Year: 1873

will of the people is the law Of the land


and by looking at such facts as the meeting
held in this city last night he may see very


plainly what is the will of the people IN re-


gard to our relations with the Spaniards In


Cuba. II there were any doubts on 'he rresi-


dents mind as to whether no could nave 'ne


sympathy and support of the people in On ex-


treme assertion of our rights in this case. there


is enough to remove them in the speeches


made last night, and in the fact that such


speeches were welcomed and applauded to


the echo and accepted as their own utterances


by the vast assemblages that filed Steinway
and Tammany halls. All through the country
the sentiment is the same From every sec
tion the press echoes the universal thought
that further endurance of Spanish barbarity
and hectoring would be shameful. and that
we must now energetically vindicate our
horror. If the refusal to give complete and
satisfactory reparation for the injury should
make it necessary to occupy Cuba, Congress
will scarcely have called for men before they
will be ready in any number deemed neces-
sary. 1t is to be hoped, therefore, that these
evidences of the will Of the people will be
properly weighed by the President against the
pitiful palaver of the Secretary of State, and
that he will see so clearly which to act upon
that an ill-timed hesitation will not cripple
the energetic action which the country ex-
poets and requires


Several vessels of our navy have already
gone forward and every other available ship
is to follow, and this, as far as it goes, is an
indication of a positive purpose. Although
the orders on which the commanders Of these
ships are to act will not transpire, it can
scarcely be doubtful that their first duty will
be to cover with their guns the Virginius and
| any Spanish man-of-war in whose custody she
may supposititiously be, wherever they may
now be lying, in the harbor of Santiago de
Cuba or elsewhere, and to require her surren-
der or to make such other legitimate demand
as the case viewed on the spot may seem to
justify unless it shall be shown to the salts
faction of our officers that the captured ship
is not entitled to the protection of the United
States. An important and early issue will
therefore turn on the ships papers and on the
facts of her voyage as affecting her status Here
the principles in point are very simple. Ships
on the high seas are legally regarded as por-
tions of the territory of the country whose
colors they bear, and they are subject only to
the sovereign power of that country, and
amenable only to its laws. Each country fixes
for itself the terms and conditions upon
which it accords to ships the right to carry its
flag and otherwise cover them with its ma
tionality, and it is, therefore, the only alto
gether competent judge whether those condi-
tions have been fulfilled. And although this
extreme operation of sovereignty is limited
practically by the existence Of competent
courts, yet it can never be admitted that the
point of natilrality has been properly ad-
judged without o trial at which a consular
representative Of the ships country might be
present; while it is an act of fla
grant unfriendliness, if not an indignity,
to determine s'Hh a point without
reference to the slips nation. where such
reference ran be readily and easily made, and
where the delay it would cause could have no
other than the good results Of giving time for
passion to COO, and the truth to be made clear.
Such, then. is the position as to her rights of
ship Of any nation on the high seas, and
against these rights there is no legal power
anywhere in time of peace. No absolute
authority of inquest even resides with any
nation over the ships of another nation and
this immunity results simply from the right
that oil have to the freedom Of the seas as the
common highway for the commerce of every
people, and to this general immunity there is
but one recognized exception, which is in the
case where there is substantial reason to be-
lieve that ship is pirate-a case which can
not possibly apply here.


But aside from the points that our officers
may have to consider in the harbor of San
tiago de Cuba there is something in this case
broader and deeper than any mere discussion
of the regularity or irregularity of ships
papers, and that is the assumption of an abso-
lutte dominion over the seas of this hemis-
phere; the assertion of right in the presence
Of which no commerce would be possible save
what the Spanish power chose to permit the
declaration of an authority that does not con-
slider itself obliged to regard any nationality
as an obstacle to its will, and that is prepared
to trample on all law and to stamp out the
usages of civilization and the very spirit of
humanity itself in the pursuit of its purpose
This is part of the subject on which no
authority is competent to decide but the
American people, through their Representa-
tives in Congress and they must determine
whether they are prepared to see American
ships cruising in the West Indies at Spanish
pleasure only, ard under penalty of the sum-
mary execution of all hands in case any ships
papers shall accidentally prove irregular.
Having won some glorious battles in asserting
the rights of our sailors against the greatest
and most warlike naval Power the world ever
saw, and having gone as far as the Mediter-