Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
These inevitable entanglements of the United States with the rebellion
in Cuba, the large American property interests affected, and
considerations of philanthropy and humanity in general have led to a
vehement demand in various quarters for some sort of positive
intervention on the part of the United States. It was at first proposed
that belligerent rights should be accorded to the insurgents--a
proposition no longer urged because untimely and in practical operation
dearly perilous and injurious to our own interests. It has since been
and is now sometimes contended that the independence of the insurgents
should be recognized; but imperfect and restricted as the Spanish
government of the island may be, no other exists there, unless the will
of the military officer in temporary command of a particular district
can be dignified as a species of government. It is now also suggested
that the United States should buy the island--a suggestion possibly
worthy of consideration if there were any evidence of a desire or
willingness on the part of Spain to entertain such a proposal. It is
urged finally that, all other methods failing, the existing internecine
strife in Cuba should be terminated by our intervention, even at the
cost of a war between the United States and Spain--a war which its
advocates confidently prophesy could neither be large in its
proportions nor doubtful in its issue.
The correctness of this forecast need be neither affirmed nor denied.
The United States has, nevertheless, a character to maintain as a
nation, which plainly dictates that right and not might should be the
rule of its conduct. Further, though the United States is not a nation
to which peace is a necessity, it is in truth the most pacific of
powers and desires nothing so much as to live in amity with all the
world. Its own ample and diversified domains satisfy all possible
longings for territory, preclude all dreams of conquest, and prevent
any casting of covetous eyes upon neighboring regions, however
attractive. That our conduct toward Spain and her dominions has
constituted no exception to this national disposition is made manifest
by the course of our Government, not only thus far during the present
insurrection, but during the ten years that followed the rising at Yara
in 1868. No other great power, it may safely be said, under
circumstances of similar perplexity, would have manifested the same
restraint and the same patient endurance. It may also be said that this
persistent attitude of the United States toward Spain in connection
with Cuba unquestionably evinces no slight respect and regard for Spain
on the part of the American people. They in truth do not forget her
connection with the discovery of the Western Hemisphere, nor do they
underestimate the great qualities of the Spanish people nor fail to
fully recognize their splendid patriotism and their chivalrous devotion
to the national honor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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