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 THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF CONGRESS TO 
 RECOGNIZE WAR IN CUBA. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. JOHN W. DANIEL, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 Monday, May 17, 1897. 
 
 "W A SHINGTON. 
 1897. 
 
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 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. JOHN W. DANIEL 
 
 The Senate having under consideration the joint resolution (S. R. 26) declar- 
 ing that a condition of public war exists in Cuba and that strict neutrality 
 shall be maintained — 
 
 Mr. DANIEL said: 
 
 Mr. President: The distinguished Senator from Maryland 
 [Mr. Wellington] seems to have taken a shot at creation on 
 the motion to refer the pending resolution. This joint resolu- 
 tion introduced by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan] 
 recognizes a state of public war in Cuba, and upon that resolution 
 he has discussed tariff, currency, and the late and the prospective 
 Administrations of our Government in various ramifications ; but 
 in so far as he has spoken to the matter in hand, the points which 
 he makes seem to be in but a small compass. 
 
 It seems to me, Mr. President, that the remarks of the Senator 
 are based upon an entire misapprehension of the character of the 
 joint resolution, and upon an entire misconception of the feeling 
 which actuates Senators who will give their support to it. In the 
 first place, the joint resolution does not in the least involve an 
 act of hostility to Spain. There is no writer upon international 
 law with whom I have any familiarity, and there is no publicist 
 of accepted reputation as an authority upon such subjects, who 
 contends that it is not within the competence of any nation to 
 recognize a state of public war in another without giving any 
 ground of offense to the nation against which that public war 
 exists on the part of a revolutionary body. 
 
 It is a curious incident of the civil war in this country which 
 took place some thirty years ago that the President of the United 
 States, Abraham Lincoln, was the first to recognize a state of pub- 
 lic war, and it was held by the Supreme Court of the United Spates 
 in the Prize Cases, reported in 2 Black, that the recognition made 
 by him by a proclamation of blockade was in the line of humanity. 
 
 The next point which the Senator makes is an appeal to our 
 sympathy with Spain, and he says we should not recognize a state 
 of public war against Spain, whatever may be the fact as to its 
 existence, because Columbus discovered America. [Laughter.] 
 It is a great pity that Columbus ever did discover America if the 
 inhabitants of the new continent are to bring to America the 
 savagery that prevailed here before they came. If we can not 
 have Christian civilization in America, and if we are bound to 
 look with cold indifference upon acts which would shock even a 
 savage breast, some might consider it a pity that the ships which 
 brought the newcomers to our shores were not lost upon the 
 ocean and had ever populated the new-found clime. 
 
 2783 3 
 
HUMANITY A RECOGNIZED GROUND FOR INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION. 
 
 For my part, Mr. President, I shall address myself to-day for 
 the most part to a very narrow feature of the debate. There are 
 a number of Senators in this Chamber who sympathize with the 
 joint resolution and who believe there is a state of public war in 
 Cuba, and indeed the late President of the United States, whose 
 policy in this regard is so much admired by the Senator from 
 Maryland, in his message to the Congress of the United States, 
 seemed to evince consciousness of a state of public war in Cuba, 
 though he did not make any formal recognition thereof. 
 
 However, he did hold out to Congress, in his message, a picture 
 of the condition of affairs in Cuba, and did use language which it 
 seems to me is eminently appropriate and applicable to the case, 
 whatever may be the time which the Congress of the United States 
 may select to apply the doctrines and principles which he asserts. 
 I have deemed it not amiss- 
 He says in his message of last December — 
 
 to remind the Congress that a time may arrive when a correct policy and 
 care for our interests, as well as a regard for the interests of other nations 
 and their citizens, joined by considerations of humanity and a desire to see 
 a rich and fertile country, intimately related to us, saved from complete 
 devastation, will constrain our Government to such action as will subserve 
 the interests thus involved and at the same time promise to Cuba and its in- 
 habitants an opportunity to enjoy the blessings of peace. 
 
 And the injunctions of neutrality that emanated from the Ad- 
 ministration carried equally strong suggestions of existent pub- 
 lic war in Cuba. 
 
 So, Mr. President, while the late Administration by no means 
 distinguished itself in the exhibition of any peculiar sympathy 
 with the people of the neighboring Island of Cuba, who are only 
 struggling to be free, it did recognize the fact that, according to 
 principles of international law and under the duty which we owe 
 to a neighboring country with which we are intimately related, a 
 continuance of the condition of affairs which has harrowed the very 
 soul of this nation might bring a time to pass when we should do 
 something. 
 
 The Administration did not undertake to say what that thing 
 was; it only spoke of it in general terms; but it indicated the prin- 
 ciple that humanity to a neighboring country with which we are 
 intimately associated was a good ground for such action as the 
 United States Government might see fit in its pleasure to take to 
 intervene in the affairs of Spain and the insurgent Cubans. 
 
 THE PENDING RESOLUTION DOES NOT INVOLVE INTERVENTION. 
 
 Mr. President, the pending resolution, however, is not a proposi- 
 tion of intervention. No international-law writer and no publicist 
 of repute is of opinion that the mere recognition of a state of war 
 in a neighboring nation or in any nation is an intervention in favor 
 of one side or the other; and, where the recognition of belligerency 
 is made, it is generally based upon the doctrine that it is a humane 
 observance by the nation which makes the recognition, and that 
 all of its influence is toward philanthropy and the cultivation of 
 civilized usages in the conduct of war. 
 
 THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ACT BY ORDER OF JOINT RESOLUTION. 
 
 Mr. President, there is no doubt in my mind that Congress has 
 the power, by joint resolution or by any act passed in pursuance 
 of any of its legitimate powers, to recognize eitlier the belligerency 
 
 2783 
 
or the independence of a new state. For instance: To Congress 
 is confided by the Constitution the sole power to regulate com- 
 merce among the States and with foreign nations. If Congress 
 to-morrow were to pass an act for the regulation of commerce, 
 and were in that act so to regulate commerce as to recognize in 
 the bod} 7 of the act either the belligerency or the independence of 
 the new Cuban state, there is no one, as I conceive, who could 
 deny the legitimacy of its action. 
 
 So it seems to me that Congress may, by order or joint resolu- 
 tion, subject to the approval of the President and subject also to 
 its passage by Congress without the approval of the President, 
 accomplish any purpose which it might accomplish by a direct act 
 dealing with any portion of the subject-matter. 
 
 I will read the provision of the Constitution, which is to be 
 found in Article I, section 7: 
 
 Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate 
 and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of 
 adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and 
 before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disap- 
 proved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of 
 Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case 
 of a bill. 
 
 Any subject-matter which is the proper subject-matter of an 
 act of Congress may be also a proper subject-matter of an order, 
 resolution, or vote, and we may very often accomplish in a short- 
 hand way, by a resolution, order, or vote, that which if put in 
 the form of a bill would require prolix details to effect. 
 
 The recognition either of the belligerency or the independence 
 of a new state is in effect a regulation of commerce, for there goes, 
 as a necessary corollary to the proposition that a certain state is in 
 a condition of belligerency or in the consummation of independ- 
 ence, those rules of international law which apply to a state in 
 that status; and the very declaration of belligerency or independ- 
 ence on the part of the Congress of the United States, with the 
 approval of the President, or if passed over his veto by the neces- 
 sary vote, wo aid be an immediate regulation in certain respects 
 of commercial relations with the countries affected by it. 
 
 VARIOUS CONTENTIONS AS TO EXECUTIVE AND CONGRESSIONAL POWERS. 
 
 But, Mr. President, I wish now to examine the views which 
 have been presented by certain Senators as to the exclusive pre- 
 rogative of the Executive in this regard. It is contended by some 
 that the President of the United States has the power to recognize 
 the belligerency or the independence of a foreign nation. Second, 
 that the power is exclusive, plenary, and determinative. Third, 
 that his power can not be overruled by a treaty between the United 
 States and any foreign nation, or by any act of Congress, or by 
 any order, resolution, or vote of Congress, even though such act, 
 order, resolution, or vote be passed over the President's veto by a 
 two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress. 
 
 THE CORRECT VIEW. 
 
 It is contended upon the other hand that, while the President 
 has power to recognize the belligerency or independence of a for- 
 eign nation whenever he must deal, as the Executive, with the fact 
 that it exists in a state of belligerency or independence, this power 
 is not exclusive, plenary, and determinative, so that Congress may 
 not deal with the same matter of fact in the form of a law. 
 
 2783 
 
6 
 
 It is contended also that the power of the Executive is subordi- 
 nate to the treaty-making power of the United States, located by 
 the Constitution in the President and the Senate, which may also 
 deal with the fact as it exists. It is contended, too, that the Ex- 
 ecutive power is subordinate also to the legislative power of the 
 United States, located by the Constitution exclusively in the Con- 
 gress and exercisable as prescribed therein with or without the 
 approval of the President. 
 
 And. finally, that recognition may be made by Congress, by order, 
 resolution, or vote, as well as by the passage of a bill. To put the 
 matter in other words, it is contended, and I contend: First, that 
 the President may recognize the independence or belligerency of 
 a foreign nation, and his right to do so when it arises is an Execu- 
 tive right which is exclusive to him in the sense that he alone may 
 exercise Executive functions; second, that the treaty-making 
 power may make the like recognition, in which case that power 
 is exclusively in the President and the Senate: and third, that the 
 lawmaking power may also make such recognition, either indi- 
 rectly by the exercise of some implied power arising out of its stated 
 powers, or directly, since by acting directly it only accomplishes 
 in a shorthand method of legislation that which it has the legiti- 
 mate power to accomplish by a measure in detail. But when Con- 
 gress acts, its action is, of course, subject to the Executive veto 
 and subject also to that veto being overridden by itself. 
 
 WHAT BELLIGERENCY MEANS. 
 
 Let us now first define the terms we have to deal with. Bellig- 
 erency is a word of Latin origin. It comes frombellum, war, and 
 gerere, to carry on. A belligerent is a person carrying on war. 
 Belligerency is the state or the condition of a person carrying on 
 war. Nations do not deal with persons in other nations who are 
 carrying on or participating in mere riots, fights, mobs, which are 
 private wars. They do to a degree deal with all persons who are 
 carrying on public war, and in an international sense belligerency 
 is the state of those persons who are carrying on public war. 
 
 War is that state in which a nation prosecutes its right by force. 
 So says the Supreme Court of the United States in the Prize 
 Cases in 2 Black, 666, and that case is fruitful in apt expressions 
 which define and describe belligerent conditions and rights. 
 
 Judge Grier, in that case, says: "The parties belligerent in a 
 public war are independent nations," but he immediately quali- 
 fies this expression by observing, ' ' but it is not necessary to con- 
 stitute war that both parties should be acknowledged as independ- 
 ent nations or sovereign states. A war may exist where one of 
 the belligerents claims sovereign rights against the other." 
 
 It is undoubtedly appropriate for Congress, in taking notice of 
 the condition of affairs in Cuba, to move with caution and with 
 due respect to every condition and suggestion; and to recognize 
 a state of war existing in a foreign community without recogni- 
 tion of the independence of the party, people, community, or dis- 
 trict which is conducting that war against an older state is the 
 most moderate and fitting form of action, until at least the insur- 
 gents have shown themselves competent to maintain independ- 
 ence. 
 
 BELLIGERENCY AND INDEPENDENCE ARE MATTERS OF FACT. 
 
 The independence or the dependence of a nation is simply a mat- 
 ter of fact. The belligerency or peaceful condition of a nation is 
 also a matter of fact. Anyone may in a mental sense recognize 
 
 2783 
 
any fact. This, indeed, can not be prevented. Anyone may, so 
 far as his personal conduct is concerned, govern himself accord- 
 ing to the fact, unless prohibited by some paramount law which 
 controls his conduct. If the fact of which he takes mere mental 
 cognizance becomes in itself a paramount force, overriding the 
 sanctions of law, the individual has the right to recognize that 
 paramount force and govern himself accordingly, no matter what 
 may be the interdict of municipal law. 
 
 Out of this principle arises all the learning about governments 
 de facto; that is, governments which exist as facts and which may 
 be recognized by those whom they control, or whom they deal with, 
 as facts, whatever they may be in legal abstract contemplation. 
 A government de facto is the government of paramount force. 
 This is the language of Judge Clifford in Ford vs. Surget, 97 
 United States Reports, 617. 
 
 WHAT RECOGNITION MEANS. 
 
 Recognition is the mere act of recognizing. It is a mental act 
 primarily, a perception of the mind. It is consciousness that a 
 given object is identical with an object previously cognized or 
 known or previously existent as an ideal of the mind. Knowing 
 what a state of war is, the mind cognizes this abstract condition, 
 and to recognize a particular state of war means to identify actual 
 conditions as constituting what in the abstract is a state of war. 
 
 From this original meaning the term has passed into a secondary 
 meaning: that is, to signify a formal avowal or acknowledgment 
 of the object or condition which is cognized. In an international 
 or political sense the word " recognition " is used to express forma 
 acknowledgment of one government by another as an independent 
 sovereignty or as a belligerent nation. The opposite of the word 
 "recognize," as we are told by the lexicographers, is to "disown," 
 or some kindred word, as the opposite of " acknowledgment" is 
 to deny or to conceal. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 It is important when there is a change in the condition of a 
 nation so fundamental as that of peace to war and important 
 when a new independent nation appears in the family of nations, 
 that the facts be intelligently dealt with as soon as possible. 
 Such facts can not be regarded with indifference by any nation.. 
 Sometimes the one or the other of them creates so great an emer- 
 gency that it must be dealt with instantly, and in most cases- 
 commerce and the vast ramifications of business dependent upon 
 it are so greatly affected that a conjunction arises of the most 
 profound public concern. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF RECOGNITION IS A CONSTITUTIONAL, QUESTION. 
 
 The executive power in a nation, always continuous, always on 
 the alert, and always apprised of current events by its foreign 
 ministers and ambassadors, consuls, agents, and correspondents,, 
 is in the nature of things the most ready and available agent of 
 national action, and in it in Great Britain and other monarchical 
 nations is generally reposed the sole authority to make the appro- 
 priate recognitions. But in the United States, Mr. President, 
 this is a constitutional question, and it is one in which we might 
 be gravely misled if we were to seek its interpretation by refer- 
 ence to the practice of the British Government, from which so 
 many of our legal and constitutional principles are derived. 
 
 2783 
 
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE 
 MONARCH OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 The British executive is a hereditary monarch. The powers of 
 the monarch are neither conferred nor limited by a written con- 
 stitution. They are the growth of the ancient and immemorial 
 customs of the realm, and some of them yet smack of the times 
 when kingship and absolutism were almost synonymous terms, 
 the good old times when "the king could do no wrong." 
 
 The differences between our Executive and the King of Great 
 Britain were well pointed out by Alexander Hamilton in the Fed- 
 eralist, where he observed: 
 
 " Our President is elected for four years," and is to be eligible as often as the 
 people of the United States think him worthy of their confidence. A King of 
 Great Britain " is an hereditary monarch, possessing the crown as a patri- 
 mony descendible to his heirs forever." 
 The President of the United States- 
 He continues — 
 would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, 
 bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and 
 would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary 
 course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and invio- 
 lable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punish- 
 ment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national 
 dissolution. 
 
 In brief, Mr. President, taking the sense of Hamilton's essay, 
 and contemplating the fact as we all know it to exist, the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, instead of being an executive with the 
 possession of prerogatives handed down from generation to gen- 
 eration and consecrated by custom, is himself a mere creature of 
 law and under the law, and has his great office for the most part 
 in simply seeing to it that the laws are faithfully executed. Mr. 
 Hamilton continues: 
 
 The President of the United States is to have power to return a bill which 
 shall have passed the two branches of the legislature for reconsideration, and 
 the bill so returned is not to become a law unless upon that reconsideration 
 it be approved by two-thirds of both Houses. 
 
 The King of Great Britain, on his part, has an absolute negative upon the 
 acts of the two Houses of Parliament. 
 
 So, Mr. President, the President of the United States, being the 
 creature of the Constitution and under the laws made in pursuance 
 thereof, has no such veto power as exists in the monarch of Great 
 Britain, who may destroy and kill a measure, whether it be a bill, 
 a joint resolution, or any other form of parliamentary action, but 
 can only act in an advisory relation to Congress with regard to it, 
 disapproving it by his veto, indeed, but leaving it subject to be 
 passed over his head by the sedate action of that body and by the 
 necessary vote. 
 
 As to the President's part in treaties and the difference between 
 his part in making a treaty and the part played by the English 
 monarch, Mr. Hamilton says: 
 
 The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
 to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur. The 
 King of Great Britain is the sole and absolute representative of the nation in 
 all foreign transactions. He can, of his own accord, make treaties of peace, 
 commerce, alliance, and of every other description. 
 
 BRITISH PRECEDENTS INAPPLICABLE HERE. 
 
 It has seemed to me, Mr. President, that those gentlemen who 
 bave contended that the President alone can exercise the power of 
 recognition when there is a state of war in a foreign nation or 
 
 2783 
 
9 
 
 when a new state has made itself independent have reached their 
 conclusions from, the analogies of the English constitution and 
 not from a sufficient reflection upon our own. The monarch of 
 Great Britain is possessed of prerogatives which our Constitution 
 has not conferred on our Executive. The monarch of Great Britain 
 is the sole treaty-making power of the realm. 
 
 The monarch of Great Britain may destroy a bill utterly and 
 completely by his absolute veto power. The monarch of Great 
 Britain may recognize the independence or belligerency of a for- 
 eign nation by royal prerogative, which has existed for ages; and 
 to attempt so to construe our Constitution, which was made in 
 order to differentiate our President from the English executive, 
 and to pattern on the model of British precedents, is to commit, 
 as I conceive, a gross and fundamental error. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Will I interrupt the Senator if I ask him a 
 question? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Not at all. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. It is the constitutional power of the President 
 to accept and receive ambassadors, and does not that power give 
 him a constitutional right to recognize belligerency or to recog- 
 nize a de facto government by implication? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I will speak to that point presently, for I intend 
 to advert to it fully; and I will then give my learned friend from 
 Louisiana the views of Madison and Hamilton upon that subject, 
 which have much greater weight than any which I could myself 
 suggest. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS. 
 
 In the light of these introductory views, Mr. President, we look 
 to the Constitution of the United States to see in whom is lodged 
 the authority to recognize the independence or belligerency of a 
 foreign nation. We find the powers of government therein clearly 
 delineated as follows: 
 
 Article I, section 1, puts the legislative power of this Govern- 
 ment foremost, and evidently discloses the fact that it is in the 
 legislative branch of this Government that the great mass of 
 powers is confided. It says: 
 
 All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the 
 United States, which shal] consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. 
 
 Article II says: 
 
 The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of 
 America. 
 
 Article III says: 
 
 The judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such infe- 
 rior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. 
 
 EXCLUSIVE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT. 
 
 Without going through a prolix recitation of the detailed pro- 
 visions of the Constitution, I turn to see what are the exclusive 
 powers of the President according to its letter and spirit. 
 
 Undoubtedly the article declaring that executive power shall be 
 vested in the President of the United States is an investiture of the 
 President with sole executive functions. He has also power tinder 
 that instrument to be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
 of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when 
 called into actual service of the United States, to require the 
 opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the Executive 
 Departments, to grant reprieves and pardons, to nominate ambas- 
 sadors, other public ministers, and consuls, judges of the Supreme 
 2783 
 
10 
 
 Court, etc., to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess 
 of the Senate by granting commissions, to give to Congress infor- 
 mation of the state of the nation, on extraordinary occasions to 
 convene both Houses, in case of disagreement of the two Houses 
 with respect to the time of adjournment he may adjourn them 
 to such time as he shall think proper, to receive ambassadors and 
 other public ministers, to take care that the laws be faithfully 
 executed, and to commission all the officers of the United States. 
 
 These are certainly the principal executive powers conferred 
 upon the President of the United States, and we must look to them 
 to see whether they confer upon him any power to recognize the 
 belligerency or independence of a foreign nation. 
 
 Looking over the Constitution, we ask ourselves the question, In 
 which clause is the President, or the President and the Senate, or 
 the Congress, given the power to recognize such belligerency or 
 independence, and is such power exclusive in the department to 
 which it is given in the sense that no other department can exer- 
 cise it? 
 
 THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF IS UNDER THE REGULATIONS OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Are we to say that the President has power to recognize bellig- 
 erency or independence because he is exclusively vested with the 
 power as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy? I do not 
 think that such a power can be deduced from that office, certainly 
 not in any sense which would deprive Congress of the power to 
 limit the exercise of that office. The military function in the 
 Constitution is added to the President's civil function to enable 
 him to move and order troops, but the war-declaring function is 
 solely in Congress. 
 
 And, furthermore, the Congress has power expressly " to make 
 rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval 
 forces," and the President, in being made a part of them as their 
 chief, conies immediately himself under " the rules and regula- 
 tions " made by law for their government. Instead of the Presi- 
 dent being " sacred and inviolable " and surrounded by " that 
 divinity which doth hedge about a king," he is made by the Con- 
 stitution subject to the military rules and regulations which 
 Congress itself may establish. 
 
 If he should invoke his military character to recognize a foreign 
 nation as belligerent or independent (and it ma} T become neces- 
 sary for him in certain exigencies to invoke that character and to 
 exercise it), we must remember that he invokes also the superior 
 power of Congress, under whose rules and regulations he may be 
 controlled in the exercise of that power. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton says on this subject, in the Federalist: 
 
 The President is to be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
 United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same 
 with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to him. 
 It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction 
 of the military and naval forces as first general and admiral of the confed- 
 eracy, while that of the British King extends to the declaring of war and to 
 the raising and regulating.of fleets and armies, all of which, by the Constitu- 
 tion under consideration, would appertain to the Legislature. 
 
 There have been cases in which the President of the United 
 States has had attributed to him certain powers to act with re- 
 gard to the recognition of war as incident to his duties as Com- 
 mander : in-Chief; but when he acts as Commander-in-Chief it 
 must be remembered that he acts under the superior power of 
 2783 
 
11 
 
 Congress to regulate his action, and in no wise steps beyond the 
 circle of legislative authority to make the laws which shall be his 
 guide. 
 
 THE EXECUTIVE POWER TO NOMINATE AMBASSADORS. 
 
 Is it under the power to nominate ambassadors that there is 
 attributed to the Executive the exclusive power to recognize bel- 
 ligerency or independence? Certainly he could not recognize the 
 belligerency of a foreign nation under the power of nominating 
 ambassadors, because belligerency does not involve the question 
 of sending an ambassador. Certainly he can not derive exclusive 
 power to recognize independence from the right to nominate am- 
 bassadors, for if he desired to send an ambassador to a new for- 
 eign state he would be dependent upon the Senate to appoint him, 
 and with the nomination would end the question of exclusive 
 power. 
 
 But suppose that the President should regard a nation as inde- 
 pendent and the Senate did not regard it as independent. Suppose 
 he nominated an ambassador and the Senate refused to confirm 
 him. The Executive power would thus be exhausted in the nomi- 
 nation. It would be snapped off and curtailed. Who could decide 
 between the Senate and the President in the case of such a collision 
 of views? Who, Mr. President, but the lawmaking power of this 
 country, which is above both? 
 
 THE POWER OF THE EXECUTIVE TO RECEIVE AMBASSADORS. 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, will the Senator from Virginia 
 allow me to interrupt him? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. Suppose the President of the United States should 
 receive an ambassador. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I am coming to that point now. Will we be 
 told that the exclusive Executive power of recognition of inde- 
 pendence or belligerency of a foreign state is deducible by neces- 
 sary implication on the Executive authority "to receive ambas- 
 sadors and other public ministers? " This is too slight a function 
 for the attribution of so great a power to it, certainly in any ex- 
 clusive sense. It is a mere ceremonial of state, belonging to the 
 superficial, social relations of nations and to the etiquette of 
 courts, rather than to the structure and genius of states and 
 nations. 
 
 To receive an ambassador is to identify and greet him. It is not 
 necessarily or naturally the power of ultimate decision whether 
 or not there is a nation which may send an ambassador. The 
 President may nominate an officer. Congress alone can create the 
 office. The President may command armies and navies. Con- 
 gress alone can raise, support, and maintain armies and navies, 
 and regulate the conduct of those who compose them. The Presi- 
 dent may receive ambassadors, but Congress is the ultimate power 
 that must say whether there is a nation competent to send them. 
 
 VIEWS OF HAMILTON, MADISON, AND RAWLE. 
 
 I will read in this connection what Hamilton said in the Feder- 
 alist when he was discussing this subject, prior to the adoption of 
 the Constitution: 
 
 The President — 
 
 He says — 
 is also to be authorized to receive ambassadors and other public ministers. 
 This, though it has been a rich theme of declamation, is more a matter of 
 2783 
 
12 
 
 dignity than of authority. It is a circumstance which will be without 
 authority in the administration of the Government, and it was far more 
 convenient that it should be arranged in this manner than that there should 
 be a necessity of convening the legislature, or one of its branches, upon every 
 arrival of a foreign minister, though it were merely to take the place of a 
 departed predecessor. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton in later days modified his views upon this subject, 
 and fell into such a vein of argument upon it as we are sometimes 
 treated to in the Senate. In No. 3 of the letters of Helvidius will 
 be found some comments of Mr. Madison upon the question which, 
 it seems, are worthy of consideration: 
 Little- 
 Says he — 
 
 if anything more was intended by the clause than to provide for a par- 
 ticular mode of communication, almost grown into a right among modern 
 nations, by pointing out the department of the Government most proper for 
 the ceremony of admitting public ministers, of examining their credentials, 
 and of authenticating their title to the privileges annexed to their character 
 by the law of nations. This being the apparent design of the Constitution, it 
 would be highly improper to magnify the function into an important preroga- 
 tive, even where no rights of other departments could be affected by it. 
 
 Again he says: 
 
 Had it been foretold in the year 1788, when this work [The Federalist] was 
 published, that before the end of the year 1793 a writer, assuming the merit of 
 being a friend of the Constitution, would appear and gravely maintain that 
 this function, which was to be without consequence in the administration of 
 the Government, might have the consequence of deciding on the validity of 
 revolutions in favor of liberty, "of putting the United States in a condition 
 to become an associate in war"— nay, " of laying the Legislature under an 
 obligation of declaring war"— what would have been thought and said of so 
 visionary a prophet? 
 
 So Mr. Hamilton, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, 
 as Madison, after it was adopted, never regarded this constitu- 
 tional provision as carrying that force and effect which has been 
 attributed to it by Senators, and certainly neither of them, nor 
 any of our earlier statesmen within my knowledge, deduced the 
 conclusion that the President had an exclusive right to control 
 our foreign relations with respect to belligerency and independ- 
 ence through a mere ceremonial clause of the Constitution defin- 
 ing who should be the person to receive ambassadors who were 
 sent to us. 
 
 I will in this connection cite the comment of an early writer upon 
 the Constitution. Rawle, in his work on the Constitution, on 
 page 195, vises this language: 
 
 The power of receiving foreign ambassadors carries with it, among other 
 things, the right of judging, in the case of a revolution in a foreign country, 
 whether the new rulers ought to be recognized. The Legislature, indeed, 
 possesses a superior power, and may declare its dissent from the Executive 
 recognition or refusal, but until that sense is declared, the act of the Execu- 
 tive is binding. 
 
 Mr. Rawle has stated the matter, as it seems to me, with nice 
 legal discrimination, and that is what I take to be the law. I be- 
 lieve that the President in dealing with our foreign or domestic 
 relations has the rightful power to realize and to recognize any 
 fact which intervenes or affects his administration of the law, but 
 it is from his vested authority to see to it that the laws are faith- 
 fully executed, and as he derives the power which he exercises to 
 recognize belligerency or independence from the fact that he is 
 the executor of the law, the very statement of his power implies 
 the limitation that the law may regulate him in it or override him 
 in it according to its constitutional will and pleasure. 
 2783 
 
THE PRESIDENT'S DUTY TO INFORM AND RECOMMEND TO CONGRESS. 
 
 Is the exclusive power which is attributed to the President trace- 
 able in any degree to the President's authority in the Constitution 
 to give to Congress information as to the state of the Union, and 
 to recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall 
 judge necessary and expedient? I can not think so. On the con- 
 trary, that clause indicates the subordinate relation of the Presi- 
 dent to Congress in the treatment of facts which he has to deal 
 with. 
 
 The state of the Union involves our foreign as well as our do- 
 mestic relations, debt, taxes, imposts, excises, favorite nations, 
 belligerent nations, foreign and State commerce, postal communi- 
 tions, science and art and their encouragement, courts, armies, 
 navies, peace, and war — all that great diversity and complexity of 
 affairs, world-wide and domestic, which are committed by the 
 Constitution to the care of the lawmaking power. The Presi- 
 dent may give information touching any and every of those topics; 
 he may relate facts as he perceives and interprets them; he may 
 make recommendations touching them; but his information may 
 be mistaken, for he is not infallible as to his view of any fact of 
 which he treats; his recommendation may be rejected. He is not 
 a dictator. 
 
 Suppose he is mistaken either in recognizing or in not recogniz- 
 ing the belligerency or the independence of another nation, is 
 Congress forever tied and bound down by his mistaken percep- 
 tion or conception of a fact? No one can pretend that it is by any 
 other fact, and that is to say that no one pretends to it, except as 
 to those facts concerning which the Constitution has made the 
 President's determination ipso facto conclusive. 
 
 If he says such and such a nation is independent, are we to be told 
 that Congress must so accept it, although it may involve a change 
 of status in all the subjects upon which Congress has power to 
 legislate? If he says a nation is belligerent or not, is that to end 
 it conclusively and forever? And, according to the recent doc- 
 trine that we have had urged upon us here by the State Depart- 
 ment of the late Administration and by some Senators upon this 
 floor, such action on the part of the President winds the whole 
 matter up. 
 
 Neither the President nor the Senate by a treaty made after- 
 wards, neither the Congress, with the approval of the President, 
 nor by a law passed over his disapproval, no power on earth, accord- 
 ing to their arguments, can alter or change or modify a statement 
 of fact which one man has avowed to be true; that is to say, that 
 a certain state is to be treated as dependent or independent, bellig- 
 erent or peaceful; his ipse dixit has settled it for the daj r upon 
 which he said it and for all time afterwards until some other Presi- 
 dent may come along and unsay it. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Mr. President 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. One moment, if the Senator pleases. 
 
 This is the one-man power in the most preposterous and attenu- 
 ated shape that has ever appeared in this Republic. This is the 
 one-man power modeled upon, the power of an ancient British 
 king acting by custom and without constitutional limitation. 
 
 Now I will hear the Senator's question. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. I desire to know of my distinguished friend, 
 first, whether or not he claims that the authority on the part of the 
 
 2783 
 
14 
 
 President and Congress is concurrent in the matter of recognizing 
 belligerency or independence; and if so, whether the exercise by 
 either of those branches of the Government of this authority pri- 
 marily does not conclude Congress having concurrent jurisdiction, 
 or, in other words, whichever of the concurrent powers first exer- 
 cises jurisdiction over this subject-matter, does not exhaust juris- 
 diction and fix the status either of belligerency or independence? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. My learned friend has asked me two questions. 
 I must separate them before I undertake to answer them. 
 
 In the first place, the Senator asks me if I maintain that the 
 power of the President and Congress is concurrent. I would not 
 use that word ' ' concurrent " in describing the power as I conceive 
 it to exist. I think the President of the United States has certain 
 implied powers through the exercise of which, for the purpose of 
 executing the law, he may recognize the fact that he has to deal 
 with; but as that power is derived— and I hope presently to show 
 it — in the main (if not in all cases, in nearly all cases) from his 
 constitutional authority to take care that the laws are faithfully 
 executed, that implies that when the law changes he must change 
 with it; and the law is, in my judgment, the supreme power in the 
 United States on that subject — above the Executive and above 
 the treaty -making power. The President can only ' ' inform " Con- 
 gress as to facts, and recommend as to laws. He is a witness as 
 to facts, and an adviser as to laws. But in making laws to apply 
 to facts Congress has sole and exclusive power; is, therefore, sole 
 and exclusive judge in a legislative sense: and the Presidential veto, 
 subject to be overridden by Congress, is the only way in which he 
 has the prerogative of participation in Congressional action. 
 
 Now, for the purpose of argument, before I finish answering the 
 Senator's question, suppose the President and the Senate were to 
 make a treaty upon certain subjects and find a certain condition of 
 fact setting forth that certain nations were belligerent and certain 
 others independent. The Senator would not contend that Con- 
 gress might not come along and by a law set aside that treaty, for 
 it is well settled that treaties may be set aside by law. 
 
 So if you can set aside a treaty made by both the President and 
 the Senate, why may you not override a conclusion which the 
 President himself has reached as to a fact which you propose to 
 treat differently? Or, if the President's action is binding, it is 
 only binding until the superior power has overruled it, and then 
 it ceases to be binding. 
 
 I will meet the Senator's question, however, with an analysis of 
 the President's power in several cases made by a quotation of 
 judicial authority. 
 
 IN WHAT CASES THE PRESIDENT MAY RECOGNIZE FACTS BEFORE HIM. 
 
 I will say here, Mr. President, that I think that the President 
 has the power impliedly in the exercise of his Executive function 
 (1) to recognize the independence of a foreign nation; (3) also 
 the belligerency of one foreign nation with another foreign nation; 
 
 (3) also the belligerency of a foreign nation against this nation; 
 
 (4) also the belligerency of any portion of this nation against 
 itself; (5) also any local insurrection against Federal laws; (6) also 
 to recognize any invasion of a State; (7) also, on application of a 
 State legislature or a State executive when the legislature can not 
 be convened, a case of domestic violence which calls for Federal 
 interference. 
 
 2783 
 
15 
 
 THE GREAT EXECUTIVE POWER TO TAKE CARE THAT THE LAWS BE FAITH- 
 FULLY EXECUTED. 
 
 But I contend that these cases of Presidential recognition are 
 all traceable to the President's duty under the Constitution to take 
 care that the laws are faithfully executed. 
 
 It may be when he is acting as Commander-in-Chief of the Army 
 and Navy that a case may arise of an emergent nature in which 
 that officer alone has opportunity and occasion to recognize the 
 condition of war that he must deal with ; but whether we trace 
 his authority to the fact that he is Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Army or Navy, or that he is simply acting as an Executive to take 
 care that the laws are faithfully executed, it is the law always that 
 is the fountain of authority under which he acts. 
 
 When an executive act is to be done, it does not follow that the 
 same fact may not be a subject-matter of executive action on the 
 part of the President and of a lawmaking act on the part of Con- 
 gress; and when it is made the subject of a lawmaking act on 
 the part of Congress, that act is the supreme law of this land to 
 the President and to everyone in it, unless by holding up that 
 law in comparison with the Constitution you can see that Con- 
 gress has exceeded its power. 
 
 Mr. C AFFERY. Mr. President, my friend has been very indul- 
 gent, and I hope he will let me ask one more question. J have 
 been very much struck with his exposition of his views upon this 
 subject. I would inquire of him by what process of reasoning he 
 deduces the power on behalf of Cosgress to recognize a matter of 
 fact from the grant of legislative functions? In other words, 
 whether a recognition of belligerency or a recognition of ade facto 
 government by Congress comes within the purview by natural 
 implication of the power generally to legislate; and if so, by what 
 process of reasoning does he reach that conclusion? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. The Senator from Louisiana has asked me two 
 or three questions. Would he simply put only one now? What 
 is the Senator's first question? 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. My question is, Does the Senator deduce the 
 power of the President to recognize the existence of a new gov- 
 ernment from a constitutional grant to receive ambassadors and 
 ministers? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Not from that alone; but others have so con- 
 strued his power. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Well, from others. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Will my friend allow me to ask him how can the 
 President of the United States derive power to recognize the bel- 
 ligerency of a foreign nation like the Cuban Republic, which sends 
 no ambassador here, from his right to receive an ambassador, if it 
 did send one? 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. I do not myself derive the power of the Pres- 
 ident to recognize belligerency from his power to receive ambas- 
 sadors. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. From what source doss the Senator deduce it? 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. I deduce the power of the President to recog- 
 nize the belligerency of a people warring against another. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. From what power in the Constitution? 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. From the general power in the Constitution 
 that places the President in charge of our external relations. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. What clause in the Constitution? I should like 
 to have the Senator point it out. 
 
 2783 
 
16 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. From the clause in the Constitution which 
 authorizes him to send ambassadors to foreign countries. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I would ask the Senator to point out the par- 
 ticular phrase he relies on. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. To receive ambassadors, I mean. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Suppose a country does not send ambassadors? 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Then it is not a country, and nobody can 
 war against it. There is no belligerency and no independence in 
 question in such a case. 
 
 Mr. BACON. If the Senator from Virginia will permit me, I 
 should like to say to the Senator from Louisiana that the Presi- 
 dent can not send an ambassador except by the consent of the 
 Senate. He has no such power. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Very well. When he sends his ambassador, 
 with the consent of the Senate, to Spain or to England, that places 
 him in possession of our external affairs with those countries. 
 All matters of fact, all intelligence necessary to be known bearing 
 upon the conditions in those countries comes within the purview 
 of the President of the United States; and as belligerency is a fact, 
 and as the President of the United States is the only branch of the 
 Government having charge of the fact and the power to collect 
 the facts, I deduce that the President of the United States is the 
 proper power, and the only power, to pass upon a matter of fact 
 involving belligerency. That is my deduction, whatever it may 
 be worth. 
 
 Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Mr. President, I will come to the point sug- 
 gested in the question of the Senator from Louisiana in a few 
 minutes, and then I will yield for a question to the Senator from 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. If my friend from Virginia will permit me a 
 little further, I deduce the power to recognize the independence 
 of a nation from the power to receive an ambassador or minister 
 from that nation. I contend that when the President of the United 
 States has accepted a minister, has received an ambassador, that 
 his finding in the premises is conclusive. 
 
 Now, if my friend will pardon me a moment longer — I do not 
 want to make a speech, and I shall be very short— Ire asked the 
 question in a part of his discourse, as to whether or not when the 
 President had found a certain state of facts existing which war- 
 ranted him in recognizing an independent government, another 
 branch of the Government could not overturn his finding. I 
 think clearly not, and that whatever may be the jurisdiction of 
 the President, whether it be exclusive or whether it be concurrent, 
 his passing upoa the matter primarily is conclusive. 
 
 Mr. SPOONER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a 
 question? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I will yield to a question, but it breaks the 
 thread of my discourse to have other gentlemen make speeches in 
 the body of mine. I should have great pleasure in hearing them, 
 if they were not speaking when I have the floor. 
 
 Mr." SPOONER. I have no desire to make a speech. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I know that, and will yield to the Senator's 
 question with pleasure. 
 
 Mr. SPOONER. I have listened attentively to the arguments 
 of the Senator. I understand the Senator to concede the power 
 of the President to recognize the belligerency or independence of 
 *783 
 
17 
 
 a nation, as the case may be. President Cleveland might, there- 
 fore, have recognized, had he chosen so to do, the belligerency of 
 the Cuban insurrectionists or the independence of Cuba. Whence 
 comes, in the Senator's opinion, the authority of the President to 
 do that? Would it be pursuant to any act of Congress, or would 
 he derive his power from the Constitution alone? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Mr. President, in answer to the Senator's ques- 
 tion, I will read him first a passage from the second volume of 
 Story on the Constitution, and I will make this passage my answer 
 in some degree to the questions of the Senator from Louisiana 
 [Mr. Caffery] and the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] . 
 
 In 1793 President Washington issued a proclamation forbidding 
 the citizens of the United States to take any part in the hostili- 
 ties then existing between Great Britain and France, warning 
 them against carrying goods contraband of war and enjoining 
 upon them an entire abstinence from all acts inconsistent with 
 the duties of neutrality. He was assailed for this act, as our peo- 
 ple sympathized with France, but it is well observed by Judge 
 Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution with reference to 
 President Washington's action, as follows: 
 
 If the President is bound to see to the execution of the laws and treaties 
 of the United States, and if the duties of neutrality, when the nation has not 
 assumed a belligerent attitude, are by the law of nations obligatory upon it, 
 it seems difficult to perceive any solid objection to a proclamation stating 
 the facts and admonishing the citizens of their own duties and responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 There is the touchstone principle, " the execution of the laws 
 and treaties of the United States; " that is the great source of 
 Presidential authority. 
 
 I admit that that is not a complete answer to the Senator from 
 Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] , because the belligerents in that case 
 were established nations, but I make it a halfway house on my 
 way to answer; and there is a clear, logical pathway to the con- 
 clusion that the President may recognize the belligerency of a new 
 nation, since it is the belligerency that makes the occasion for the 
 exercise of neutrality as provided for in our laws. I think, and 
 the general public sense of this country concurs, that President 
 Washington had the right — and such were the construction and 
 view taken by the courts — to realize the fact that there was a war 
 going on between Great Britain and France, and the greatest of 
 our commentators on the Constitution, among the text writers 
 who have written about it, predicates that power upon the great 
 executive right to see to it that the laws are faithfully executed. 
 
 It is not difficult to deduce the power in that respect. Now, 
 where the President may get the incidental and implied power to 
 recognize the independence of a foreign nation that sends ambas- 
 sadors here, or to whom he sends ambassadors, is also not difficult 
 to arrive at. 
 
 There it is deducible from the Constitution as an incidental 
 power. But the Senator asks me the question, Where, in the Con- 
 stitution, does the President get the right to recognize the bellig- 
 erency of a new people contending against an old-established gov- 
 ernment? 
 
 I could not get it at all unless it may be derived from the Ex- 
 ecutive authority to see to it that our laws are faithfully executed, 
 and from the incidental power, inherent in our very nature, for 
 any man who is charged with the execution of laws to use his five 
 2783—2 
 
18 
 
 senses to perceive the conditions under which they are being ex- 
 ecuted or attempted to be executed. I get it in the same way that 
 I would that the commander at Governors Island would get power 
 if a foreign fleet were to steam up New York Harbor to-morrow 
 and were to open its guns upon Governors Island. 
 
 I do not think that any officer or noncommissioned officer or any 
 private soldier of the United States would hesitate to train the 
 guns of Governors Island upon the foreigner invading our country 
 until he had waited to hear from Washington and had got an order 
 from the Commander-in-Chief. So a policeman may arrest men 
 for assault and battery when he sees them fighting, but that does not 
 conclude their rights before courts nor conclude the legislature 
 from making such laws as it sees fit regulating arrests for assault 
 and battery and regulating the whole subject-matter. The Presi- 
 dent gets authority to recognize a fact from the constitutional fact 
 that he is charged with the execution of the laws in this country 
 and. from the exercise of his five senses. Facts can not be fenced 
 off from the recognition of anyone who has the duty devolved 
 upon him to deal with them. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Will the Senator allow me to put in one word? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Let me finish my sentence, and then I shall be 
 very glad to do so. 
 
 The President gets his authority from the exercise of his five 
 senses in contemplating the condition under which the laws are 
 to be executed. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. I was about to 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. No; one more moment; then I will yield. I 
 remember 
 
 Mr. HOAR, It was merely with reference to the sentence the 
 Senator was on. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Just one more moment. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I wish to complete my sentence. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I hope the Senator will permit me to finish my 
 thought. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Certainly; I beg pardon. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I once had a friend who had been a cadet at 
 WestPoint. Soonafterhe got to West Pointthe commandant sent 
 officers around to ask the cadets of the guard what they would do 
 under this circumstance or that, and they went to one and said, 
 "What would you do if you were to see that the barracks were on 
 fire? " He said, ' ' I would call the officer of the guard. " One cadet 
 gave one answer, another cadet another answer. They came to 
 this boy and asked, "What would you do?" He said, "I would 
 halloo fire as loud as I could, and try to put it out as soon as I 
 could get to it." 
 
 Any soldier, no matter what may be the situation, and any ex- 
 ecutive officer who is charged with the administration of a trust, 
 has the right to realize and recognize a fact which confronts him 
 in the exercise of that duty; but he may misperceive it as well as 
 perceive it, and, in my opinion, the fact is not ultimately settled 
 until dealt with by iiltimate jurisdiction. 
 
 The power to declare war rests solely in Congress; but that did 
 not prevent President Polk from sending American troops into 
 Mexico when war, without being declared by this country, had 
 been made upon it and Mexican troops had invaded our soil. 
 2783 
 
19 
 
 There is an inherent right in an intelligent being to exercise his 
 five senses, and it is not denied to exist in any political body 
 which represents sovereignty, except in the Congress of the 
 United States, which we are told can not recognize a state of war, 
 however flagrant, however patent, and however much it may 
 affect our foreign and domestic relations. 
 
 Now, I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. I think I ought to rise now only to apologize to 
 the Senator. He was making such a beautiful statement of what 
 I generally accord in that I wished simply 
 
 Mr, DANIEL. I could make no statement that could not be 
 bettered by a statement from the Senator from Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. I wish to ask the Senator if his point is not in sub- 
 stance that the power to recognize the fact 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Because it is a fact 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Arises from the duty of acting upon the fact. That 
 is all. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I think that is a very sententious and a very 
 conclusive statement about it. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. I should like to ask the Senator a question, how- 
 ever, in regard to his criticism of the power of Congress. I do 
 not wish to interrupt the thread of the Senator's discourse, but 
 perhaps, now that he has been interrupted by another question, he 
 may prefer to yield rather than before he resumes his argument. 
 
 Suppose on the 3d day of March, 1897, the two Houses of Con- 
 gress, or either of them — I will say both of them — recognized Cuba 
 as an independent and a belligerent and adjourned until next De- 
 cember, and thereafter, within ten days, the Cuban armies were 
 overthrown in battle, surrendered, and all Cuba were at peace, 
 and she, as far as she is a being, admitted the authority of Spain, 
 is the President bound by that recognition to treat Cuba as an 
 independent and as a belligerent until the first Monday in Decem- 
 ber, or so long thereafter as it takes Congress to come together 
 and act? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I think not, for then the basis of action disap- 
 peared. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Then is it not true that the question of belliger- 
 ency is a question constantly changing from day to day and from 
 week to week? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Undoubtedly. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. And that no power under the Constitution can 
 bind the Executive power, which has the duty of acting upon the 
 fact as it exists, because that duty of acting upon the fact as it 
 exists must change with the changing facts? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I agree with the Senator. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. The Executive is here all the time. He is all the 
 time our agent for communicating with foreign governments. 
 He is not in session half of each year or a little over, like Con- 
 gress, and from the necessity of the case must it not be that that 
 power, except so far as it is incident to some act of Congress 
 which is necessary, must be vested in him? 
 
 PRESUMPTION OF CORRECTNESS IN PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENTS OF FACTS. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. The power is vested in any executive officer to 
 recognize a fact with which he is charged by law with the respon- 
 sibility of dealing. It is a natural power, and it is one that we 
 can not eliminate from mundane affairs and human nature. The 
 
 2783 
 
20 
 
 world is full of facts. He that hath eyes to see, let him see. He 
 that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 
 
 When Congress receives a statement of fact from the President, 
 it is presumed to be true in every physical, moral, and legal 
 aspect. This is but a common-law doctrine — all things official 
 are presumed to be solemnly and rightly done. No one would 
 imagine that the President would make false statement of a fact 
 in a physical or moral sense, but he is liable to make a mistake as 
 to the reality in a physical sense and in a legal sense also. If he 
 says there is no public war in Cuba in a iegal international sense, 
 we may presume it to be true. 
 
 If he says the Cuban Republic is not independent in a legal and 
 international sense, we presume it is true. In ninety -nine cases 
 out of one hundred no dispute is ever raised as to a presidential 
 statement of fact or assumption of fact. When he continuously 
 recognizes Great Britain as an independent nation, there is no dis- 
 pute about it; the matter ends. When he says there is a French 
 Republic and recognizes it, the matter ends, there being no dispute 
 about the existence of the fact. 
 
 When President Harrison said there was a Hawaiian Republic, 
 there was no dispute about it, and it so ended. When, during 
 this very winter, the Major Republic of Central America appeared, 
 the President received its minister. There was no dispute about 
 it. The Major Republic was recognized by everybody according 
 to the fact which, without controversy, existed at the time he 
 communicated and acted upon it. 
 
 Eut now suppose we traverse the view of the President that 
 there is no public war in Cuba, if such be his view, and he has not 
 yet said either that there is or is not. Suppose we traverse his alle- 
 gation as to the Cuban Republic. Have we not the right to do it? 
 Are we forever estopped by his mistaken view, if he takes a mis- 
 taken view? Are we bound by the supposititious fact as he saw it 
 with his eyes? In short, is a possible Presidential mistake as to a 
 fact which he communicates to Congress forever beyond remedy 
 by the treaty-making power and by the lawmaking power? 
 
 NO EXCLUSIVE POWER IN THE PRESIDENT TO DETERMINE FOREIGN OR 
 DOMESTIC PACTS. 
 
 In my judgment, the American people have a right to determine 
 by their Senators and Representatives in Congress assembled the 
 question of fact as it may concern any law which they have the 
 power to pass, or any resolution which they have the power to pass, 
 and I think that the menace from the State Department to Congress 
 which was made some months ago, and its defiant attitude toward 
 the lawmaking power of the Republic, can never affect the dispo- 
 sition of any independent, high-minded Senator or Representa- 
 tive to decide this question for himself under his oath of office. 
 
 I deny that the Constitution has anywhere hinted at the exclu- 
 sive power of the President of the United States to determine any 
 fact with relation to our domestic or foreign concerns, while I 
 do not deny he may determine it for himself in so far as the exe- 
 cution of the laws may require him to do it as an Executive matter. 
 
 FACTS DETERMINABLE BY THE TREATY-MAKING AND THE LAWMAKING 
 
 POWER. 
 
 Mr. President, I have tried to reason upon this subject without 
 resort to precedents, or with very little allusion to them. In my 
 judgment, the judicial precedents in this country are in favor of 
 
 2783 
 
21 
 
 my proposition; the necessary logic of the case seems to me to 
 render it irrefutable. I will put a case. Suppose that the Presi- 
 dent of the United States were to-day to declare that the Cuban 
 Republic is an independent republic; and suppose a new Presi- 
 dentof the United States to-morrow were to negotiate a treaty with 
 Spain by which the United States made itself the ally ot Spain and 
 which recited that the United States would not recognize or would 
 not treat the Cuban Republic as an independent nation, and were 
 to declare war upon it, and prohibit commerce with it. Is there 
 any man in the Senate bold enough to declare that the treaty- 
 making power of the United States, confided by the Constitution 
 of the United States in the President and the Senate, could not by 
 that treaty override, wipe out, destroy, and render absolutely null 
 and void any Presidential recognition which had previously oc- 
 curred? So, if the treaty-making power may thus override posi- 
 tive action upon the part of the President of the United States, 
 why may not the lawmaking power, which is superior to the 
 treaty-making power, go along and override and destroy and wipe 
 out both? 
 
 What the Senator from Massachusetts has suggested it seems 
 to me is correct. A fact must be respected because it is a fact in 
 the sense and in the conscience of the person who contemplates the 
 fact, and the recognition of it is only binding during the period 
 that its recognition is extant and efficient. Vesuvius, by its lava, 
 might destroy Italy to-morrow: or, suppose it were a fact that it 
 did. The independence of Italy, being an attribute, would go out 
 with the destruction of the country, and a recognition of Italy to- 
 day would not make an obligation upon us to recognize it to-morrow 
 unless the fact remained there for the recognition to apply to. 
 
 Now, let me present a brief examination of some of the judicial 
 precedents. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Before the Senator passes to that point, if he is at 
 the end of this subject, I should like to ask him one other question 
 in regard to what he has just said, if it would not be disagreeable 
 to him. The Senator made a very interesting suggestion, in which 
 I entirely agree with him, which was that when, as he thinks, 
 Mexico invaded this country, Mr. Polk was not bound to wait for 
 an act of Congress, but it was his duty to repel the invasion as 
 President of the United States, charged with the execution of the 
 law. 
 
 The Senator will remember very well that a good many of the 
 Whig party, including John Quincy Adams and a good many 
 Northern Representatives, thought Mr. Polk was all wrong in his 
 fact and voted against the resolution in the House of Congress that 
 war existed by the act of Mexico. 
 
 Now, suppose that party had been strong enough to carry both 
 Houses of Congress by a two-thirds vote and to pass an act declar- 
 ing that war did not exist by the act of Mexico, that she was not 
 invading us, and ordering the President not to repel the invasion. 
 Would it have been any the less Mr. Polk's duty to do exactly what 
 he did, to protect the country? 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. As I understand it, suppose Congress had not 
 recognized a state of war, and had declared 
 
 Mr. HOAR. To the contrary. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I think a condition of that sort would be so 
 near anarchy that the President might seriously consider whether 
 he had not better take the law in his own hands and defend the 
 2783 
 
22 
 
 country, whether Congress said so or not. It would be a case of 
 Congressional revolution well-nigh impossible. I think that is a 
 condition of anarchy. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Will the Senator permit me to go a little further 
 into the historical facts in connection with my question to make 
 it clear? The Senator said, and it seems to me he is absolutely 
 right, that it was within the constitutional power and was the 
 constitutional duty of President Polk, Mexico, in his judgment, 
 being a belligerent against us at that time, to repel them. Mr. 
 Clay said at the same time, or just after, that he would sooner 
 have laid down his life than to have subscribed to the resolution 
 of the House of Representatives approving Mr. Polk's course and 
 declaring that war existed by the act of Mexico. 
 
 Now, suppose Mr. Clay had had two-thirds vote of his followers, 
 and that Congress had said war does not exist by the act of Mexico, 
 she is not a belligerent against us, and we prohibit the President 
 from repelling her invasion. The question I put is, Would not 
 Mr. Polk have had exactly the same power under the Constitution, 
 and would it not have been his duty to execute it, Congress or no 
 Congress? I think it would. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. The Senator is putting a very extreme and, I 
 might say, a preposterous case. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Mr. Clay did not think so. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Oh, well; political speeches made by gentlemen 
 who are candidates for the Presidency very often overstate the 
 facts, are very often exaggerations, and irradiate the landscape 
 with colors we never see in real life. 
 
 I can not conceive of a case in which a Congress of the United 
 States, loyal to the country, would state a fact contrary to the 
 manner in which it existed, and declare that there was peace with 
 a nation which had its armed men upon our soil. It would be a 
 case of anarchy. Such extreme suggestions confuse rather than 
 elucidate interpretations, and I might well say as to them, ''Suffi- 
 cient unto the day is the evil thereof." 
 
 But so far as the Constitution is concerned, so far as the Con- 
 stitution gives to Congress alone the power to declare war and 
 gives it authority to prescribe rules and regulations for the gov- 
 ernment of its armies, in a constitutional sense, and reading the 
 instrument according to its intent and meaning, I can never con- 
 ceive that the President of the United States could override a law 
 of Congress and make war upon another nation when the power 
 in the country which has the sole power of declaring war refuses 
 to declare it or to tolerate it. 
 
 The reason why Mr. Polk was justified in marching his army 
 into Mexico and attacking the Mexicans was because he was con- 
 fronted with a fact, and that fact was the invasion of his own 
 country. It was not a declaration of war by the United States 
 against Mexico, but an exercise of the inherent and natural right 
 of self-defense— to execute the laws by repelling those who trod 
 upon them — to shoot back at a man who commences first to shoot 
 at you. These questions of constitutional law are very simple. 
 There is no trouble about their elucidation and solution by the 
 most simple rules of common reason and common sense. 
 
 THE JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS. 
 
 I wish to say upon this subject as to a possible conflict of au- 
 thority between Congress and the President, that so far as the 
 judicial precedents have developed there is no precedent distinctly 
 2783 
 
23 
 
 in point; none in which there has ever been a collision of author- 
 ity between the lawmaking and the executive power. It is to be 
 observed, also, that there is no specific power in the Constitution, 
 shaped in so many words, authorizing anybody in this country to 
 recognize the independence or the belligerency of a foreign state 
 or nation. In whomsoever that power may exist (and that it does 
 exist none can dispute) , it is a power implied from their being 
 invested with the right to exercise some other power to which it 
 becomes the essential incident. 
 
 That being the case, I do not question that there may be cases 
 in which the President may recognize the independence of a for- 
 eign nation, because he may receive ambassadors, because he may 
 appoint ambassadors, nor the belligerency of a foreign nation, be- 
 cause a condition of war, which is the belligerency of a foreign 
 nation, devolves upon the President the duty and right to see that 
 our laws of neutrality between those who are belligerent are ob- 
 served, as President Washington did in 1793 between two estab- 
 lished nations which were belligerents. 
 
 It matters not what may be the age of the nation ; it matters 
 not what may be the legal status of the nation. When a nation 
 becomes belligerent, we have laws which apply to it as a belliger- 
 ent, and having laws which apply to it, which the President is 
 charged to see are executed, he is vested by law as well as by the 
 Constitution with the power to recognize and realize the condi- 
 tions to which he must apply the law. 
 
 Furthermore, I observe that no case has yet arisen in which it 
 was necessary to determine whether the power exercised by the 
 President was exclusively vested in him. It being vested in him 
 in certain conditions and by certain implications, it has never 
 been challenged in the sense that any conflicting power of Con- 
 gress has been arrayed against him, and as a rule he has always 
 been guided by the fact, and in recognizing the fact has simply 
 pursued the dictates of his own intelligence in executing the law. 
 
 No case has arisen in which the President has exercised the 
 power of recognition in which he has not been sustained by the 
 courts. 
 
 The courts look to the political, as contradistinguished from the 
 judicial, department to take cognizance of the political changes 
 which take place in the revolutions and vicissitudes of nations, as, 
 for instance, in the case of the Nueva Anna, Wheaton, 193 (1821), 
 where the Supreme Court refused to recognize the existence of 
 any lawful court of Mexico at G-alveztown, which had assumed, 
 under authority of the Mexican Republic, to condemn the cargoes 
 of two Spanish ships, basing its action on the fact that the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States had not hitherto recognized "the 
 existence of any Mexican republic or state at war with Spain." 
 
 In The United. States vs. Palmer, in 3 Wheaton, 648, I find lan- 
 guage of the Supreme Court which meets with my most hearty 
 approbation as containing the law of this subject: 
 
 This court is further of opinion that when a civil war rages in a foreign 
 nation, one part of which separates itself from the old-established govern- 
 ment and erects itself into a distinct government, the courts of the Union 
 must view such newly constituted government as it is viewed by the legis- 
 
 iative and executive departments of the Government of the United States. 
 1 the Government of the Union remains neutral, but recognizes the exist- 
 ence of a civil war. the courts of the Union can not consider as criminal those 
 acts of hostility which war authorizes, and which the new government may 
 direct against the enemy. 
 2783 
 
24 
 
 "The legislative and executive departments of the United 
 States." That is the language of the court. 
 
 Now I read again from a more recent decision of the United 
 States Supreme Court, Jones against The United States, 137 United 
 States Eeports, page 212 (1890), in which Judge Gray gave the 
 unanimous opinion of that tribunal: 
 
 Who is the sovereign de jure or de facto of a territory is not a judicial 
 but a political question, the determination of which by the legislative and 
 executive departments of any government conclusively binds the judges as 
 well as all other officers, citizens, and subjects of that government. This 
 principle has always been upheld by this court and has been approved under 
 a great variety of circumstances. 
 
 So in a still more recent decision in the case of the Three Friends 
 by, the Supreme Court of the United States they speak of the 
 " political department of the Government " as contradistinguished 
 from the judicial, and not of the executive as contradistin- 
 guished from the legislative as the department which has proper 
 and suitable jurisdiction of the subject-matter. 
 
 A LEADING CASE, SHOWING THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENT IS DERIVED 
 PROM HIS DUTY TO EXECUTE THE LAWS. 
 
 I will read from a leading case on this subject, in which I think 
 it will appear clearly that according to the decision of the Supreme 
 Court made in that particular case, and in concurrence with the 
 views which I have just presented from two other cases, it is the 
 view of that court that the executive power to recognize the in- 
 dependence or the belligerency of a foreign nation is a power de- 
 rived from executive duty to take care that the laws are faithfully 
 executed. 
 
 From the fact that in either nominating an anlbassador or in 
 receiving an ambassador the President of the United States must 
 impliedly pass upon the question in some cases whether or not 
 another nation is belligerent or independent, it does not follow 
 that under that particular power he may get the authority to pass 
 upon that question in all cases. But there is no conceivable case 
 that I can imagine in which a foreign government has assumed a 
 belligerent attitude toward another, or in which a new govern- 
 ment has made itself belligerent, that it does not come within the 
 purview of the Presidential power, in the exercise of its duty to 
 take care that the laws are faithfully executed, to make the proper 
 recognitions which are necessary in order to execute the laws 
 faithfully. 
 
 In the Prize Cases, reported in 2 Black, this whole subject was 
 thoroughly reviewed by Judge Grier in a very able and instructive 
 opinion of the United States Supreme Court. That was a case in 
 which the President of the United States had declared a blockade 
 against certain ports in the South. The paragraph which I shall 
 read appears to my mind to contain a true indication of the source 
 of executive power: 
 By the Constitution- 
 Says the Supreme Court — • 
 
 Congress alone has the power to declare a national or foreign war. It can 
 not declare war against a State, or any number of States, by virtue of any 
 clause in the Constitution. The Constitution confers on the President the 
 whole executive power. 
 
 Now, what is that? 
 
 He is bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He is Com- 
 mander in -Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the mili- 
 tia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United 
 
 2783 
 
25 
 
 States. He has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a foreign 
 nation or a domestic State. But by the acts of Congress of February 38, 1795, 
 and 3d of March, 1807, he is authorized to call out the militia and use the mili- 
 tary and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign na- 
 tions and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of 
 the United States. 
 
 Mr. President, there is no recognition and there is no war made 
 by the Executive of the United States that niay not be traceable 
 to the Constitution and the statutes made as thus pointed out by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States to enable the Executive 
 to faithfully execute the laws. When President Polk sent the 
 armies of the United States to meet those of Mexico, he acted 
 under an act of Congress by which he had the right to repel 
 invasion. 
 
 As Commander in Chief of our forces, if at any time an enemy 
 to the United States were to appear in his presence or to assail us 
 in any direction, the laws are plenary and ample to enable the 
 President to recognize whatever condition of things presents 
 itself, and to deal with it in a defensive way or in an offensive- 
 defensive way, as the facts of the time and the occasion might 
 suggest to his conscience and comprehension. 
 
 Mr. President, in all these cases it is recognized by the courts 
 that have given their opinion (though I have no doubt that some 
 obiter dictum of a judge may be found here and there from 
 which a different inference might be drawn) that it is the great 
 character of the President as Commander in Chief of our Army 
 and Navy and as the Chief Executive to see to it that our civil laws 
 are administered, from which he may derive all his rights to real- 
 ize and to recognize the conditions which are presented to him 
 when he proceeds to carry out his constitutional prerogative and 
 his legal authority. 
 
 The very statement of his power implies the fact that he is 
 under the laws of this country; that he is a creature, both as 
 Commander in Chief of the regulations which Congress may pass 
 for the guidance of his conduct, as well as for the guidance of the 
 conduct of any other soldier in the Army of the United States; 
 that as President, while he may exercise those functions which 
 are purely executive without dictation from Congress, in the great 
 mass of those duties they themselves consist in seeing to it that 
 the laws are faithfully executed; that by the very terms of the 
 statement of the power employed, the lawmaking power is above 
 the executor of the law, and that he is the agent, the executive 
 agent, of the people, simply to carry out and to do in our domes- 
 tic relations and in our foreign relations those things which the 
 lawmaking agent of the people has prescribed for him to do. 
 
 THERE IS NOTORIOUS PUBLIC WAR IN CUBA. 
 
 Mr. President, there has been a condition of public war in the 
 Island of Cuba for two and a half years. The diplomacy of the 
 Spanish Government has succeeded in blinding the eyes of the 
 diplomatists of the United States to the realization of that fact. 
 They have disowned and repressed and concealed under diplo- 
 matic expressions the fact instead of recognizing it. But the 
 world knows the fact that there is war in Cuba, high-handed, red- 
 handed, bloody, lamentable, cruel, savage war — war which has 
 resounded all over the universe; that has filled our prints with its 
 hideous scenes, and touched our hearts with its piteous cries. 
 
 We know it, Mr. President. There is war in which Spain has 
 employed to put down the Cuban insurrection a larger army than 
 2783 
 
26 
 
 any government of the Old World ever sent against an American 
 revolution — a larger army than the great British Government 
 itself ever sent to put down the insurrection of the colonies of 
 1776, and it has been opposed by armies upon the other side. 
 
 It may be that the tactics of the forces of the Cuban Republic 
 armies have been such tactics as G-eorge Washington advised 
 Braddock to follow when he assailed the Indians in the wilder- 
 ness, not to march in solid divisions, where they could be mowed 
 down by the artillery and the train bands of Spain, but to attack 
 the enemy where and when they could, with such weapons as 
 they had the opportunity to employ, and shaping their tactics and 
 strategy according to the country and the population, the sources 
 of supply, and the exigencies of the hour. 
 
 The late President of the United States told us in his message 
 last December that " the insurrection in Cuba still continues with 
 all its perplexities," and that "if Spain still holds Habana and 
 the seaports and all the considerable towns, the insurgents still 
 roam at will over at least two-thirds of the inland country." 
 
 Innumerable Spanish victories on paper are always being her- 
 alded, and peace is constantly being proclaimed from the house- 
 tops of the Captain- General and the dens of Morro Castle; but the 
 insurgents still roam around over the island, while nearly a fourth 
 of the 200,000 troops of Spain have perished, and anarchy is rip- 
 ping tip and burning everything amidst scenes of devastation, 
 desolation, murder, arson, poverty, disease, and starvation. They 
 are making deserts and calling them peace; making proclamations 
 and calling them peace; making war and calling it peace. We 
 are just now sending bread and clothes to the hungry and naked 
 fugitives of our own blood who are being corralled in cities, and 
 hying hither and thither to find shelter from the peace that nestles 
 under the Spanish torch, and the Cuban sword. But we all know 
 here that this is war; the American people know that this is war; 
 Europe and the world know that this is war — public war; as pub- 
 lic as Cuban and Spanish armies can make it; as public as tele- 
 graph and printing press can make it; as public as any other 
 patent, notorious, and irrepressible fact. 
 
 Mr. President, when Congress undertakes to recognize that fact 
 about which we have abundance of Presidential messages depict- 
 ing all the deplorable incidents of this long and bloody struggle, 
 we are met here in the Senate of the United States with the state- 
 ment that Congress must not recognize what everybody knows, 
 must not demean itself in the spirit of neighborship and humanity 
 toward a struggling people who are at our doors, because it may be 
 conceived to be inimical to Spain. I should not be restrained by 
 that consideration from recognizing the fact as it appears to me, 
 but this argument is a misconception of law. It is not inimical 
 to Spain. 
 
 We have a right in all good friendship to Spain. If Spanish 
 friendship is so precious a thing as to be preferred to the rights of 
 human nature, it is no breach of friendship with Spain for us to 
 recognize with respect to one of her colonies what she realizes and 
 what all Europe realizes, and what the United States through its 
 President and generals realized when we had civil war in this 
 country, that when the guns were thundering they could hear 
 their thunder, that when the soldiers were marching and fighting 
 they could see them marching and fighting. It is not only our 
 right, it is our duty, as intelligent and conscientious men, to ap- 
 
 2783 
 
prehend, comprehend, realize, and conduct ourselves according to 
 the fact of which our senses, certainly our senses of hearing and 
 sound, take notice. 
 
 HUMANITY PROMPTS THIS RESOLUTION. 
 
 If I am actuated or moved to urge this action upon the Senate 
 because in my own breast I sympathize with an oppressed people, 
 it is no motive for which I owe anyone an apology. It is an hon- 
 est and noble sympathy. It is a fact that there is war in Cuba, 
 whether we record it in our resolution or not; it is a fact that 
 there is public war in Cuba, whether we sympathize with Cuba 
 or with Spain; and it being the fact, it is an act of humanity for 
 us to deal with it according to the fact, and to throw the moral 
 weight of this great Government toward seeing to it that that 
 war is conducted with as close an approximation to Christian 
 usages and to civilized customs as may be practicable under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 WHERE INTEREST LIES. 
 
 I know that in some respects it may be detrimental to some in- 
 terests here or there to recognize the belligerency of the Cubans. 
 To recognize their belligerency on the part of the United States is 
 to change our attitude legally and commercially in certain re- 
 spects. But on the whole, I believe that this nation will derive 
 advantage from recognizing the belligerency of the Cubans. All 
 laws and treaties which are now in force with Spain will still 
 remain in force. 
 
 It may subject some of our vessels to the right of search and to 
 certain annoyances, but for the sake of doing justice and acting 
 rightly these annoyances ought not to be weighed in the balance. 
 It will give to the Spanish Government the right to blockade the 
 Cuban ports, if she pleases so to do, but she would already have 
 done that if she were prepared to do it and if it were their inter- 
 est to do it, and if she should do it hereafter she will suffer more 
 than we. 
 
 In the next place, it does relax to some extent the responsibility 
 of Spain on account of atrocities committed or damages inflicted 
 on our citizens in chat island. I would about as soon hold the 
 Cuban Republic responsible for what is clone by their troops or by 
 their agencies as to hold Spain. It is a swap from one to the 
 other, in which there is little choice from a pecuniary standpoint. 
 It can not be a very disastrous one, and even if we did lose some- 
 thing for our own citizens in the matter of recovering damages, 
 for the cause of human justice, of human liberty, and for the dig- 
 nified and honorable course of the United States I for one would 
 be well willing to pay the price. Justice and liberty and honor 
 are cheap at any price.. 
 
 THIS RESOLUTION DOES NOT MEAN WAR. 
 
 Mr. President, it is said that this means war. I deny it. If 
 Spain should declare war against us, if she should seek to foment 
 war against us, because we recognize the belligerency of her for- 
 mer subjects who have been fighting her two and a half years, she 
 will have an unjust cause of complaint and war against us, and we 
 will have a just cause of complaint and war against her. I do 
 not wish to see the American people involved in war. I look upon 
 war as one of the greatest calamities that can befall the human 
 race. 
 
 2783 
 
28 
 
 But there is one other much greater calamity, and that is for 
 the high public spirit of a great nation to be so* deadened that it 
 can look upon plunder and pillage and murder and arson with 
 indifference, and can stifle truth for venal considerations. It is 
 worse than war for the public spirit of that nation to be so dead- 
 ened that it hesitates or delays one instant to go forward and do 
 any act of high and great justice because of fear of war. 
 
 If Spain were a greater and more powerful nation, if she had 
 tenfold the power she has, the dignity of the case would inspire 
 the Government of the United States to act more quickly and 
 without such prurient sentimentality and tenderness as tha.t pro- 
 fessed for an old nation which clings with beak and talons to the 
 last American possession yet within her grasp. 
 
 OUR PECULIAR RELATIONS TO CUBA— WE GAVE THEM THEIR EXEMPLAR. 
 
 A few words more, Mr. President, and I am done. This is not 
 the ordinary case of the belligerency of one segment of an ancient 
 empire or state against the old and established government. Geo- 
 graphically speaking, Cuba is a part of the American continent. 
 It is right by us, and all the writers of international law realize 
 and write down their views that humanity in such a case is a just 
 ground for intervention. If this were an intervention, we could 
 multiply the texts of international writers and publicists, includ- 
 ing the late President of the United States, to show that it is good 
 ground for the interference of this great nation. 
 
 But there is a higher ground, Mr. President, on which it is due 
 from the United States that we should act with a high spirit of 
 justice and consideration toward the struggling Cubans. If they 
 are trying to throw off the yoke of an old government which has 
 been oppressive to them, which has burdened them with taxes 
 which they can but poorly bear, which has denied to them the 
 representation which, as we maintain, is the right of freemen, let 
 me remind the people of the United States here and now that, 
 however they may preach upon this subject, they were themselves 
 the great nation that set the Cubau patriots this example. 
 
 Our fathers did just that thing a hundred years ago which they 
 are doing. It is we who have promulgated the principles, it is we 
 who have preached the doctrines, it is we who have done the 
 things that Cuba points to to-day and conjures her brave men to 
 imitate and follow. 
 
 WE HAVE WARNED OTHER NATIONS NOT TO INTERFERE WITH CUBA. 
 
 But more than that, Mr. President, we have assumed from the 
 very foundation of this Republic, as we were so aptly reminded 
 by the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] to-day,' a peculiar 
 relation to the Cuban isle. We have said to Great Britain, we 
 have said to France, we have said to Germany, we have said to 
 all the nations of this earth, " Cuba is in natural affinity with the 
 American Republic. It is a fortress that is hard by our sea gates. 
 We will not allow you to go there and rescue these suffering peo- 
 ple. We will not permit you to extend over that island a stable, 
 wholesome, established government. We will not allow you to 
 intrench yourselves there. We will not allow you to meddle 
 with this subject at all. Stand off, stand off, and attend to Euro- 
 pean policies. We are the great western nation. We are the 
 young, rich, and powerful heir of time, and we are to dictate, and 
 to guide-, and to rule, and to control, and to shape the destinies of 
 the great American continent." 
 2783 
 
29 
 
 Having taken that attitude, which was to our advantage, hav- 
 ing taken that attitude for the purpose of working out our own 
 development and defending our own liberties, are we going to say 
 that we will not bear the burden of that attitude, and are we going 
 to back down from it the very first time it presents to us an incon- 
 venience or a troublesome complication? 
 
 When a great nation goes forward and announces a great gen- 
 eral principle, when it enunciates its destiny and its intentions to 
 the nations of the earth, it can no more recede with honor from 
 that proposition made than a soldier can abandon a flag which he 
 is instructed to plant upon a rampart. We will be looked upon by 
 other nations, if we avoid that responsibility, as a nation that makes 
 much bluster and brag, but that does not stand up to its essential, 
 moral, legal, and international obligations. 
 
 Realizing that to be an obligation, one of equity, one of frater- 
 nity, one of neighborship, and one which points its prophetic finger 
 to the future career of the American continent, I would not hav« 
 this country act hastily about it; I would not have it act incau- 
 tiously about it; but in clear vision and by sure-footed steps, by 
 graded paces from which we should never recede, I would go for- 
 ward and let the people in Cuba know that we expect them to be 
 accorded by Spain belligerent rights; that their prisoners are to 
 be treated as prisoners of war and not shot down as dogs; and 
 that Christian civilization, through the voice of the American 
 Republic, gives to them, and demands for them, all the respect 
 and consideration which go with the right of war. -^_ 
 
 Let us recognize the belligerency of the Cuban people, which is a 
 fact; and in sending to our own people in Cuba bread, as we have 
 done, as an act of charity, let us act toward those who are engaged 
 in this awful strife with an equal spirit of justice. [Applause iv 
 the galleries.] 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wellington in the chair). 
 Order must be preserved in the galleries. 
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