any "extraordinary expense which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." Second. The act of February 13, 1806, using precisely the same phraseology, appropriates $2,000,000, it being understood that it was to be used in negotiating for the purchase of Florida.

The act of March 3, 1847, "making further appropriation to bring the existing war with Mexico to a speedy and honorable conclusion," has been adopted as the model on which the present bill is framed. Its preamble states that—

Whereas, in the adjustment of so many complicated questions as now exist between the two countries, it may possibly happen that an expenditure of money will be called for by the stipulations of any treaty which may be entered into, therefore the sum of $3,000,000 be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, to enable the President to conclude a treaty of peace, limits, and boundaries, with the Republic of Mexico; to be used by him in the event said treaty, when signed by the authorized agents of the two Governments and duly ratified by Mexico, shall call for the expenditure of the same, or any part thereof.

The bill now reported appropriates, under the same conditions, $30,000,000 to make a treaty with Spain for the purchase of the Island of Cuba.

It will be perceived that this bill defines strictly the object to which the amount appropriated shall be applied, and in this respect allows a much narrower range of discretion to the present Executive than the acts of 1803 and 1806 gave to Mr. Jefferson. In those cases the object of the appropriation was as well known to the country and to the world as if it had been specifically stated. The knowledge of that fact did not then in the slightest degree tend to defeat the intended object, nor can it do so now. Under our form of Government we have no state secrets. With us diplomacy has ceased to be enveloped with the mysteries that of yore were considered inseparable from its successful exercise. Directness in our policy and frankness in its avowal are, in conducting our foreign intercourse, not less essential to the maintenance of our national character and the permanent interests of the Republic than are the same qualities to social position and the advancement of honest enterprise in private life.

Much has been said of the indelicacy of this mode of proceeding; that the offer to purchase will offend the Spanish pride, be regarded as an insult, and rejected with contempt; that, instead of promoting a consummation that all admit to be desirable, it will have the opposite tendency. If this were true, it would be a conclusive argument against the bill, but a brief consideration will show the fallacy of these views. For many years our desire to purchase Cuba has been known to the world.

Seven years since President Fillmore communicated to Congress the instructions to our ministers on that subject, with all the correspondence connected with it. In that correspondence will be found three letters from Mr. Saunders, detailing conversations held with Narvaez and the minister of foreign relations, in which he notified them of his authority to treat for the purchase of Cuba, and while the reply was so decided as to preclude him from making any direct proposition, yet no intimation was given that the suggestion was offensive. And why should it be so? We simply say to Spain, "You have a distant possession, held by a precarious tenure, which is almost indispensable to us for the protection of our commerce, and may, from its peculiar position, the character of its population, and the mode in which it is governed, lead at any time to a rupture which both nations would deprecate. This possession, rich though it be in all the elements of wealth, yields to your

permit. It is dark enough without the illumination of the fires of devastation these succeeding years have witnessed in Cuba.

Among the great debates in Congress upon that report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, the part of a speech that relates to Cuba and the report of the committee above referred to, made by Hon. Judah P. Benjamin, in the Senate, on February 11, 1859, is appended hereto, marked appendix No. 2. Mr. Benjamin gives an accurate and much more complete statement of the condition of the people of Cuba and the methods of Spanish government in that island than is stated in the report of the committee.

The relations of Spain and the United States were not then strained by the disturbances of actual insurrection in Cuba, as they were afterwards, from 1868 to 1878, and have been almost ever since, and are now, by the excessive and inhuman abuses of power in Cuba, to which no limit can be now anticipated, either as to the time when they will end or the increased cruelty that is now a settled feature of the present Spanish war of extermination.

The President recognizes the fact that the present war is for independence on the part of the Cubans and not for the gratification of personal ambition, or alone for the redress of personal or political grievances with which the painful history of their sufferings is crowded. For the sake of liberty and the independence of their country they are willing to forget the recompense that is due them for their individual sufferings.

Hon. T. Estrada Palma was duly accredited as diplomatic delegate plenipotentiary to the United States, under an appointment by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of Cuba. He appears to have been received informally for the purpose of presenting the case of Cuba to our Government. On the 7th December, 1895, he addressed a note to the Secretary of State, accompanied by a statement of facts, in which the case of Cuba is set forth officially. That document has been printed by the order of the Senate, and is appended hereto and numbered 3.

In the papers that accompanied this note the delegate stated the causes of the revolution in Cuba; that it had reached that stage in which the issue between the contending parties "is independence or extermination."

The recent message of the President is clear on the point that he has been forced to the same conclusion.

The delegate then stated the facts, showing the preliminary organization of the revolt; the uprising; the growth of the revolution; the battles and campaigns that had already been fought, including the great and victorious campaign of Gomez against Capt. Gen. Martinez Campos, which caused him to be recalled to Spain and supplanted by Captain-General Weyler; the military organization of the Cubans; their civil government; their treatment of prisoners; that the government he represented is not a negro government; the character of the war; the protests of resident citizens of the United States in Cuba against their cruel treatment by the Spanish forces; that their lives and property are placed under the special protection of the Cuban government, and that they are exempt from taxes and contributions by the constitution of the Republic of Cuba, when that government is recognized by their respective governments.

The letter of the Cuban delegate thus addressed to our Secretary of State has appended to it several papers which set forth fully the grievances complained of by the Cuban people. In its nature it is a declaration of the independence of Cuba, stating the grounds of their

united action. That declaration is in keeping with the historical narrative given by Mr. Benjamine in his speech, herewith presented, and with the report of the Committee of Foreign Relations in 1859, and with the messages of President Grant and President Hayes, and the letters of Mr. Sickles and Dr. Cushing, as ministers to Spain, and of Mr. Fish and Mr. Evarts, as Secretaries of State.

All these papers are uniform in their statements of the wrongs and grievances of the Cuban people, and of the wrongful and tyrannical course of Spain toward them. In none of them is any fact or reason stated to excuse or paliate the cruelties that Spain has inflicted upon her subjects in Cuba. In none of them is any bad purpose imputed to the Cuban people.

No one has contradicted those statements, or any material part of them, on the authority of the Spanish Government or before any official or other credible authority.

The tenor of the message of the President to this session of Congress is a reaffirmation of all this history, stated in all these papers. In the part of his message relating to Cuba he has laid them before Congress without any special recommendation, and has left to Congress the duty of making provision for the security of the rights, the property, and the lives of our citizens residing in Cuba, and of enforcing the right of indemnity on behalf of the legal successors of those who have been killed there. He has intimated that delay is the wisest policy, but he has refrained from saying that delay is required by our national honor, by the safety of our people in Cuba or by the interests of humanity.

A comparison of this message, which is appended hereto and marked Appendix 4, will show that it agrees with the statements of every President who has attended to the subject, and it further shows that the same spirit of tyrannical domination now prevails in Cuba that has kept the people of that island in despairing servitude during this entire century.

The message of Mr. Cleveland, who has no aversion to Spanish rule in Cuba, confirms, in all important statements, the truth of the charges made by Mr. Estrada Palma against Spain in the exposition of the case of Cuba which he presented to our Secretary of State.

The only difference in the situation in Cuba, as it is described in the report of the Senate Committee on Foregn Relations in 1859 and as it is described in the President's message in 1896, thirty-seven years later, is that as time has progressed the wrongs of Cuba have been aggravated and the means of repression employed by Spain have grown into a war against humanity-a war of annihilation of property and the extermination of the native population.

If the firm purpose of our predecessors to put an end to this condition of affairs in Cuba in the comparatively mild form of tyranny that existed fifty years ago has degenerated into doubts and misgivings as to our duty to our own people and the demands of Christian civilization, let the responsibility for this lapse from the true spirit of American liberty and our love of home rule and independence rest where it justly belongs, and not upon the people through the indifference to their will on the part of their Representatives in Congress.

Concurring in all that is said in the general report of the committee, the additional facts herein stated are presented as additional reasons for agreeing to that report, and for the passage of the resolution of the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cameron), which the committee recommends.

JOHN T. MORGAN.
B. Q. MILLS.

treasury a net revenue not amounting, on the average of a series of years, to the hundredth part of the price we are prepared to give you for it. True, you have heretofore refused to consider our proposition, but circumstances are changing daily. What may not have suited you in 1848 may now be more acceptable. Should a war break out in Europe, Spain can scarcely hope to escape being involved in it. The people of Cuba naturally desire to have a voice in the government of the island. They may seize the occasion to proclaim their independence, and you may regret not having accepted the rich indemnity we offer." But even these arguments will not be pressed upon unwilling ears. Our minister will not broach the subject until he shall have good reason to believe that it will be favorably entertained. Such an opportunity may occur when least expected. Spain is the country of coups d'état and pronunciamentos. The all-powerful minister of to-day may be a fugitive to-morrow. With the forms of a representative government, it is in fact a despotism sustained by the bayonet-a despotism tempered only by frequent, violent, and bloody revolutions. Her financial condition is one of extreme embarrassment; a crisis may arise when even the dynasty may be overthrown unless a large sum of money can be raised forthwith. Spain will be in the position of the needy possessor of land he can not cultivate, having all the pride of one to whom it has descended through a long line of ancestry, but his necessities are stronger than his will-he must have money. A thrifty neighbor, whose domains it will round off, is at hand to furnish it. He retains the old mansion, but sells what will relieve him from immediate ruin.

The President, in his annual message, has told us that we should not, if we could, acquire Cuba by any other means than honorable negotiation, unless circumstances which he does not anticipate render a departure from such a course justifiable, under the imperative and overruling law of self-preservation. He also tells us that he desires to renew the negotiations, and it may become indispensable to success that he should be intrusted with the means for making an advance to the Spanish Government immediately after the signing of the treaty, without awaiting the ratification of it by the Senate. This, in point of fact, is an appeal to Congress for an expression of its opinion on the propriety of renewing the negotiation. Should we fail to give him the means which may be indispensable to success, it may well be considered by the President as an intimation that we do not desire the acquisition of the island.

It has been asserted that the people of Cuba do not desire a transfer to the United States. If this were so, it would present a very serious objection to the measure. The evidence on which it is based is that on receipt of the President's message addresses were made by the municipal authorities of Habana and other towns protesting their devotion to the Crown and their hostility to the institutions of the United States. Anyone who has had an opportunity of observing the persuasive influence of the bayonet in countries where it rules supreme will know how much value to attach to such demonstrations of popular sentiment. There can be no doubt that an immense majority of the people of Cuba are not only in favor, but ardently desirous of annexation to the United States. It would be strange, indeed, if they were not so. Deprived of all influence, even in the local affairs of the island; unrepresented in the Cortes; governed by successive hordes of hungry officials sent from the mother country to acquire fortunes to be enjoyed at home, having no sympathy with the people among whom they are mere sojourners and upon whom they look down as inferiors; liable to be arrested at any

moment on the most trifling charges; tried by military courts or submissive judges, removable at pleasure; punished at the discretion of the Captain-General, they would be less than men if they were contented with their yoke. But we have the best authority, from the most reliable sources, for asserting that nearly the entire native population of Cuba desires annexation.

Apprehensions have been expressed by some Southern statesmen of perils resulting from the different elements composing the population, and the supposed mixture of races. They are not justified by the facts. The entire population, by the census of 1850, was 1,247,230, of which 605,560 were whites, 205,570 free colored, and 436,100 slaves.

Allowing the same annual percentage of increase for each class as shown by comparison with the previous census, the total population now is about 1,586,000, of which 742,000 are whites, 263,000 free colored, and 581,000 slaves. There is good reason to suppose that the slaves considerably exceed the estimated number, it having been, until very recently, the interest of the proprietor to understate it. The feeling of caste or race is as marked in Cuba as in the United States. The white creole is as free from all taint of African blood as the descendant of the Goth on the plains of Castile. There is a numerous white peasantry, brave, robust, sober, and honest, not yet, perhaps, prepared intelligently to discharge all the duties of the citizen of a free republic, but who, from his organization, physical and mental, is capable of being elevated by culture to the same level with the educated Cubans, who, as a class, are as refined, well informed, and fitted for self government as men of any class of any nation can be who have not inhaled with their breath the atmosphere of freedom.

Many of them, accompanied by their families, are to be met with every summer at our cities and watering places, observing and appreciating the working of our form of government and its marvelous results; many seeking until the arrival of more auspicious days an asylum from the oppression that has driven them from their homes; while hundreds of their youths in our schools and colleges are acquiring our language and fitting themselves hereafter, it is to be hoped at no distant day, to play a distinguished part in their own legislative halls or in the councils of the nation.

These men, who are the great proprietors of the soil, are opposed to the continuance of the African slave trade, which is carried on by Spaniards from the Peninsula, renegade Americans, and other adventurers from every clime and country, tolerated and protected by the authorities of Cuba of every grade.

Were there a sincere desire to arrest the slave trade, it could be as effectually put down by Spain as it has been by Brazil. Cuba and Puerto Rico are now the only marts for this illegal traffic; and if the British Government had been as intent upon enforcing its treaty stipulations with Spain for its abolition as it has been in denouncing abuses of our flag, which we can not entirely prevent, this question would long since have ceased to be a source of irritating discussion-it may be of possible future difficulty. Those who desire to extirpate the slave trade may find in their sympathy for the African a motive to support this bill.

We have, since the conclusion of the Ashburton treaty in 1842, kept up a squadron on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave trade, and we are still bound to continue it. The annual cost of this squadron is at least $800,000. The cost in seventeen years amounts to $13,600,000, and this, too, with results absolutely insignificant. It appears from a report of a select committee of the British House of