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Proximity of position, neighbor- of strong and manifest reason, jus

hood, whatever augments the power of injuring and annoying, very properly belong to the consideration of all cases of this kind. The greater or less facility of access itself, is of consideration in such questions, because it brings, or may bring, weighty consequences with it.. "Again; it has been asserted, that although we might rightfully prevent another power from taking Cuba from Spain, by force, yet if Spain should choose to make the voluntary transfer, we should have no right whatever to interfere. Sir, this is a distinction without a difference. If we are likely to have contention about Cuba, let us first well consider what our rights are, and not commit ourselves. If we have any right to interfere at all, it applies as well to the case of a peaceable, as to that of a forcible, transfer. If nations be at war, we are not judges of the question of right, in that war; we must acknowledge, in both parties, the mutual right of attack, and the mutual right of conquest. It is not for us to set bounds to their belligerent operations, so long as they do not affect ourselves. Our right to interfere in any such case, is but the exercise of the right of reasonable and necessary self-defence. It is a high and delicate exercise of that right; one not to be made but on grounds

tice, and necessity. The real question is, whether the possession of Cuba by a great maritime power of Europe, would seriously endanger our own immediate security, or our essential interests. I put the question in the language of some of the best considered state papers of modern times. The general rule of national law, is, unquestionably, against interference, in the transactions of other states. There are, however, acknowledged exceptions, growing out of circumstances, and founded in those circumstances. These exceptions, it has been properly said, cannot, without danger, be reduced to previous rule, and incorporated into the ordinary diplomacy of nations. Nevertheless, they do exist, and must be judged of, when they arise, with a just regard to our own essential interests, but in a spirit of strict justice and delicacy, also, towards foreign states.

"The ground of these exceptions is, self-preservation. It is not a slight injury to our interest; it is not even a great inconvenience, that makes out a case. There must be danger to our security; or danger, manifest and imminent danger, to our essential rights, and our essential interests. Now, sir, let us look at Cuba. I need hardly refer to its present amount of commercial connection

tistical tables, I presume, would show us, that our commerce with the Havana alone, is more in amount than our whole commercial intercourse with France, and all her dependencies. But this is but one part of the case, and not the most important. Cuba, as is well said in the report of the committee of foreign affairs, is placed in the mouth of the Mississippi. Its occupation by a strong maritime power would be felt, in the first moment of hostility, as far up the Mississippi and the Missouri, as our population extends. It is the commanding point of the gulf of Mexico. See, too, how it lies in the very line of our coastwise traffic; interposed in the very highway between New-York and New-Orleans.

with the United States. Our sta- the event comes, without any previous declaration of our sentiments, upon subjects important to our own rights, or our own interests. Sir, such declarations are often the appropriate means of preventing that, which, if unprevented, it might be difficult to redress. A great object in holding diplomatic intercourse, is frankly to expose the views and objects of nations, and to prevent, by candid explanation, collision and war. In this case, the government has said, that we could not assent to the transfer of Cuba to another European state. Can we so assent? Do gentlemen think we can? If not, then it was entirely proper that this intimation should be frankly and seasonably made. Candor required it; and it would have been unpardonable, it would have been injustice, as well as folly, to have been silent, while we might suppose the transaction to be contemplated, and then to complain of it afterwards.

"Now, sir, who can estimate, the effect of a change, which should place this island in other hands, subject it to new rules of commercial intercourse, or connect it with objects of a different and still more dangerous nature? I feel no disposition to pursue this topic, on the present occasion. My purpose is only to show its importance, and to beg gentlemen not to prejudice any rights of the country, by assenting to propositions, which, perhaps, may be necessary to be reviewed.

“But, it is said, that, in this, as in other cases, we should wait till

"Pains, sir, have been taken by the honorable member from Virginia, to prove that the measure now in contemplation, and indeed the whole policy of the government, respecting South America, is the unhappy result of the influence of a gentleman formerly filling the chair of this house. He charges him with having become himself affected at an early day, with what he is pleased to call the South American

fever ; and with having infused its baneful influence into the whole councils of the country.

"If, sir, it be true, that that gentleman, prompted by an ardent love of civil liberty, felt, earlier than others, a proper sympathy for the struggling colonies of South America; or that, acting on the maxim, that revolutions do not go backward, he had the sagacity to foresee, earlier than others, the successful termination of those struggles; if thus feeling, and thus perceiving, it fell to him to lead the willing or unwilling councils of his country, in her manifestations of kindness to the new governments, and in her seasonable recognition of their independence; if it be this, which the honorable member imputes to him; if it be this course of public conduct, that he has identified his name with the cause of South American liberty, he ought to be esteemed one of the most fortunate men of the age. If all this be, as is now represented, he has acquired fame enough. It is enough for any man, thus to have connected himself with the greatest events of the age in which he lives, and to have been foremost in measures which reflect high honor on his country, in the judgment of mankind. Sir, it is always with great reluctance that I am drawn to speak, in my place here, of individuals; but I could not forbear what I have

now said, when I hear, in the house of representatives, and in this land of free spirits, that it is made matter of imputation, and of reproach, to have been first to reach forth the hand of welcome, and of succour, to new-born nations, struggling to obtain, and to enjoy, the blessings of liberty.

We are told that the country is deluded and deceived by cabalistic words! If we express an emotion of pleasure at the results of this great action of the spirit of political liberty; if we rejoice at the birth of new republican nations, and express our joy by the common terms of regard and sympathy; if we feel and signify, high gratification, that, throughout this whole continent, men are now likely to be blessed by free and popular institu- tions; and if, in the uttering of these sentiments, we happen to speak of sister republics; of the great American family of nations; of the political system and forms of government of this hemisphere, then, indeed, it seems, we deal in senseless jargon, or impose on the judgment and feeling of the community by cabalistic words! Sir, what is meant by this? Is it intended, that the people of the United States ought to be totally indifferent to the fortunes of those new neighbors?

"Sir, I do not wish to over-rate, I do not over-rate, the progress of

these new states in the great work of establishing a well-secured popular liberty. I know that to be a great attainment, and I know they are but pupils in the school. But, thank God, they are in the school. They are called to meet difficulties, such as neither we nor our fathers encountered. For these, we ought to make large allowances. What have we ever known like the colonial vassalage of the states? When did we or our ancestors, feel, like them, the weight of political despotism that presses men to the earth, that religious intolerance which would shut up heaven to all but the bigotted? Sir, we sprung from another stock. We belong to another race. We have known nothing-we have felt nothing of the political despotism of Spain, nor of the heat of her fires of intolerance. No rational man expects that the South can run the same rapid career as the North; or that an insurgent province of Spain is in the same condition as the English colonies, when they first asserted their independence. There is, doubtless, much more to be done, in the first than in the last

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these great revolutions, I confess myself guilty of that weakness. If it be weak to feel that I am an American, to think that recent events have not only opened new modes of intercourse, but have created almost new grounds of regard and sympathy between ourselves and our neighbors; if it be weak to feel that the South, in her present state, is somewhat more emphatically a part of America, than when she lay obscure, oppressed, and unknown, under the grinding bondage of a foreign power; if it be weak to rejoice, when, even in any corner of the earth, human beings are able to get up from beneath oppression, to erect themselves, and to enjoy the proper happiness of their intelligent nature; if this be weak, it is a weakness from which I claim no exemption.

A day of solemn retribution now visits the once proud monarchy of Spain. The prediction is fulfilled. The spirit of Montezuma and of the Incas might now well say,

"Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see The robber and the murderer weak as

we?

Thou! that has wasted earth and dared despise

Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies, Thy pomp is in the grave; thy glory laid Low in the pit thine avarice has made."

Mr. Chairman-I will detain you only with one more reflection on this subject. We cannot be so

blind-we cannot so shut up our senses, and smother our faculties, as not to see, that in the progress and the establishment of South American liberty, our own example has been among the most stimulating causes. That great light -a light which can never be hid-the light of our own glorious revolution, has shone on the path of the South American patriots, from the beginning of their course. In their emergencies, they have looked to our experience; in their political institutions, they have followed our models; in their deliberations, they have invoked the presiding spirit of our own liberty. They have looked steadily, in every adversity, to the GREAT NORTHERN LIGHT. In the hour of bloody conflict, they have remembered the fields which have been consecrated by the blood of our own fathers; and when they have fallen, they have wished only to be remembered with them, as men who had acted their parts bravely, for the cause of liberty in the western world.

"Sir, I have done. If it be weakness to feel the sympathy of one's nature excited for such men, in such a cause, I am guilty of that weakness. If it be prudence to meet their proffered civility, not with reciprocal kindness, but with coldness or with insult, I choose to follow where natural impulse leads, and to give up that false and

mistaken prudence, for the voluntary sentiments of my heart."

The other members that participated in the debate, were, Messrs. Wickliffe, of Kentucky; Carson, of North Carolina; Barbour, of Virginia; Hamilton, and Carter, of South Carolina; Buchannan, Hemphill, and Ingham, of Pennsylvania; Houston, of Tennessee ; Verplanck, of New-York; and Weems, of Maryland; in favor of the amendments. They were opposed, and the passage of the resolution, as introduced by the committee, advocated by Messrs. Powell and Archer, of Virginia; Wood and Garnsey, of New-York; Brent and Livingston, of Louisiana; Buckner and F. Johnson, of Kentucky; Wurtz, Markley, and Thompson, of Pennsylvania; and Reed, of Massachusetts.

After a discussion, which lasted from the 3d until the 21st of April, the question was taken on the amendments, in the committee of the whole; and the vote stood 99 in the affirmative, and 94 in the negative. The adoption of this amendment, in the committee, presented a different question for the decision of the house; and as many members doubted the constitutional power of the house, to interfere in this way with the executive department, they voted against the whole resolution; and it was rejected by 143 to 54. The bill

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