Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1873, Part I, General Correspondence; and Papers Relating to Naturalization and Expatriation, Volume II

No. 399.
General Sickles to Mr. Fish.

United States Legation in Spain,
Madrid, March 27, 1873. (Received April 16.)

No. 560.]

Sir: I have the honor to forward herewith an official copy of the act for the immediate emancipation of slavery in Porto Rico, passed on the 22d instant by a unanimous vote of the National Assembly. It seldom happens that one has the privilege of recording with so much satisfaction the end of a long and stubborn contest, in which avarice, prejudice, and pride had to be subdued.

Singularly enough, this bill, brought in before the abdication of the King, and which in its preliminary stages had twice commanded a decisive majority in a monarchical Congress, was in serious danger of defeat after the proclamation of the republic. The explanation of a circumstance so anomalous is to be sought, not in the indifference or hostility of the republicans, but in the conflicts between the assembly and the executive which immediately followed the inauguration of the new form of government.

I have heretofore pointed out the remarkable prominence given to the affairs of Cuba and Porto Rico in the deliberations of the Congress of 1872–’73. If, as I believe, the emancipation act now passed was conspicuous among the immediate causes which led to the abdication of the King, it likewise had the good fortune to be made the occasion of a reconciliation among the hostile elements in the National Assembly, which enabled that body to terminate its labors in harmony with the executive power and with public opinion.

After the defeat of the amendment proposed by Mr. Garcia Ruiz, which was an attempt to substitute for the original bill a scheme of gradual emancipation, the opposition abandoned all hope of defeating the measure by legitimate means. It was then determined to leave the assembly without a quorum when the final vote should be taken. Although it appeared that the number of deputies willing to record themselves against the bill was comparatively small, there was reason to apprehend that enough might be disposed to absent themselves from the chamber to defeat its passage, for the want of the requisite attendance under the rules. I have annexed a report of the speech of Mr. Garcia Ruiz. I cannot convey to you in any other manner so just a notion of the spirit and degree of hostility shown toward the United States by the speakers on the slavery side of the chamber. This gentleman is the sole representative in Congress of a republican sect known as unitarians. He was the only man in Spain of liberal opinions who entered the “League.” His speech, denounced by the liberal party and praised by the reactionists, added no vote besides his own in favor of the prolongation of slavery.

The fate of the measure had been the subject of several conversations between Mr. Castelar and myself, in the last of which the minister expressed grave doubts of its passage, and even suggested that I should advise you in advance of its probable failure, assuring you, however, of the prompt and decisive action of the Cortes Constituyentes on the whole subject of colonial reform in June next. Declining the unwelcome task of repeating explanations of past failures and promises of future action, I urged his excellency to insist on a decisive vote, in which the government and its supporters at least would show their fidelity to the bill, and absolve themselves from responsibility for its defeat.

On the 21st instant, the minister of state addressed the assembly in a speech of remarkable directness and strength, a synopsis of which is translated in Appendix C, showing the grave international aspects of the question, repelling the charge of unwarrantable interference on the part of the United States, and admonishing the chamber of the consequences that would follow the loss of the measure. When Mr. Castelar rose to speak, his effort was regarded as a mere demonstration due to his own consistency as a public man, and in which he might, perhaps, decorate the grave of the bill with a few garlands of eloquence. When he resumed his seat, such was the profound impression made by his most convincing and persuasive appeal that it was evident he had carried the house with him, and the triumph of emancipation was assured.

A conference followed between Mr. Labro, a prominent deputy from Porto Rico, and the leading opponents of the measure, which resulted in an agreement upon several amendments not affecting the principle of immediate emancipation. The next day the bill passed with entire unanimity in a full house, accompanied by manifestations of enthusiasm and joy peculiar to this impressionable and ardent race. Representatives of all parties joined in telegraphic communications to Cuba and Porto Rico, advising their friends in those islands to accept emancipation in the same spirit in which it had been proclaimed by the National Assembly. The government was asked to telegraph the text of the act to its representatives abroad, so that it might be communicated to foreign powers. And it was resolved to place a memorial tablet in the wall of the chamber, with an inscription commemorative of the event.

Already the effect of these incidents on the broader question of emancipation in Cuba is evident and irresistible. The powerful slave-interests in that island, always represented here by agents of consummate ability and address, is now preparing the way to enable it to shape the action the Cortes Constituyentes must inevitably take to complete the work of emancipation in Spanish territory. Assuming that the present act will be faithfully executed in Porto Rico, in a way calculated to avoid conflicts which would inure to the advantage of the slave-holders in Cuba, and that the republican government will allow a fair expression of the public opinion of both islands on the whole question of colonial reform, I venture to anticipate that during the present year slavery will cease in the Antilles, and with it must fall the whole fabric of arbitrary rule which has so long oppressed those remnants of Spanish power in America.

I have, &c.,

D. E. SICKLES.

[Appendix C.—Translation.]

Synopsis of the speech of Don Emilio Castellar, minister of state, in favor of immediate emancipation in Porto Rico, delivered in the national assembly, March 21, 1873.

[From La Gaceta de Madrid, March 22, 1873.]

Mr. Castellar began by stating that his friend, Mr. Bona, bad pledged him to speak in this debate, although, for his own part, he would have preferred to remain silent, believing that action and not oratory was required from the ministers’ bench. From the heights of the opposition benches he had formerly surveyed the realm of the ideal, but now, down in the government seats, he saw nothing but hard realities that did not readily yield to the adornments of oratory. He neither proposed, nor wished, to make a speech, but simply to make a few remarks on the subject under discussion in relation to its foreign aspects, from which point of view, as minister of state, charged with all the foreign relations of the Spanish nation, he was compelled to regard it. As for his own personal convictions and record in this matter, they were known to all. No public man could lay just claim to consistency or steadfastness who was not true to the legitimate convictions born of the progressive stages of his career. How did these begin? Among free peoples the first stage in public life was in the press and the club. By those means ideas were born, and grew, and became convictions. The tribune came next, and from its heights the same ideas and convictions should be repeated as had been learned in the previous stage. And from the rostrum the public man passes to the government, where he should strive to realize all that he had heretofore proclaimed and defended. This was his duty, and if mistaken or unsuccessful, his conscience and the judgment of history would bear witness to the rectitude of his purpose.

Who among them did not know the pledges that bound the minister of state and the whole government of the republic? He begged the chamber to pardon him if he cited his own abolition record in order to show how impossible it was for him to do otherwise than obey his antecedents. He said:

“I, gentlemen, when little more than a child, began public life, and my first speech, at twenty-one years of age, was in favor of emancipation. I passed afterward from the press to a professor’s chair, where I devoted myself to the study of the first five centuries of Christianity. Three great problems met me—the decadence of the ancient world, the rise and spread of Christianity, and the inroads of the barbaric hordes. Well, then, gentlemen, in my lectures delivered during those five years, I attributed all, absolutely all these to the influences of slavery. I said the ancient world fell, for it possessed not the virtue of labor, and because it gave itself up to the ignomy of servitude. I said the Christian religion, this religion that so comforts the soul—this religion, shorn of its dogmas and of the traditions of man’s intercourse with his fellow-man and with his Creator—this religion is, in fine, the religion of the slave. The Jewish race prepared the way for it by grand apocalypses, which are the epics of servitude, epics written by the banks of the river that flowed in a strangers land, beneath the willows of Babylon, by hands heavy with the manacles of bondage. Christ is of the royal lineage of the old kings of the enslaved race who have fallen; he is the conqueror of the oppressor, and if his cradle be the cradle of toil, his scaffold is the scaffold of the slave; it is the scaffold already red with the blood of Spartaeus and his thirty thousand comrades. And in like manner, if Christianity be the spiritual religion that by its dogmas links man with God, in its social aspect it is the religion of the bondman. And when, in visions of the mind, I beheld those vast inroads of the barbaric hosts upon the Babylon of the west, fallen beneath the blasting bolts of the eloquence of him of Patmos—and fallen before human conscience—when I beheld the northern hordes break in upon the feastings of the pagan city and cast her ashes to the wind, I said, surely they are sent as destroying angels; they are the bondmen, the descendants of those hapless ones hunted down, made captive, carried to the arena; they are the sons of the gladiators, come to prove by this, their terrible vengeance, that God’s justice shines on forever through all the pages of history. [Applause.]

“Afterward, deputies, whenever I have endeavored to study political and social problems, I have ever found them connected with the slavery question; and I said—not with reference to the Spanish middle class alone, but to the generality of the middle classes of Europe—it is a question of caste with us all to reach a radical and immediate solution of the problem of servitude, because the middle classes, who to-day make laws and govern, who to-day guide our social structure, alike under traditional monarchies and under parliamentary governments, these middle classes are the descendants of the helots, the pariahs, the slaves and the bondmen; and if we seek the ashes of our fathers, we find them in the tombs, rock-hewn by the toil of the slave; and I said the whole problem and task of modern civilization has been the molding of the ancient bondman into a freeman and independent citizen.” [Applause.]

From the halls of the university he had passed to the halls of Congress, where he had advocated, and would ever advocate, immediate emancipation. None could forget how he had opposed Mr. Moret’s law of 1870, because he deemed it futile, and because it did not grapple with and solve the problem; and none could forget how, on the memorable night when the vote of confidence in the Zorrilla ministry was carried almost by acclamation, he had defended the very measure now under discussion, and how he had declared that this measure was an evident necessity of the situation, and how it was besought and demanded of them by the opinion and the spirit of the age. He had contrasted these solemn pledges with his own conscience; what, then, should be said of him if to-day lie were to deny his record and his convictions, and not support the law now pending. But no; he would advocate the measure with all his powers; he demanded its approval by the chamber; he appealed to the patriotism of the conservatives not to delay the inevitable result of this deliberation, lest they should draw down disaster and calamities on Spain and her Antilles. Democracy, and even the republic, were impossible without a sincere and loyal understanding between the liberal parties of Spain, and this law of immediate emancipation was the ground on which they had met and could meet in common. Had not the republicans coalesced with their opponents of the government, fusing all differences in one common aspiration? They had given the measure their loyal support. He, as one of the leaders of his party, had occupied an exceptional and unusual position toward the radical party during its long-continued crisis, for its whole tenure of power had been nothing save one lingering crisis, even as the present government of the republic is but a crisis. He and his colleagues had opposed the radical ministry in nothing, but had rather sought to strengthen its hands. Though sometimes unable to give it his vote, and even sometimes compelled to vote adversely, he had, nevertheless, maintained silence, save when he could aid the radical government with his voice and vote. Few knew how great a risk he had run in taking this course. He ran a risk from his own side, because he was resolved, at all hazards, to restrain his party from giving battle in the field; and he had run a still greater risk, for what he held and believed to be impossible might have, after all, been proved possible—a great risk, had it turned out that monarchy was, in reality, compatible with liberty and democracy; but he had preferred to run the chance of seeing his life-long convictions overthrown by the peaceful logic of facts rather than behold Spain plunged into the disastrous gulf of revolution. “Gentlemen,” he said, “if I did this, if I dared unpopularity in obedience to my conscience, and if I resolved to oppose no obstacles to the perfect compatibility of liberty with monarchy, I now, from this seat, remind you of my record, and beseech you, in the name of the country, that you in turn will offer no obstacle to the compatibility of authority with a republic.” [Applause.]

Mr. Castelar then entered on the subject-matter of his speech. The most serious arguments, he said, that had been used in reference to this measure of abolition related to the slavery question as viewed from the point of view of its bearings on Spain’s foreign relations. Calumny, both within and without the walls of Congress, had assailed and blackened those who obeyed only the promptings of humanity and patriotism till it had become scarcely possible to pass through the thick cloud of infamous accusations heaped upon these upright men, as though to suffocate them, these slanders that seemed born of the foul air that rose from the festering sores deep in the heart and on the brow of their beloved country—the plague-spots of slavery! [Applause.]

It was his duty to declare that upon the slavery question there had been absolutely no foreign influence brought to bear. He was the better able to say this since, feeling that on him could rest no responsibility, he had studied all the documents in the archives of the ministry of state for many years back, in reference to this matter, in order that he might form his own free and unbiased judgment; and he must declare that the late cabinet had defended, with the utmost dignity, the honor, the autonomy, and the independence of the country. But why should, not the whole truth be steadfastly faced and accepted in such a matter? Was the question of slavery, perchance, a purely national question, wherein the nation was absolute master of its sovereignty and its destinies? Who thought and held thus was in error. Slavery was an international question, and could not be otherwise. He would not now urge an idea he had frequently sketched, and still maintained, that certain institutions could not exist, and certain popular changes take place, save when they were universal in their action. But even when the telegraph and the railway were unknown, this synchronism of history, so to call it, still existed, and all the great movements and transformations of society took place in unison. Nay, more: a learned writer contended that the movements of Europe and of Asia coincided; and these again with those of America, even before America was known, and proved it by the historical monuments of all ages, as if one human spirit pervaded the whole planet. Had not all feudal Europe been stirred at once; and had not the tenth century witnessed the universal rise of guilds and communities? Had not feudalism fallen at one and the same instant throughout all Europe? Were not Louis XI, Ferdinand V, and Maximilian of Austria in truth one spirit, diversely personified? Who had at the same time discovered the mariner’s compass, the printing press, and the telescope through which to dominate the earth? And when the discovery of America came to complete this epic of achievement, did not the Reformers, too, arise? Were not Henry VIII, Philip I, Charles V, and Philip II the same personifications of absolutism? Had not the liberal movements of Europe, the rising of the middle classes, the fall of kings, and the suppression of the Jesuits been simultaneous? What did all this tend, to show? That great issues are not altogether national, and that all the grand problems of humanity have an international relation. “I remember,” he said, “when I spoke in this very chamber of the influence our revolution of September would exert in all the problems of Europe, and how it was said, ‘this Castelar is a poet, and dwells ever in the realms of the ideal. What! does he not tell us that our modest bridge of Alcolea, that our little revolution, which, like all our revolutions, is merely a change of the men in power; that even this is to influence all Europe and transform the whole world?’ And, nevertheless, gentlemen, glance at what has happened since. The temporal power of the Popes has fallen; the Empire of France and its Emperor have fallen; the republic exists already in France and in Spain; Germany has attained unity, and all Europe has been transformed since our cannon thundered at Alcolea!” [Applause.]

Why was this, he asked? This synchronism of history would almost seem to prove the defeat of the materialists and the triumph of the idealists, like himself, for it showed the unity, the identity, and almost the divinity of the human mind. The slavery issue is one of these questions, and can be no less than international, because the true evangelical spirit that separates the eighteenth century from the nineteenth is the spirit of liberty and equal rights. And so it came to pass, one day, that the French convention proclaimed this great principle of equal rights, and a poor negro, who had risen from the abyss of bondage and degradation to the sublime height of the convention, arose and said, “You have declared the unity and equality of human rights, and the liberty of the human mind. I have a mind, thoughts, and speech like yourselves. I feel a soul within me, I have a conscience and reason, and yet I am not free; your boasted principles are but a lie.” And there in that session, that great convention, which, though sometimes steeped in crime, had more than once risen to the heights of ideal right, that great convention arose and said, “We will not dishonor ourselves by debating this;” and they abolished slavery. “I have often described and pictured the scene that then took place; the doors were flung open as if by unseen hands, the negroes entered and embraced the men of the convention, and falling at their feet they wept, and to me it seemed that those sacred tears blotted out forever the blood stains from the hands of the French convention.” [Applause.] And from that day nothing could stay the tide of emancipation from sweeping like a powder train along the earth. Yet a man, whose genius was styled supernatural by his servile flatterers, and who at last came to he regarded as the colossal arbitrator of fortune and of war, sought to destroy the work of the convention, and restored slavery in San Domingo. And then, as the result of that great apostacy of the apostate Julian of the French revolution, there came that torrent of tumults and horrors and crimes which, though crimes, were no other than the deeds done by all nations, from Spain to Russia, in defense of liberty and independence. [Applause.] And then was seen a strange thing. The nation that most opposed the French revolution was England, the least democratic, but the most liberal of the powers of Europe, for democracy and liberty are not always synonymous. England! Yes; England, whose dread is that the lower classes should come to govern her, and who therefore seeks to repress them. England does not blindly oppose reform. When an idea possesses life, when it springs from the ballot-box and from the people, when it reaches the heights of a parliament, when it combines all the elements that the principle of emancipation now combines among us, England does not oppose it; and this should be a lesson to the conservatives not to hinder the revolution from budding and bearing good fruit on the old Latin stock. For revolutions are avoided when governments lead reforms and welcome reforms, and when they soften them and put them into practice; but when reforms are blindly resisted, when self-evident principles are denied, until their realization in a single day is demanded from the crests of barricades or the seats of a convention, none can foretell the end of the convulsions thus born, anarchy or dictatorship following, which will at last destroy the Latin races if they be not brought to realize their own interests, and led to strive to harmonize order with liberty and government with democracy. [Applause.] So England therefore abolished her slavery, under conditions, it may be, but still she did abolish it, and thereupon the movement spread to those European nations in whose colonies slavery existed, and, whether by freeing slave children thereafter born, or by immediate emancipation, the extinction of slavery became general in almost all European possessions. And afterward another strange thing was seen. Was a revolutionary nation the next to abolish its slavery? Was it one of those nations that ever bears aloft the smouldering brand of revolution? Was it France, or Spain, or Italy, or even Germany? No! It was Russia. In Russia there arose a combined movement of literature and philosophy which all the power of her autocrats could not restrain. The Czar Nicholas himself rewarded the author of the romance called “Dead Souls,” (Les Ames Mortes,) with a book whose leaves were bank-notes, without, perchance, being aware that by that act he rewarded the revelation of the condition of the serfs. And, as often happens, for there is power in ideas, this thought descended and spread from the summits of a sovereign mind over all the steppes and vast domains of Russia, and begot a soul in the bosom of the serf. Thus did the book bring about this change. As from the lofty peaks of the Alps, desert and frozen, whose thin air can scarce be breathed, flow downward into the deep valleys those rivers bearing the names of the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Danube, filling the plains with life and wealth, and by the fruitfulness they give to labor and tillage, fulfilling throughout the land the work of the Creator. [Prolonged applause.] Even so literature and philosophy do their work. An obscure thinker, in the solitude of his closet, moves revolutionary torrents that agitate all minds and at last the Russian Empire cried, “Serfdom is no longer possible. Our soldiers have been conquered because they were not the soldiers of a free people; they have been conquered because they are mere machines—because they are serfs.” And in the face of a resistance greater than all the privileged classes of Spain can oppose to us here, and wielding the scepter of despotism, the Czar Alexander abolished serfdom in Russia. Nay more, not only abolished serfdom, but gave the serfs the germs of independence. And from thence the question passed to the United States; and the United States sacrificed themselves and their treasure, sacrificed a million of their sons and their boundless prosperity to redeem their millions of slaves; they, who had not even ranked the blacks as men, and who felt all the aristocratic disdain of the Saxon towards his inferiors; they who saw in the negro race a peril to the sublime work of Washington.

Was it possible, after these grand achievements, Spaniards could maintain slavery? Could Spaniards deny that slavery was an international question? Had not Ferdinand VII, in their name, covenanted with England to abolish the slave trade and permitted their ships to be searched, and tribunals, foreign in part, to be established on Spanish soil to that end? And now the champions of traditional conservatism and monarchy were amazed at the moral influence exerted by a free people, when on their own shoulders they bore the brand set there by England! [Applause.] There had not been a single house of commons or of lords that had not raised protests against the action of Spain or of her captains-general in executing the slave-trade treaty nor had there been a single Spanish government that had not been compelled to give England the explanations or tender her the apologies she so imperiously demanded as a right.

Well, then, representatives, has the United States Government done thus? Ah, gentlemen, permit me to protest here and now against the unseemly language—zealous and patriotic, without doubt, but still unseemly—that has been uttered in this place concerning the representative of the United States, and concerning his nation and its President. Let me protest in the name of this democratic nation, of this republican nation, which can do no less than cherish deep reverence and admiration for the glorious people that in its lifetime of less than a century has solved the problem toward which we have so long been tending, the problem of making democracy the twin-sister of liberty and building up authority and government under the republic. [Good! good!]

When, moreover, it is remembered that in the midst of the general want of confidence shown by Europe in our democracy and toward our republic, the United States hastened to recognize us, and by the act of giving us their moral and material guarantee to proclaim us to the world unhesitatingly as a people worthy of self-government, should we not owe a double debt of gratitude to that great nation that forms so high and favorable a judgment of us? And when, besides this, the President of the United States, in an address which is his own personal work, a speech for which he alone is responsible, and in preparing which he does not even have to consult his cabinet advisers, because it is his second inaugural address—this illustrious man, who, on the field of battle, has renewed in our day the triumphs of Alexander, says, “I seek neither war nor military predominance nor conquest; I simply desire liberty and democracy. I would wish to see all the nations in possession of one common right.” And the man who speaks thus should he not be hailed with joy by a republican chamber and recognized as the colossal figure in history, closing the era of conquest and inaugurating that of liberty and right?

Apart from this, the associations of Cubans formed in the United States are such as cannot be prevented under their laws. Even as we are not permitted by our laws to interfere in any way with a public association organized to effect a change in the form of any foreign government, for if we did we would infringe our constitution. What! do the members of this assembly hold that under our constitution we can prevent the formation of any public association in Spain hostile to a foreign government so long as it does not pass the limits of moral propagandism? We could not do so; the most that we could constitutionally do would be to prevent all forcible and aggressive acts, such as expeditions and shipments of arms. Very well; this is what the United States have done, to the utmost of their power, under all their administrations. This, gentlemen, is evident. It is a question of domestic policy. In the time of a celebrated minister, who sought to win the presidency by advocating the annexation of Cuba and Porto Rico to the Southern States, and thereby add two more slave States, then it was easy to understand why the Southern States in particular would endeavor to aid filibustering expeditions, as they in fact did; and the only time the integrity of our national domain and of the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico was menaced, was in the times of slave-holding rule, for the slave-holders, were vitally interested in throwing two new slave States into the balance of the American Union.

But now, what interest have they in possessing Cuba and Porto Rico? None, absolutely none! Such an act would introduce an unstable element into the confederation; it would introduce a race that does not harmonize with the Anglo-Saxon race, which has always been at war with races not of its own blood: and, perhaps, it would compromise the greatness, the prosperity, and the peace of the people who have reared that marvelous Republic. And this the United States perfectly understand. But, gentlemen, their frontier, bordering close upon our frontier, and an insurrection being flagrant in Cuba, they have done, as England has done, and addressed us, not menaces— for they well know the dignity of the Spanish nation—not notes that could in any manner exert any influence upon our domestic affairs. No, gentlemen, they have addressed us friendly and courteous advice, such as all governments may tender to one another in the grand parliament of civilized nations. [Mr. Suarez Inclan. How about the note of October 29th?]

“I shall speak of that note. In the first place that note, although it foreshadowed a change of attitude, was not a note addressed to the minister of state here in Spain, but was a note to the United States representative in Madrid, and in that note the latter was not instructed to read it to, and leave a copy with, the Spanish minister of state.” [A Representative. How about publishing it?] “Publishing it may have been a violation of confidence, or a simple oversight. Why, only recently I myself came near being the victim of an oversight of this kind, and was obliged to use the utmost activity to prevent the publication of a note which, nevertheless, came very near being published. [Rumors interrupting the speaker.]

The President requested the members not to interrupt the orator, but to await their turn to say what they had to say.

Mr. Castelar. “Although the publication of that note may have been in accordance with the diplomatic usage of the United States, the minister of state was not officially made cognizant of it; it was neither read to him nor left with him; it had no influence on his decisions, which were prompted only by his own conscience. Let us not reach such a depth of humiliation as to seek to degrade the nation in order to put a party to shame. The minister of state of the late King was a minister of Spain. His eloquence, his renown, his glory, belong to us all; his honor is our honor, his good name is our good name, and his patriotism being known, we should recognize and confess that he would have done all that mortal could do to protect the dignity of Spain, which none will suffer to be trodden under foot, so long as a patriot breathes on our soil. No! the Zorrilla ministry had no knowledge of that note; it was never informed of it; it was ignorant of its existence at the time when it had already resolved upon the abolition of slavery.

“The radical party is under pledges respecting the Cuba and Porto Rico question, you say. Are not we also? And I, who have not yet had a conversation upon American policy with the worthy representative of the United States, who has often called to see me—although the pressure of circumstances has prevented me from conferring with him—I, gentlemen, have to declare to you that I am an advocate of the immediate abolition of slavery in Porto Rico; I am an advocate of abolition in Cuba, with a due regard to all interests; I am an advocate of colonial reforms, and of extending every possible liberty to Cuba and Porto Rico; but if any one were to recall these convictions to me, and seek to bind me by them, I would answer, these pledges are with my conscience and my country, and a foreign nation has no concern therewith. And the worthy minister of the United States, who knows us and respects us will never seek to the Spanish nation, and the Spanish republic.

“The radical ministry, gentlemen, when it came into power, found itself pledged before the nation to reform the government of the Antilles, and to endeavor by all possible means to abolish slavery. But, gentlemen, when the ministers of the conservative party were in office, and when friendly counsels were vouchsafed to them in a certain sense by the United States representative in Madrid, did it perchance happen that they did not offer him certain indirect guarantees by way of satisfaction; that they did not assure him that certain reforms would be inaugurated at a certain time? And, nevertheless, no one has thought, neither do I think, that, because some nations interest themselves in the fortunes of other nations, or that, because some domestic questions may be related to other foreign questions, those ministers have compromised the dignity and honor of the nation. The slavery question is, in reality, an international question, as I have said before. What would the government say, if a foreign cabinet should say to it how are you going to settle the question of the traditional tribunals (foros) of Galicia? What are you going to do about the rabassa morta of Catalonia? But no foreign ministry would say this, because these are questions solely and absolutely for ourselves to decide; but in the slavery question, the spirit of the human race, the advance of ideas, the pledges of the Spanish nation, and even her treaties, all lend to the slavery question an international character.

“And thus it is, gentlemen, that in relation to this question, frankness, which in such matters is the best policy, leads me to say that all, absolutely all the cabinets of Spain have been approached by England. There has not been a single session of the English Parliament that has not found fault with our administration in Cuba, nor a single English minister who has not preferred some claim against us.

“But notwithstanding that it is an international question, at the time it was brought up by the Zorrilla cabinet it was not, and had not been the ground of any foreign representations whatever. No one had requested the ministry to present this measure, no one had demanded it. The question came before the council of ministers, and some very patriotic and very liberal ministers differed from the rest of the government. This led to a crisis, and as soon as the government was recognized, it at once, of its own free and spontaneous act, brought the bill for the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico before the chambers.

“Ah, gentlemen, I will say no more upon this point, for I deem it a dishonor and an insult to a nation to believe that any of its sons could be controlled by a foreign impulse. I have only to say that, if in the brief time I have filled the ministry of state or may continue to fill it—and the same declaration has been made by all the ministers of Spain—any nation, howsoever powerful it might be, in circumstances as difficult and grave as these, when we so much need the friendliness of all the powers, if any nation whatever dare to offer me the slightest insult, I, as a true and honorable representative of my people, would prefer the utter destruction of my country rather than the loss of an atom of her honor. [Applause.] And other governments have said and would do exactly the same.”

The radical party was bound by public and solemn pledges of honor and conscience. The record of the republican party made its pledges even more sacred. The emancipation scheme was presented and had practically been approved, almost unanimously, on the night of December 21st. From the commencement of the debate the main conservative argument was the haste and imprudence of bringing forward immediate abolition. But the conservatives themselves had rendered any gradual measure impossible. When they were in full power, obeyed by all, undisturbed by any changes in the form of government from a democracy to a monarchy and from a monarchy to a republic, then was the time to bring themselves up to the advanced ideas of the age, to study the difficulties of the problem; and when the representatives from the Antilles had come here to hear their views, and to frame a measure of emancipation which, even though gradual, say in ten years, would have settled the problem by this time, they had instead offered blind resistance. They forgot that these problems are beyond man’s control, and their inaction, which would have left the negro to drag his fetters for years and years to come, now made immediate abolition inevitable.

“Ah! gentlemen,” he said, “do not fall to-day into the same error. If I had a right to supplicate aught of you, I would beseech you, almost upon my knees, not to interpose obstacles to the passage of this law. For, know you not the perils and difficulties that surround ns? Can none of you foresee? Can none of you forecast the spirit, born of the absolute freedom this government, if it be still in office, will give to the coming elections, which will be reflected in the future constitutional convention? And if from this soil so deeply sown with revolutionary ideas, from this sleeping volcano, from this land teeming with a widespread agitation of conscience and of thought, where it almost seems as if all the elements and all the ideas emanating from the human mind were gathered together, as by the unseen winds, here on the confines of Western Europe, if from this field so rank in all these ideas should arise an unreasoning, enthusiastic, and spontaneous movement in the future convention, how great would be your responsibility! Ah, what a commanding argument could we then use, we who represent moderation and prudence, if we could say to them, pause and consider; look at things practically; was it not also said that slavery would not be abolished in Porto Rico, and behold it is abolished; do not therefore imperil by your acts the lovely island of Cuba. We could say this with authority if you give us your vote and your assent now. But if emancipation in Porto Rico be not now decreed, I fear that the future representatives of the people will not pause for any human consideration. I fear lest they shall say in their generous impatience, ‘All reforms delayed are lost!’ I fear lest by a spontaneous outburst of feeling they will do without forebodings what it is in your power to avoid now by moderation and prudence in passing this law.

“The government of the republic need make no protestations concerning the integrity of our domain. It solemnly engages to redouble its efforts and its sacrifices to maintain it at all costs, as a sacred legacy of past generations, which it must preserve intact for the generation of to-day and transmit to those to come; but do not hinder, gentlemen, the fulfillment of this inevitable duty. What, gentlemen, you believe that a reform like this may be thus brought into notice, that the hopes of the slaves may be thus raised, that the question of this reform may be thus agitated before all the world, and then when freedom is seen and almost grasped by them you can forthwith snatch it away from thirty thousand slaves!

“I have not initiated this reform. I have not brought it before you. I have maintained a patriotic silence. I have stimulated no cabinet to action. I would not have it said of us that we imperiled the integrity of our domain; but I must now say one thing, and that is, that if this law for the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico be not passed, I renounce, before you all, my responsibility for whatever may happen. [Applause.] I wash my hands of it all; but if the law be passed, then you may throw all the responsibility upon us. [Applause.] We promise you to die a thousand deaths rather than consent that an atom shall be taken away from the integrity of our country. [Stormy applause.] If the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico bring dangers upon Spain, I swear it, that we, the republicans of Spain, will deem it an honor to die in the tropics for the salvation, for the liberty, for the independence, and for the integrity of Spanish soil. [Prolonged applause.] But, gentlemen, if it be not voted, I am ready to proclaim before Europe, before America, and before the whole world, that it has been defeated because this assembly, born under a monarchy, and which, under a monarchy, proposed the abolition of slavery, has prolonged slavery in order to compromise and even dishonor the republic. [Sensation. Loud murmurs interrupt the orator.]

“Gentlemen, this is not a party question. It cannot be made a party question; if is an eminently national question. No, do not, I beseech you, make it a question of conservatives and radicals and republicans. I cannot give it such a name, for it can in nowise assume such a character. But yesterday, but a day or two ago, Mr. Padial on one hand, and General Sanz on the other, in this chamber, inspired by motives which they doubtless thought were noble, hurled harsh words and anathemas at each other; and I for my part exclaimed, ‘Good God, are we to have also, in the midst of the Spanish congress, this rivalry between Creoles and peninsulars—[loud rumors]—this rivalry accursed of God, accursed of nature, and accursed of history!’ [Vociferous applause.] And you, it is for you to give a proof of unity, of greatness, in casting these quarrels aside, and being reconciled, and saying that which ever should be said: Neither here nor there are Creoles nor peninsulars; here and there alike, we are all Spaniards, children of one mother, of the same spirit, and the same race; for all bear the blood of the Cid and the blood of Pelayo in their noble veins, and the spirit of Spain in their generous souls.

“And so I beseech and implore you, conservatives, this is a national question, a question of humanity. Vote the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico, and I in turn pledge you that all interests shall be heard and borne in mind, and carefully considered when emancipation in Cuba comes before the constitutional convention. For, gentlemen, although I have little, although I have nothing, I have still my humble, honest word, and a heart full of patriotism, ever devoted to my country’s service. I admonish you, conservatives, that you must have a spark of patriotism and of foresight. If you possess these, then this very afternoon we shall make the effort to pass this law, and see whether it be possible to abolish slavery. [Cries of Vote, vote.] And if we fail, then on your heads, and not on ours, be the responsibility. And if we succeed, I say to you, gentlemen, that we shall indeed have written a glorious page in our history.

“Under all aspects, these are solemn and difficult moments. The safety of the country—and why deny it?—is endangered on every side. We need all the sons of Spain, we need to forget all our dissensions, in order to save order, to save the principles of authority, to save the integrity of our territory, to save the republic, which is our country itself. Be moved by an impulse of patriotism, and you will be assured of the gratitude of all the generations to come, the benediction of history, and, dearer than all these, the benediction of our conscience, like the peace of God, will rest upon our souls.” [Tumultuous applause. Many representatives crowd around the orator and congratulate him with enthusiasm.]