Page images
PDF
EPUB

France would be quite ready to hold this language with us. If such a policy were to be adopted, the time for it would be the end of the year, or immediately before the meeting of Parliament.

Already (on May 6) Russell had officially announced the Greek prece dent as his rule of law. In October he was ready to take the last step but one in the line of the Greek example. The five years of 1821 counted as five months in 1861. Palmerston was not yet ready. And the concession of the United States in the Trent affair, in the following winter, made an aggressive movement less popular in England. But in the autumn of 1862 Palmerston also thought the moment had arrived. Neither of these two powerful statesmen, the highest English authorities of their times on the subjects of foreign relations, doubted the right or the expediency of intervention after the second campaign in Virginia. On September 14, 1862, Palmerston wrote to Russell suggesting a joint offer by England and France of what is diplomatically called "good offices," as in the Greek protocol of 1826. Russell eagerly approved:

Whether the Federal Army is destroyed or not [replied Russell to Palmerston, September 17, 1862] it is clear that it is driven back to Washington and has made no progress in subduing the insurgent States. Such being the case, I agree with you that the time is come for offering mediation to the United States Government with a view to the recognition of the independence of the Confederates. I agree, further, that in case of failure we ought ourselves to recognize the Southern States as an independent State. For the purpose of taking so important a step I think we must have a meeting of the Cabinet. The 23d or 30th would suit me for the meeting. We ought then, if we agree on such a step, to propose it first to France, and then, on the part of England and France, to Russia and other powers, as a measure decided upon by us.

We ought to make ourselves safe in Canada.

In this scheme of intervention Russell once more advanced beyond the Greek precedent. Canning would move only in concert with Russia. Russell proposed to move in concert with France alone.

Palmerston replied September 23:

Your plan of proceedings about the mediation between the Federals and Confederates seems to be excellent. Of course the offer would be made to both the contending parties at the same time, for, though the offer would be as sure to be accepted by the Southerns as was the proposal of the Prince of Wales to the Danish princess, yet in the one case, as in the other, there are certain forms which it is decent and proper to go through.

A question would occur whether, if the two parties were to accept mediation, the fact of our mediating would not of itself be tantamount to an acknowledgment of the Confederates as an independent State.

Might it not be well to ask Russia to join England and France in the offer of mediation?

*

[ocr errors]

*

We should be better without her in the mediation, because she would be too favorable to the North; but, on the other hand, her participation in the offer might render the North the more willing to accept it.

The middle of October was the time suggested by Palmerston for action.

If the Federals sustain a great defeat they may be at once ready for mediation, and the iron should be struck while it is hot. If, on the other hand, they should have the best of it, we may wait awhile and see what may follow.

Fortunately for the United States, Russell and Palmerston found their serious difficulties not in France or in the law, but in the political division of their own party. These two powerful statesmen, who had been both honored with the position of prime minister of England, had united their influence to create the exising ministry. They seem to have supposed that their united authority was sufficient to control the ministry they had created, but the moment Russell opened the subject to others he received a check. He persevered; he issued a confidential

memorandum suggesting his idea; he brought the subject before a cabinet meeting October 23, 1862, and the division of opinion proved to be so serious that the subject was postponed. The question became one of internal politics, social divisions, and party majorities.

The scheme of intervention was embraced by the Emperor of France as seriously as by Russell and Palmerston. Long before the two English statesmen decided to act, Napoleon III had given his first interview to the Confederate agent accredited to his Government. News of the defeat of the Union army before Richmond reached Paris on the 15th of July, 1862, and the next day Mr. Slidell asked and received an interview. The Emperor talked with exceeding frankness, according to the report made by Mr. Slidell to Mr. Benjamin:

*

[ocr errors]

The Emperor received me with great kindness and [said] that he had from the first seen the true character of the contest, and considered the reestablishment of the Union impossible and final separation a mere question of time; that the difficulty was to find a way to give effect to his sympathies; that he had always desired to preserve the most friendly relation with England, and that in so grave a question he had not been willing to act without her cooperation; that he had several times intimated his wish for action in our behalf, but had met with no favorable response, and that, besides, England had a deeper interest in the question than France; that she wished him to draw the chestnuts from the fire for her benefit; that he had committed a great error which he now deeply regretted; Francé should never have respected the blockade; that the European powers should have recognized us last summer when our ports were in our possession and when we were menacing Washington, but what, asked he, could now be done?

Napoleon's language was not official, but he had committed himself beyond recall by the policy he described, for hardly had the civil war broken out than he had plunged into a scheme of armed intervention in Mexico. Perhaps the ultimate salvation of America, in this crisis, was due to the mistake of judgment which led Europe to attack the Monroe doctrine and the American system in Mexico instead of attacking its heart. He made no secret of his wish to substitute French influence on the Gulf of Mexico in the place of American. This had been the dream of every great French ruler, and Napoleon III had a "doctrine" of his own, far more ancient than that of Monroe and backed by more formidable military force. Europe did intervene by arms in the American civil war, but fortunately she attacked our ally and only indirectly ourselves. Fortunately, too, in betraying his ultimate objects in Mexico, Napoleon alienated England and did not conciliate Spain.

Yet the attack was made, violently in Mexico, more cautiously at Washington, and as systematically as the mutual jealousies of Europe permitted. At the moment when Russell and Palmerston brought their scheme of intervention before the British cabinet, Napoleon sent reenforcements of 35,000 men to his force in Mexico, with orders to occupy the country, and simultaneously sent a formal invitation to England and Russia to intervene in the American civil war.

These papers have not been published, and we do not know the express grounds on which the invitation was offered or declined. To the fact that Russia was avowedly friendly, and that the two most powerful British prime ministers of their time were outvoted in their own cabinet, America owed her escape from European domination. Mexico, indeed, suffered severely, but only while our civil war was in doubt. From the moment the authority of the Union was wholly restored in 1865, the entire influence of the United States Government was exerted to reestablish also the authority of the Monroe doctrine. The life of the one was dependent on the life of the other.

CUBA.

Into this American system, thus created by Monroe in 1822-23, and embracing then, besides the United States, only Buenos Ayres, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, various other communities have since claimed, and in most cases have received admission, until it now includes all South America, except the Guianas; all Central America, except the British colony of Honduras, and the two black Republics of Spanish Santo Domingo and Haiti in the Antilles.

No serious question was again raised with any European power in regard to the insurrection or independence of their American possessions, until in 1869, a rebellion broke out in Cuba, and the insurgents, after organizing a government and declaring their independence, claimed recognition from the United States.

The Government of the United States had always regarded Cuba as within the sphere of its most active and serious interest. As early as 1825, when the newly recognized States of Colombia and Mexico were supposed to be preparing an expedition to revolutionize Cuba and Puerto Rico, the United States Government interposed its friendly offices with those Governments to request their forbearance. The actual condition of Spain seemed to make her retention of Cuba impossible, in which case the United States would have been obliged, for her own safety, to prevent the island from falling into the hands of a stronger power in Europe. That this emergency did not occur may have been partly due to the energy with which Monroe announced "our right and our power to prevent it," and his determination to use all the means within his competency "to guard against and forefend it."

This right of intervention in matters relating to the external relations of Cuba, asserted and exercised seventy years ago, has been asserted and exercised at every crisis in which the island has been involved.

When the Cuban insurgents in 1869 appealed to the United States for recognition, President Grant admitted the justice of the claim, and directed the minister of the United States at Madrid to interpose our good offices with the Spanish Government in order to obtain by a friendly arrangement the independence of the Island. The story of of that intervention is familiar to every member of the Senate, and was made the basis of its resolution last session, requesting the President once more "to interpose his friendly offices with the Spanish Government for the recognition of the independence of Cuba."

The resolution then adopted by Congress was perfectly understood to carry with it all the consequences which necessarily would follow the rejection by Spain of friendly offices. On this point the situation needs no further comment. The action taken by Congress in the last session was taken "on great consideration and on just principles," on a right of intervention exercised twenty-seven years ago, and after a patient delay unexampled in history.

The interval of nine months which has elapsed since that action of Congress, has proved the necessity of carrying it out to completion. In the words of the President's Annual Message: "The stability two years' duration has given to the insurrection; the feasibility of its indefinite prolongation in the nature of things, and as shown by past experience; the utter and imminent ruin of the island unless the present strife is speedily composed" are, in our opinion, conclusive evidence that "the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection has become manifest, and it is demonstrated that the sovereignty is

extinct in Cuba for all purposes of its rightful existence, hopeless struggle for its reestablishment has degenerated into a strife which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of human life and the utter destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict."

Although the President appears to have reached a different conclusion from ours, we believe this to be the actual situation of Cuba, and, being unable to see that further delay could lead to any other action than that which the President anticipates, we agree with the conclusion of the message, that, in such case, our obligations to the sovereignty of Spain are "superseded by higher obligations which we can hardly hesi tate to recognize and discharge." Following closely the action of President Monroe in 1818, Congress has already declared in effect its opinion that there can be no rational interference except on the basis of independence.

In 1822, as now, but with more force, it was objected, as we have shown, that the revolted States had no governments to be recognized. Divisions, and even civil war, existed among the insurgents themselves. Among the Cubans no such difficulty is known to exist. In September, 1895, as we know by official documents printed on the spot, the insurgent government was regularly organized, a constitution adopted, a president elected, and, in due course, the various branches of administration set in motion. Since then, so far as we are informed, this government has continued to perform its functions undisturbed. On the military side, as we officially know, they have organized, equipped, and maintained in the field, sufficient forces to baffle the exertions of 200,000 Spanish soldiers. On the civil side they have organized their system of administration in every province for, as we know officially, they "roam at will over at least two-thirds of the inland country." Diplomatically they have maintained a regularly accredited representative in the United States for the past year, who has never ceased to ask recognition and to offer all possible information. There is no reason to suppose that any portion of the Cuban people would be dissatisfied by our recognizing their representative in this country or that they disagree in the earnest wish for that recognition. The same thing could hardly be said of all the countries recognized by Monroe in 1822. Greece had no such stability when it was recognized by England, Russia, and France. Belgium had nothing of the sort when she was recognized by all the powers in 1830. Of the States recognized by the treaty of Berlin in 1878, we need hardly say more than that they were the creatures of intervention.

The only question that properly remains for Congress to consider is the mode which should be adopted for the step which Congress is pledged next to take.

The Government of the United States entertains none but the friendliest feelings toward Spain. Its most anxious wish is to avoid even the appearance of an unfriendliness which is wholly foreign to its thought. For more than a hundred years, amidst divergent or clashing interests, and under frequent and severe strains, the two Governments have succeeded in avoiding collision, and there is no friendly office which Spain could ask, which the United States, within the limits of their established principles and policy, would not be glad to extend. In the present instance they are actuated by an earnest wish to avoid the danger of seeming to provoke a conflict.

The practice of Europe in regard to intervention, as in the instances cited, has been almost invariably harsh and oppressive. The practice of the United States has been almost invariably mild and forbearing.

Among the precedents which have been so numerously cited there can be no doubt as to the choice. The most moderate is the best. Among these, the attitude taken by President Mouroe in 1822 is the only attitude which can properly be regarded as obligatory for a similar situation to-day. The course pursued by the United States in the recognition of Colombia is the only course which Congress can consistently adopt. We recommend, therefore, the joint resolution, with amendments to read as follows:

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the independence of the Republic of Cuba be, and the same is hereby, acknowledged by the United States of America.

"Be it further resolved, That the United States will use its friendly offices with the Government of Spain to bring to a close the war between Spain and the Republic of Cuba."

« PreviousContinue »