Year: 1869

Government.


In view of the events which are passing
around us and in the immediate neighborhood
| of our Southern shore it becomes an important
| question to the country and to the nations
with whom we hold intercourse to know what
position the government will take in the
| Cuban question and the developments which
are following it. The fulness of time has
come to the colonial government of that
island, and its people are assuming by force of
their own arms new relations to the Powers of
the world. No American can or does doubt
their right to do this. Our political education
is based upon a belief in the sacred right of
revolution, and wherever we behold a people
treading the path which our fathers trod
before our sympathies go out to them, and
no small number of our people are willing to
follow the example of Lafayette, who came to
the assistance of our fatherland in its dark
days.


1t cannot, then, be otherwise that in the
struggle for liberty in Cuba some perhaps
many, of our own citizens will be found tread
ing the wine press of freedom side by side with
the impulsive sons of Cuba. If this were not
so we should our own teachings; and,
admitting this fact, the question comes up,
what position will the government hold to-
wards them? The war in which they embark
is fierce and sanguinary one. The foe
claims to rule ''by the grace Of God, and pro-
claims that all who oppose him are robbers,
~ fbo hnp pri-
soners are slaughtered in cold blood homes are
| given everywhere to the devouring flames, and
determination is the policy adopted and acted
upon. Further than this, the stipulations of
| treaties Of amity, commerce and navigation
| with neighboring Powers and their local laws
prive those who aspire to exercise the right Of
self-government of the aid which private SYM
pathy may extend to them.


Will the government admit the claim of the
Spanish rulers in Cuba, and deny the right of
a whole people to throw of the yoke of des-
potism, and Of our own citizens to take part
in the struggle without running other and
greater risks of the chance of battle? That
the entire people of Cuba reject the rule o
Spain has been over and over again pro-
claimed by the Spanish press, the Spanish
authorities, and the Spanish volunteers who
now rule Havana. II is testified by the fac
that not Cuban is trusted with arms in be-
half of Spain that Spain rules only where
her troops stand; that where her troops are
an exodus of the Cuban population is wit
messed. If the government at Washington
takes no step to control the sanguinary prac-
tices of this war for falling rule, as it should
do in justice to our own citizens and in con
sonance with our history and the position we
hold as the leading Power of America, then by
its silence 1t justi6es the outrage agains
humanity and is false in its duty to ourselves


No treaty Of amity, no laws Of neutrality
can sanctify before the people of the United
States, or of the world, the claim of any
} Power to the right to govern q nation wher
the nation rejects such a claim. If this wer'


not so Mr.. Fish would be involved in an end


less perpleIity as to who should be recognized


by him as the reigning sovereign in any coun


try in Europe or America. But we may gt
even further. No treaty Of amity can b.


appealed to by any Power as comforting upor
it the right to use practices beyond the pal,


Of humanity in its efforts to preserve itself


and all such claims will be rejected by ever,


rightminded statesman. In truth, the yer.


fact Of an appeal to such practices should lea,


at once TO condemnation OF the governmen


using them. II is argued that the governmen
is friendly Power, with whom we ha "


treaties by which we are bound. But b.


appealing to practices beyond the recognize,


laws of war the Power so doing become


itself, in certain sense, hostis humanis, an


thereby releases the binding effect of al


treaties with 1t.


We have brought forward these views be
: | cause Of the great events now before us
= Cuba is in process of successful revolution