A Spanish man-of-war can now convoy a ship from the port of New York loaded with war material to destroy the King's subjects in arms, or in rebellion, or suspected of political crimes in Cuba, and to intercept her in such a voyage would invite condign punishment. As she passes our forts, they exchange salvos in honor of the flag that covers this engine of war and these conspirators against the million of people who are fighting in open war for life, country, and liberty. And all this is done because our Government, through obeisance to a chronic despotism, lowers its flag to a tyrant that despises justice and scorns to recognize the fact that it can be successfully driven into public and acknowledged war by its persecuted subjects. The next ship that sails from our great port may be loaded with food, munitions of war, and hospital stores for those starving rebels and their sick and wounded defenders. Under the laws of nations both vessels can depart from our shores in peace, if public war exists in Cuba, but if the monstrous falsehood is adopted by our Government that all the naval power of Spain and 150,000 soldiers are not in the field making war upon her subjects until Spain chooses to declare that war exists, our war vessels will open their guns on that messenger of mercy and sink her to the bottom of the seas. The glory of our Republic will cease to attract the love of our people when it becomes the ally of Spain in the support of a falsehood that crushes every hope of liberty and denies to humanity the helping hand of charity. If this were a new struggle provoked by some recent and insufficient cause, our refusal to recognize the fact that war exists in Cuba might furnish us with a plausible excuse for our present course. But it is only an episode in a long struggle for liberty. The foundation of the Republic of Cuba was laid in Spain by the constitution of 1812, which was extended to Cuba, and gave to her people their first and only impulse of prosperity, confidence, and self-reliance. Later, and before 1836, those constitutional rights had been revoked, and Cuba was relegated to the irresponsible despotism of the Captain-Generalcy, with power given him as a viceroy to suspend the laws and supplement them with his decrees, to levy and collect taxes, to confiscate property, and to inflict death by military order. In this authority he was supported by a standing army of at least 18,000 men, whose sole service was to keep the people of Cuba in subjection. Their whole career was that of an enslaved and subdued race. Mr. Ballou, of Massachusetts, in 1854 visited Cuba with his invalid wife, and, after a long stay, he returned and wrote a book of great interest, from which I will read some quotations that show the condition of that country at that period, that we may trace the parallel to this day and understand the causes of the struggle that now engages the sympathy of all Christendom. As I read from this author, we will see the fountain-the same from which our fathers drank-of constitutional liberty from which the Cubans received the inspiration that now refreshes the Republic of Cuba with the hope of that right of self-government to which we owe our independence, our strength, our happiness, our prosperity, and the glory of our national renown. will see also how we are responsible for having held Cuba in the chains of Spanish despotism, when Mexico, led by Victoria, and We Colombia, led by Bolivar, were forbidden by us, in combination with France and England, from striking those fetters from this Queen of the Antilles. I make no excuse, Mr. President, for reading from this able gentleman in private life, who in 1854 was in Cuba, having gone from Massachusetts to that country, and who, on his return, felt that it was incumbent upon him to make some statements to his fellowcountrymen in regard to the situation of the Cubans. It is not a pleasant remembrance that the truth of history forces us to recall that Bolivar and Victoria would have secured national independence in Cuba in 1823 but for the slavery question in the United States and our dread of Great Britain and France, which caused us to interpose and warn them off from Cuba with their armies, and to forbid Colombia and Mexico to aid those people in their effort to escape from Spanish domination, as they had so recently done. Our responsibility for the sufferings of Cuba under the Spanish yoke for the past seventy years is not a light thing either to them or to our people. There is a retribution for our wrong that it is unpleasant to suffer. Mr. Ballou says: When the French invasion of Spain in 1808 produced the constitution of 1812, Cuba was considered entitled to enjoy its benefits, and the year 1820 taught the Cubans the advantage to be derived by a people from institutions based on the principle of popular intervention in public affairs. The condition of the nation on the death of Ferdinand VII obliged Queen Christina to rely on the Liberal party for a triumph over the pretentions of the Infante Don Carlos to the crown and to assure the throne of Donna Isabella II, and the estatuto real (royal statute) was proclaimed in Spain and Cuba. The Cubans looked forward, as in 1812 and 1820, to a representation in the national congress and the enjoyment of the same liberty conceded to the Peninsula. An institution was then established in Habana, with branches in the island, called the Royal Society for Improvement, already alluded to in our brief notice of Don Francisco Arranjo. The object of this society was to aid and protect the progress of agriculture and commerce, and it achieved a vast amount of good. At the same time the press, within the narrow limits conceded to it, discussed with intelligence and zeal the interests of the country, and diffused a knowledge of them. In 1836 the revolution known as that of La Granja, provoked and sustained by the progressionists against the moderate party, destroyed the "royal statute and proclaimed the old constitution of 1812. The queen-mother, then Regent of Spain, convoked the constituent Cortes and summoned deputies from Cuba. Up to this time various political events, occurring within a brief period, had disturbed but slightly and accidentally the tranquillity of this rich province of Spain. The Cubans, although sensible of the progress of public intelligence and wealth under the protection of a few enlightened governors and through the influence of distinguished and patriotic individuals, were aware that these advances were slow, partial, and limited, that there was no regular system, and that the public interests, confided to officials intrusted with unlimited power and liable to the abuses inseparable from absolutism, frequently languished or were betrayed by a cupidity which impelled despotic authorities to enrich themselves in every possible way at the expense of popular suffering. Added to these sources of discontent was the powerful influence exerted over the intelligent portion of the people by the portentous spectacle of the rapidly increasing greatness of the United States, where a portion of the Cuban youths were wont to receive their education and to learn the value of a national independence based on democratic principles, principles which they were apt freely to discuss after returning to the island. There also were the examples of Mexico and Spanish South America, which had recently conquered with their blood their glorious emancipation from monarchy. Liberal ideas were largely diffused by Cubans who had traveled in Europe, and there imbibed the spirit of modern civilization. But, with a fatuity and obstinacy which has always characterized her, the mother country resolved to ignore these causes of discontent, and, instead of yielding to the popular current and introducing a liberal and mild system of government, drew the reins yet tighter, and even curtailed many of the privileges formerly accorded to the Cubans. It is a blind persistence in the fated principle of despotic domination which has relaxed the moral and political bonds uniting the two countries, instilled gall into the hearts of the governed, and substituted the dangerous obedience of terror for the secure loyalty of love. This severity of the home Government has given rise to several attempts to throw off the Spanish yoke. The first occurred in 1823, when the Liberator, Simon Bolivar, offered to aid the disaffected party by throwing an invading force into the island. The conspiracy then formed by the aid of the proffered expedition, for which men were regularly enlisted and enrolled, would undoubtedly have ended in the triumph of the insurrection had it not been discovered and suppressed prematurely, and had not the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, and France intervened in favor of Spain. In 1826 some Cuban emigrants, residing in Caracas, attempted a new expedition, which failed, and caused the imprisonment and execution of two patriotic young men, Don Francisco de Aguero y Velazco and Don Bernabe Sanchez, sent to raise the department of the interior. In 1828 there was a yet more formidable conspiracy, known as El Aguila Negra (the black eagle). The efforts of the patriots proved unavailing, foiled by the preparation and power of the Government, which seems to be apprised by spies of every intended movement for the cause of liberty in Cuba. Here we see, Mr. President, that in 1823 Bolivar, the great deliverer of South America, had formed a combination with Victoria, the President of Mexico, for the purpose of driving out the Spanish authority from Cuba, as it had already been driven out from all the other Spanish-American states. If we had not then prevented this noble and generous movement, Cuba would be to-day, as she will soon be, the nineteenth great republic of the Western Hemisphere and the central glory of the southern seas. It is time that we had begun to redeem our own great error by taking Cuba by the hand and lifting her from beneath the feet of Weyler and placing her, in honor, upon the beautiful throne that God built for the Queen of the Antilles-the throne of liberty, supported by the independence of the people. Let us glance for a moment at the results of our fatal blow at Cuban independence. The legitimate fruit of this painful intervention was the CaptainGeneralcy, in the hands of Tacon, whose successor, Weyler, has at last brought Tacon's usurpations to that excess of depravity at which the whole world is in revolt. I will read from the same author, Mr. M. M. Ballou: Although the royal proclamation which announced to Tacon the establishment of the constitution in Spain intimated forthcoming orders for the election of deputies in Cuba to the general Cortes, still he considered that his commission as Captain-General authorized him, under the circumstances, to carry out his own will and suppress at once the movement set on foot by General Lorenzo on the ground of its danger to the peace of the island and the interests of Spain. The royal order which opened the way for his attacks upon the Cuban people, after a confused preamble, confers on the Captain General all the authority appertaining in time of war to a Spanish governor of a city in a state of siege, authorizing him in any circumstances and by his proper will to suspend any public functionary, whatever his rank, civil, military, or ecclesiastical, to banish any resident of the island without preferring any accusations, to modify any law or suspend its operations, disobey with impunity any regulation emanating from the Spanish Government, to dispose of the public revenues at his will, and, finally, to act according to his pleasure, winding up with recommending a moderate use of the confidence evinced by the sovereign in according power so ample. Although the Captains-General of Cuba have always been invested with extraordinary power, we believe that these items of unlimited authority were first conferred upon Vivez in 1825, when the island was menaced by an invasion of the united forces of Mexico and Colombia. In these circumstances, and emanating from an absolute authority like that of Ferdinand VII, a delegation of power which placed the destinies of the island at the mercy of its chief ruler might have had the color of necessity; but to continue such a delegation of authority in time of peace is a most glaring and inexcusable blunder. Here we find ourselves responsible also for the enlarged powers of the Captain-General, which were conferred by this royal order for the purpose of checking and putting down the combination between Victoria and Bolivar, when they were about to enter the Island of Cuba to release her from Spain's dominion and were prevented by the intervention of the Government of the United States. We have some responsibilities about this matter, Mr. President, that we had better begin at least to consider. We are now trying to find out exactly our bearings with reference to this question, and I hope we shall be sincere and dutiful in our belated work. This writer, Mr. Ballou, portrays the policy of Spain toward Cuba and its execution through the office of Captain-General in the following clear manner, so that we have only to compare the present with the past to see that in the hands of this vice-royal autocrat Spain has lodged a power that wars against Christian civilization with far greater excess of cruelty than that which Turkey visits upon the Christians in Crete or Ärmenia. He further writes: We have seen that the office of Captain-General was established in 1589, and, with a succession of incumbents, the office has been maintained until the present day, retaining the same functions and the same extraordinary powers. The object of the Spanish Government is, and ever has been, to derive as much revenue as possible from the island; and the exactions imposed upon the inhabitants have increased in proportion as other colonies of Spain in the western world have revolted and obtained their independence. The imposition of heavier burdens than those imposed upon any other people in the world has been the reward of the proverbial loyalty of the Cubans; while the epithet of "ever faithful" bestowed by the Crown has been their only recompense for their steady devotion to the throne. But for many years this lauded loyalty has existed only in appearance, while discontent has been fermenting deeply beneath the surface. The Cubans owe all the blessings they enjoy to Providence alone, so to speak, while the evils which they suffer are directly referable to the oppression of the home Government. Nothing short of a military despotism could maintain the connection of such an island with a mother country more than 3,000 miles distant; and accordingly we find the Captain-General of Cuba invested with unlimited power. He is in fact a viceroy appointed by the Crown of Spain, and accountable only to the reigning sovereign for his administration of the colonies. His rule is absolute. He has the power of life and death and liberty in his hands. He can, by his arbitrary will, send into exile any person whatever, be his name or rank what it may, whose residence in the island he consider's prejudicial to the royal interests, even if he has committed no overt act. He can suspend the operation of the laws and ordinances, if he sees fit to do so; can destroy or confiscate property, and, in short, the island may be said to be perpetually in a state of siege. Mr. Ballou thus describes the power with which in 1854 the Captain-General maintained his authority in Cuba: The Spanish Government supports a large army on the island, which is under the most rigid discipline and in a state of considerable efficiency. It is the policy of the home Government to fill the ranks with natives of old Spain in order that no undue sympathy may be felt for the crecles, or islanders, in case of insurrection or attempted revolution. An order has recently been issued by Pezuela, the present governor-general, for the enrollment of free blacks and mulattoes in the ranks of the army, and the devotion of these people to Spain is loudly vaunted in the Captain-General's proclamation. The enlistment of people of color in the ranks is a deadly insult offered to the white population of a slaveholding country This is an abolitionist who is writing a sort of shadowing forth of the menace, more than once thrown out by Spain, to the effect that if the colonists should ever attempt a revolution she would free and arm the blacks, and Cuba, made to repeat the tragic tale of Santo Domingo, should be useless to the creoles if lost to Spain. But we think Spain overestimates the loyalty of the free people of color whom she would now enroll beneath her banner. They can not forget the days of O'Donnell (governor-general), when he avenged the opposition of certain Cubans to the illicit and infamous slave trade by which he was enriching himself by charging them with an abolition conspiracy in conjunction with the free blacks and mulattoes, and put many of the latter to the torture to make them confess imaginary crimes, while others, condemned without a trial, were mowed down by the fire of platoons. Assuredly the people of color have no reason for attachment to the paternal Government of Spain. And in this connection we may also remark that this attempt at the enrollment of the blacks has already proved, according to the admission of Spanish authority, a partial failure, for they can not readily learn the drill, and officers dislike to take command of companies. We turn now to the condition of the people of Cuba in 1854, as it is described by Mr. Ballou. He says: We have thus dilated upon the natural resources of Cuba and depicted the charms that rest about her; but every picture has its dark side, and the political situation of the island is the reverse in the present instance. Her wrongs are multifarious, and the restrictions placed upon her by her oppressors are each and all of so heinous and tyrannical a character that a chapter upon each would be insufficient to place them in their true light before the world. There is, however, no better way of placing the grievances of the Cubans, as emanating from the home Government, clearly before the reader than by stating such of them as recur readily to the writer's mind in brief: She is permitted no voice in the Cortes; the press is under the vilest censorship; farmers are compelled to pay 10 per cent on all their harvest except sugar, and on that article 24 per cent; the island has been under martial law since 1825; over $23,000,000 of taxes are levied upon the inhabitants to be squandered by Spain; ice is monopolized by the Government; flour is so taxed as to be inadmissible; a creole must purchase a license before he can invite a few friends to take a cup of tea at his board; there is a stamped paper, made legally necessary for special purposes of contract, costing $8 per sheet; no goods, either in or out of doors, can be sold without a license; the natives of the island are excluded entirely from the army, the judiciary, the treasury, and the customs; the military Government assumes the charge of the schools; the grazing of cattle is taxed exorbitantly; newspapers from abroad, with few exceptions, are contraband; letters passing through the post are opened and purged of their contents before delivery; fishing on the coast is forbidden, being a Government monopoly; planters are forbidden to send their sons to the United States for educational purposes; the slave trade is secretly encouraged by Government; no person can remove from one house to another without first paying for a Government permit; all cattle (the same as goods) that are sold must pay 6 per cent of their value to Government; in short, every possible subterfuge is resorted to by the Government officials to swindle the people, everything being taxed, and there is no appeal from the decision of the Captain-General. This New England abolitionist, Mr. Ballou, had scant sympathy for the Cubans, all of whom were slaveholders in 1851; yet their political enslavement to Spanish oppressors was so terrible in the view he had of their wrongs that he forgot the slaves in his compassion for their masters, the white race; and he thus speaks of them and the beautiful island, another Eden, where the sting of the serpent is forever wounding his victim, while the promise of death is delayed to protract his sufferings indefinitely: It is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land! If it were possible to contemplate only the beauties that nature has so prodigally lavished on this Eden of the Gulf, shutting out all that man has done and is still doing to mar the blessings of Heaven, then a visit to or residence in Cuba would present a succession of unalloyed pleasures equal to a poet's dream. But it is impossible, even if it would be desirable, to exclude the dark side of the picture. The American traveler particularly, keenly alive to the social and political aspects of life, appreciates in full force the evils that challenge his observation at every step and in every view which he may take. If he contrast the natural scenery with the familiar pictures of home, he can not help also contrasting the political condition of the people with that of his own country. The existence, almost under the shadow of the flag of the freest institutions the earth ever knew, of a government as purely despotic as that of the Autocrat of all the Russias is a monstrous fact that startles the most indifferent observer. It must be seen to be realized. To go |