left
to itself, a State among nations. 1t will
hardly be denied that the Southern Confede-
racy answered to this definition, and that if
the North had allowed things to take
their course, the nation which
Mr.. Jefferson Davis had SO nearly created
would have been capable OF discharging the
duties of State, and of meeting the just
responsibilities it may incur as such towards
other powers" General Grant goes on to
apply these principles in detail He de-
scribes himself as having weighed the state
ments of both parties and the evidence by
which they are supported, aud as being una
BILE to see in the present contest in Cuba
''those elements which are requisite to con-
stitute war in the sense of international law. "