The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1870-02-11
Cuba before the Senate.

Before many days few men elected by
the people for supposed learning, cloarness of
Judgment and uprightness of character, will
have to decide favorably or adversely on the
temporary fate Of Cuba.
Probably ON no one subject which has been
submitted to the Committee on Foreign Az
iairs of the United States Senate for many
years has the attention of the whole Amcri-
ran people been so centred as on this qucs-
lion of the right and justice Of recognizing
The Cubans, Everything conduces to this,
The proximity Of Cuba, the enorm Gus amount
Of our commercial exchanges with her, the
universal sympathy naturally felt by nation
which sprang into being by Kidding itself of
monarchical tyranny toward one not un.
provokedly and not unworthily following its
example, and above all, the ardent desire Of
every honest man of every school, religious,
political, and social, in this country, that no
spot of our glorious continent should be
longer darkened 10y the foul blot of slavery
all tend to increase the fearful weight of re-
sponsibility heaped ON the Senators compos-
ing the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Fortunately perhaps for Cuba, this is
Jury the members of which cannot be chal.
lenged /; for she has good friends on il, and
her direst enemy, CHARLES SUMNER, has
already so far stultfied himself that his ar
guments can in the future have but little
weight either in tho Committee or out of IT,
On the 10Th of December last, this shining
light Of 5 .natorial decorum and international
law declared in the Senate, in reply TO Mr..
CARpENTEI that he had been told that two
constitutions had been fra med by the Cuban
Congress, one for working purposes in the
ISLAND, the other for political capital abroad.
Now it happens that Mr. PLUME, American
Consul at Havana, on whose r'Uorts oil the
state OF the Instruction il would appear that
Mr.. SUMMER has relied for very many of his
statements, wrote to the State Department
on Sept. 1G last as follows:
81 find that there was published In the DiGrio De
IA Marina oi the 18th Of July last the OILY version
OF the 4usurgcnt Constitution VIII ch have seen or
known OF APPEARING In the Spanish papers Of tie
. In this Constitution, as 20 Published. II arrears
by article - ,ha' all tie inhabltlnis OF the ,puh
lie are entirely nee and 80 l. IN harmony with the
preyous prOclamatiuns referred TO IN Mr.. HAIL :
and MIR. LA REIETREE's dispatches. 1t docs not
appear to me to be likely hat aly other copies than
HAT now send OF the CoDsytuuon and those sent
ty Mr.. La RElSTREE and Mr. HALL OF The prOcia.
nations issued. can have been published here, thJt
any differently aOrdcd with reference 20 slavery ;
for these, in the manner In which they have been
procured, aloe,r to have been designed for ercula
ton the is and rather than especially to be sent
abroad"
Mr. PLUMB cannot be accused of Partially
toward the Cubaas, and the document he en-
closes is official.
If Mr. SUMSaR hal not seen Mr.. PLUMBl
report, which of course was open TO his III
Rpcction, before his assertion of the 10th OF
December, he was wilfully derelict in not
thoroughly informing himself of the matter
on which he spoke, If he had read IT, he WIS
guilty, not 10 use too strong a torn, of a
Low ptovari, alton. And in either c SO, i,
is utterly unfit to vote upon the question.