No. 429.
Mr. Fish to Mr. Sickles.
Washington, August 31, 1872.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch of the 8th instant, No. 411, containing a copy of a telegram of same date received from you, in regard to the enforcement of the emancipation law in Cuba and Porto Rico.
This intelligence is especially gratifying to this Government, and it is hoped that efficient and practical regulations for carrying out this humane and beneficent object may be enforced.
You will omit no proper occasion to enforce upon the Spanish government the expediency, the humanity, and the justice of making their laws for the abolition of slavery more efficient and more immediately operative, and you will make manifest the strong interest felt by this Government in the adoption of a humane and practical system of emancipation.
I am, &c.,