tween the people of the United States and the people and political authorities of the island, has been a frequently recurring cause of delay, protracted imprisonment, confiscations of property, and the detention of our people and their ships, often upon groundless charges, which has been a serious griev

ance.

When insurrections have occurred on the Island of Cuba, the temptation to unlawful invasion by reckless persons has given to our Government anxiety, trouble, and much expense in the enforcement of our laws and treaty obligations of neutrality, and these occasions have been so frequent as to make these duties unreasonably onerous upon the Government of the United States.

The devastation of Cuba in the war that is now being waged, both with fire and sword, is an anxious and disturbing cause of unrest among the people of the United States, which creates strong grounds of protests against the continuance of the struggle for power between Cuba and Spain, which is rapidly changing the issue to one of existence on the part of a great number of the native population.

It is neither just to the relations that exist between Cuba and the United States, nor is it in keeping with the spirit of the age or the rights of humanity, that this struggle should be protracted until one party or the other should become exhausted in the resources of men and money, thereby weakening both until they may fall a prey to some stronger power, or until the stress of human sympathy or the resentments engendered by long and bloody conflict should draw into the strife the unruly elements of neighboring countries. This civil war, though it is great in its proportions, and is conducted by armies that are in complete organization and directed and controlled by supreme military authority, has not the safeguard of a cartel for the treatment of wounded soldiers or prisoners of war.

In this feature of the warfare it becomes a duty of humanity that the civilized powers should insist upon the application of the laws of war recognized among civilized nations to both armies. As cur own people are drawn into this struggle on both sides, and enter either army without the consent of our Government and in violation of our laws, their treatment when they may be wounded or captured, although it is not regulated by treaty and ceases to be a positive care of our Government, should not be left to the revengeful retaliations which expose them to the fate of pirates or other felons. The inability of Spain to subdue the revolutionists by the measures and within the time that would be reasonable when applied to occasions of ordinary civil disturbance is a misfortune that can not be justly visited upon citizens of the United States, nor can it be considered that a state of open civil war does not exist, but that the movement is a mere insurrection and its supporters a mob of criminal violators of the law, when it is seen that it requires an army of 100,000 men and all the naval and military power of a great kingdom even to hold the alleged rebellion in check.

It is due to the situation of affairs in Cuba that Spain should recognize the existence of a state of war in the island, and should voluntarily accord to the armies opposed to her authority the rights of belligerents under the laws of nations.

The Congress of the United States, recognizing the fact that the matters herein referred to are properly within the control of the Chief Executive until, within the principles of our Constitution, it becomes the duty of Congress to define the final attitude of the Government of the United States toward Spain, presents these considerations to the President in support of the following resolution:

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the present deplorable war in the Island of Cuba has reached a magnitude that concerns all civilized nations to the extent that it should be conducted, if unhappily it is longer to continue, on those principles and laws of warfare that are acknowledged to be obligatory upon civilized nations when engaged in open hostilities, including the treatment of captives who are enlisted in either army; due respect to cartels for exchange of prisoners and for other military purposes; truces and flags of truce, the provision of proper hospitals and hospital supplies, and services to the sick and wounded of either

army.

Resolved further, That this representation of the views and opinions of Congress be sent to the President; and if he concurs therein that he will, in a friendly spirit, use the good offices of this Government to the end that Spain shall be requested to accord to the armies with which it is engaged in war the rights of belligerents, as the same are recognized under the laws of nations."

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The resolutions will be placed on the Calendar.

Mr. CAMERON. From the Committee on Foreign Relations I present the views of the minority, accompanied by a resolution.

Mr. LODGE. I ask that the views of the minority and the resolution may be read.

Mr. PLATT. I wish the Secretary, before he reads the views of the minority, would read the resolutions reported by the majority of the committee. They were not, I think, heard as read by the Senator from Alabama.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The resolutions reported by the majority of the committee will be read.

The Secretary read the resolutions appended to the report of the majority of the committee.

Mr. CHANDLER. If the Senator from Pennsylvania has no objection, before the views of the minority are read I should like to hear the resolution which is proposed by the minority as a substitute.

Mr. CAMERON. That will be found at the end of the views of the minority.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The resolution reported by the minority will be read.

The Secretary read as follows:

Resolved, That the President is hereby requested to interpose his friendly offices with the Spanish Government for the recognition of the independence of Cuba.

Mr. PLATT. Now let the whole minority report be read. The VICE-PRESIDENT. The views of the minority will be read.

The Secretary read the views of the minority, as follows:

VIEWS OF THE MINORITY.

After the cessation of our civil war we were called upon to take notice of the struggle in Cuba against Spanish rule which broke out in October, 1868. It is said that early in the year 1869 a proclamation was actually signed by President Grant recognizing the Cubans as belligerents, although the fact was known to very few persons. This proclamation was not promulgated, owing to the opposition of Secretary Fish. In December, 1869, President Grant, in his first annual message, called the attention of Congress to this struggle. He said:

"For more than a year a valuable province of Spain, and a near neighbor of ours, in whom all our people can not but feel a deep interest, has been struggling for independence and freedom. The people and Government of the United States entertain these same warm feelings and sympathies for the people of Cuba in their pending struggle that they manifested throughout the previous struggles between Spain and her former colonies in behalf of the latter. But the contest has at no time assumed the conditions which amount to a war in the sense of international law, or which would show the existence of a de facto political organization of the insurgents sufficient to justify a recognition of belligerence. The principle is maintained, however, that this nation is its own judge when to accord the rights of belligerency, either to a people struggling to free themselves from a government they believe to be oppressive, or to independent nations at war with each other. He concluded that in due time Spain must find it for its interest to establish its dependency as an independent power, which could then exercise its right of choice as regarded its future relations with other powers.

The Cuban war which broke out in 1868 had been in existence for only nine months when our Government felt the necessity of interference. Mr. Sickles was appointed our minister to Madrid in 1869, and instructions were given to him to submit propositions on the part of our Government, in order to bring to a close the "civil conflict" raging in Cuba. The part taken by our Government at that time in Cuban affairs is full of interest, not only as regards the engagement into which the authorities were willing to enter, but also as respects the status which the instructions gave to the Cuban conflict. Our minister was directed to impress upon the Spanish mind "the advancing growth of that sentiment which claims for every part of the American hem isphere the right of self-government and freedom from transatlantic depend ence." The good offices of the United States were offered to the cabinet at Madrid for the purpose of bringing to a close "the civil war now ravaging the Island of Cuba." The bases of settlement were:

1. The independence of Cuba to be acknowledged by Spain.

2. Cuba to pay Spain an indemnity for her relinquishment of all her rights in the island.

3. The abolition of slavery.

4. An armistice pending negotiations of settlement.

Our minister was also authorized to state that if Spain insisted, our Government might guarantee the payment of the indemnity by Cuba.

His attention was called particularly to the expression used in the instructions, the civil war now ravaging the island.”

While this expression is not designed to grant any public recognition of belligerent rights to the insurgents, it is nevertheless used advisably and in recog. nition of a state and condition of the contest which may not justify a much longer withholding of the concession to the revolutionary party of the recog nized rights of belligerents. Should the expression, therefore, be commented upon you will admit what is above stated with reference to it, and may add in case of a protracted discussion, or the prospect of a refusal by Spain to accept the proposed offer of the United States, that an early recognition of belligerent rights is the logical deduction from the present proposal, and will probably be deemed a necessity on the part of the United States unless the condition of the parties to the contest shall have changed very materially. Negotiations were at once entered upon by our minister with the Spanish Government, and the proposition of the United States was submitted to General Prim, the president of the council of state, who was then at the head of Spanish affairs, and practically dictator in Spain. Prim asked how much Cuba would give, and it was suggested that $125,000,000 might be arranged. Prim intimated that autonomy to Cuba would be conceded as soon as hostilities ceased, but that Spain could not entertain the question of the independence of Cuba as long as the Cubans were in arms against the Government. He also declined to consider the Cubans as parties to be consulted in the negotiation.

He was willing to assure Cuban independence if, after laying down their arms, the Cubans should vote for a separation, although he would not insist upon the necessity of such a vote. That for his part, if he alone were consulted, he would say to the Cubans, "Go, if you will; make good the treasure you have cost us, and let us bring home our army in peace, and consolidate the liberties and resources of Spain." He added that he had no doubt that whatever might be the result of the conflict, Cuba would eventually be free; that he recognized without hesitation the manifest course of events on the American Continent, and the inevitable termination of all colonial relations in their autonomy as soon as they were prepared for independence; but he repeated, that no consideration would reconcile Spain to such a concession until hostilities ceased. His language was:

"I do not flatter myself that Spain will retain possession of the island. I consider that the period of colonial autonomy has virtually arrived. However the present contest may end, whether in the suppression of the insurrection or in the better way of an amicable arrangement through the assistance of the United States, it is equally clear to me that the time has come for Cuba to govern herself; and if we succeed in putting down the insurrection to-morrow, I shall regard the subject in the same light, that the child has attained its majority and should be allowed to direct its own affairs. We want nothing more than to get out of Cuba, but it must be done in a dignified and honorable manner."

Our Government saw the futility of accepting the conditions suggested by Spain. They recognized that nothing could be effected by a plebiscite, and that the Cubans could not be induced to lay down their arms and trust the Spaniards to carry out their promises. Moreover, while the negotiations were in progress the public became informed of them. Immediately a great excitement arose, communicated by the press, which disinclined the Spanish administration to pursue the matter, and our Government, finding itself unable to effect any good purpose, withdrew its offer of mediation.

Mr. Sickles wrote Mr. Fish that Spain deprecated the expression of the sympathy of the Government and people of the United States for the cause of the revolutionists, as well as the President's declaration of the right of the Government of the United States to determine when it may rightfully proclaim its neutrality in the conflict between a colony struggling for independence and the parent state. It is remarkable, was the comment of Mr. Sickles, that in all these discussions the fact is overlooked that Spain conceded the rights of belligerents to the Confederates without waiting for the outbreak of hostilities.

"The Queen's proclamation of June, 1861, is forgotten; and the large and profitable commerce carried on between Habana and the blockaded ports of the South in enemies' ships, which changed their flags in Cuban waters, is quite ignored."

On the failure of negotiations, the logical result of our action was to recognize the Cubans as belligerents engaged in a "civil war." As was said by Secretary Fish, the mere offer on our part to mediate as between the contending forces was in itself a concession of belligerency and a recognition of

that condition. But for various reasons this argument was not pressed by our Government. Although from month to month the aggressiveness of the revolutionists increased and their power extended, our Government, speaking through the State Department and the President, continued to inform the country that the Cubans had not reached such a condition as entitled them to be recognized as belligerents, although the Administration had already in instructions to our own minister to Spain recognized that condition at a time when the revolution had hardly attained any headway.

One of the reasons for this inconsistency was the expectation felt by our Government that Spain would voluntarily concede to the Cubans much that they were struggling for. Liberal ministries succeeded one another in Spain, each of which was more liberal than its predecessor in promises of reform and recognition of the rights of the Cubans. Civil war broke out in Spain, and its Government became involved in such difficulties that ours was loath to press the subject of Cuba or to insist upon a speedy solution of the question. Mr. Fish was irritated by the operation of the Cuban junta in this country, which at times infringed our neutrality laws. He thought they should have confined their activity to sending to the insurgents arms and munitions of war, which he says they might have done "consistently with our own statutes and with the law of nations." At home the Federal Administration had to deal with the pressing question of the reconstruction of the South. The negro problem in this country was of such importance that the Administration had no desire to add difficulties by undertaking to settle the negro question in Cuba.

The action of our Government was in striking contrast to that of Spain in recognizing the Confederates as belligerents. Mr. Fish refers to this in a letter to Señor Roberts, the Spanish minister, in 1869:

"The civil war in Cuba has continued for a year; battle after battle has been fought; thousands of lives have been sacrificed, and the result is still in suspense. But the United States have hitherto resisted the considerations which in 1861 controlled the action of Spain and determined her to act upon the occurrence of a single bloodless conflict of arms and within sixty days from its date."

Six years later, in 1875, this Government was again on the point of intervening. In a dispatch from Mr. Fish, Secretary of State, to Mr. Cushing, then minister to Spain, the Secretary said that the condition of Cuba was the one great cause of perpetual solicitude in the foreign relations of the United States. He informed the minister that the President did not meditate the annexation of Cuba to the United States, but its elevation as an independent republic

"The desire of independence [the Secretary says] on the part of the Cubans is a natural and legitimate aspiration of theirs, because they are Americans. That the ultimate issue of events in Cuba will be its independence, however that issue may be produced, whether by means of negotiation, or as the result of military operations, or of one of those unexpected incidents which so frequently determine the fate of nations, it is impossible to doubt. If there be one lesson in history more cogent in its teachings than any other, it is that no part of America large enough to constitute a self-sustaining state can be permanently held in forced colonial subjection to Europe. Complete separation between the metropolis and its colony may be postponed by the former conceding to the latter a greater or less degree of local autonomy, nearly approaching to independence. But in all cases where a positive antagonism has come to exist between the mother country and its colonial subjects, where the sense of oppression is strongly felt by the latter, and especially where years of relentless warfare have alienated the parties one from another more widely than they are sundered by the ocean itself, their political separation is inevitable. It is one of those conclusions which have been aptly called the inexorable logic of events."

Thus we have shown that already, in 1869, when the revolution of the preceding year had attained but inconsiderable proportions, President Grant expressed his firm conviction that the ultimate result of the struggle for independence would be to break the bonds which attached Cuba as a colony to Spain. President Grant announced the determination of our Government to intervene if the struggle in Cuba was not speedily terminated. It was pointed out that while the Spanish authorities insisted that a state of war did not exist in Cuba, and that no rights as belligerents should be accorded to the revolutionists, they at the same time demanded for themselves all the rights and privileges which flowed from actual and acknowledged war. That Cuba exhibited a chronic condition of turbulence and rebellion was due to the system pursued by Spain and the want of harmony between the inhabitants of the island and the governing class. That should it become necessary for this Government to intervene it would be moved by the necessity for a proper regard to its own protection and its own interests and the interests of humanity.

The inhuman manner in which the war was waged and the shocking executions of natives and citizens of this country made an impression of horror on the world.

The nicest sense of international requirements can not fail to perceive that provocation from Spain was overlooked by our Government for a longer period and with greater patience than any other government of equal power would have tolerated. A writer in the London Times, in 1875, reflecting upon the possibility of Spain's overcoming the then insurrection, and on the prospect of our interference, said:

"Were Cuba as near to Cornwall as it is to Florida we should certainly look more sharply to matters of fact than to the niceties of international law. But everything, we repeat, depends upon these matters of fact. If Spain can suppress the insurrection and prevent Cuba from becoming a permanent source of mischief to neighboring countries, she has the fullest right to keep it. But she is on her trial, and that trial can not be long. When she is made to clearly understand that the tenure of her rule over Cuba depends upon her ability to make that rule a reality, she will not be slow to show what she can do, and the limits of her power will be the limits of her right."

In 1869 Gen. Martinez Campos, the greatest soldier Spain possessed, was sent to Cuba to make a final effort to bring hostilities there to a termination. He was not only a great soldier, but was believed to be a great administrator, and had the respect of all parties on account of his patriotism and integrity. He was afforded all the aid in the way of men and money which Spain could furnish. In 1878 he succeeded in the so-called pacification, for which service he was raised to the highest pinnacle in Spain and made prime minister. He did not conquer the insurgents, but induced them to lay down their arms on conditions of peace which, as the Spanish administrator, he undertook for his Government should be faithfully carried out.

A treaty of peace was negotiated with the leaders of the revolution, In 1879 General Campos wrote a long dispatch to his Government from the seat of his triumph, which at this day is extremely interesting, owing to the fact that the present war owes its origin to the same circumstances as caused the former outbreak. In this dispatch, stating the particulars of the pacification, General Campos gave an extended review of the situation in Cuba and of the terms of the treaty of peace and the negotiations which led thereto. This recital shows that General Campos believed, as was afterwards said by our minister, James Russell Lowell, that the reforms he stipulated were necessary if Cuba was to be retained as a dependency of Spain, and, Mr. Lowell remarked, all intelligent Spaniards admitted that the country could not afford another war. As a reason for according conditions to the Cubans, General Campos sketched the motives of his policy:

"Since the year 1869, when I landed on this island with the first reenforcements, I was preoccupied with the idea that the insurrection here, though acknowledging as its cause the hatred of Spain, yet this hatred was due to the causes that have separated our colonies from the mother country, augmented in the present case by the promises made to the Antilles at different times (1812, 1837, and 1845), promises which not only have not been fulfilled, but, as I understand, have not been permitted to be so by the Cortes when at different times their execution had been begun.

"While the island had no great development, its aspirations were confined by love of nationality and respect for authority; but when one day after another passed without hopes being satisfied, but, on the contrary, the greater freedom permitted now and then by a governor was more than canceled by his successor; when they were convinced that the colony went on in the same way; when bad officials and a worse administration of justice more and more aggravated difficulties; when the provincial governorships, continually growing worse, fell at last into the hands of men without training or education, petty tyrants who could practice their thefts and sometimes their oppres sions because of the distance at which they resided from the supreme authority, public opinion, until then restrained, began vehemently to desire those liberties which, if they bring much good, contain also some evil. ** The 10th of October, 1858, came to open men's eyes; the eruption of the volcano in which so many passions, so many hatreds, just and unjust, had been heaped up was terrible, and almost at the outset the independence of Cuba was proclaimed."

*

He showed the gains speedily made by the insurgents and the advantages they had by reason of the familiarity with the country, so that "they defeated large columns with hardly a battalion of men. They almost put us on the defensive, and as we had to guard an immense property, the mission of the army became very difficult." He recounted his efforts to reestablish the principle of authority, but said that he had against him a "public spirit without life. Nobody had higher aspirations than to save his crop of sugar. In official regions the enemy was thought inferior, but the commanders generally believed it unsafe to operate with less than three battalions; there was no venturing beyond the highways."

He said little was gained by beating the enemy. What he needed was to exterminate them, and that he could not do. That had his responsibility been free of the Cortes and the Government he would in the beginning have ventured everything to secure peace-the disembargo of estates, a general