\iz\ 
 

 SPEECH 
 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GEORGE GRAY, 
 
 OF DELAWARE, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 APRIL 14, 1898, 
 
 IN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY. 
 
 W A SHINGTON. 
 
 I898. 
 
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 -6,77 
 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. GEORGE GRAY 
 
 The Senate having under consideration the joint resolution (S.R.149) for 
 the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that 
 the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the 
 Island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and 
 Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the 
 land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into 
 effect- 
 Mr. GRAY said: 
 
 Mr. President: If it were not for the fact that I am a mem- 
 ber of the committee which has reported the resolutions that 
 are now before the Senate, I would at this solemn and fate- 
 ful moment in the history of my country remain silent and con- 
 tent myself by my vote in vindicating the position which I think 
 my country should occupy in asserting her cause before the civi- 
 lized world. In the few moments that I shall occupy I shall not 
 concern myself with any such — and I say it with all respect — in- 
 conceivably, in the presence of such a crisis, low and contempt- 
 ible considerations as to who may or who may not hold the bonds 
 of Spain or of the Cuban Republic. 
 
 I am not here, sir, to govern my public action in the face of the 
 world in this grave crisis by mere suspicion as to what may or may 
 not be the motives of others. I was not born with suspicion in 
 my blood: but I was born, I hope, sir, with that in my blood that 
 will make me always stand erect, until I am stricken down, for the 
 honor of my country and the glory of her flag. 
 
 Mr. President, it is a hackneyed saying, I know, that partisan 
 politics halt at the shore line; but, hackneyed as it is, it is preg- 
 nant with meaning. We are here to-day — and I attribute to no 
 Senator upon this floor any feeling less patriotic than my own — 
 [ we are here to-day as Americans all. Patriotism, and not parti- 
 sanship, is the spring and motive, as it should be, of our action, 
 
 whatever form it may take. I do not believe that anyone here 
 3334 3 
 
will gain his own consent to maneuver for a partisan advantage 
 at a time like this. I am here, sir, to support, not a Republican 
 President, not to say that I range myself behind a partisan leader, 
 but, in my humble way, to support an American President, the 
 leader of 70,000,000 of people, inducted into his high office by their 
 will and by the laws of his country. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Will my friend allow me to ask him if he con- 
 siders these resolutions in line with the President's message? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I will come to that and answer if my friend will 
 indulge me for a moment. 
 
 Mr. President, I am here, in case we can not do what I think 
 better, to support the resolutions which came from the commit- 
 tee of which I have the honor to be a member. I believe, how- 
 ever, sir, that the resolution that was introduced yesterday by the 
 Senator from Maine [Mr. Frye] is wiser and a better expression 
 of the feeling of the country. It was considered by the Commit- 
 tee on Foreign Relations and received the support in that com- 
 mittee, as was said yesterday— and I am not disclosing, certainly, 
 at first hand the secrets of that committee or its proceedings — re- 
 ceived the support of four — I do not remember, but five, certainly 
 of four— members of that committee, and I believe, as I said, it 
 better represents the feeling of this country and the attitude that 
 the good people of the United States would assume if they had a 
 fair expression of their own will and of their own desire in that 
 regard. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. Mr. President, my honorable friend is using 
 Language which is vital to this case and rather seems to imply 
 that those who differ with him are not in so loyal and high an 
 attitude toward the President as he is. 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I disclaim it if I have said anything which would 
 give the Senator ground for such a statement. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. The Senator puts an interpretation upon these 
 resolutions 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I have not discussed the resolutions. I have not 
 come to them yet. I am going to speak of them. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I thought you said you would speak to these 
 
 resolutions in support of the President of the United States. 
 
 Mr. GRAY. No, sir; I did not use that language. 
 3234 
 
Mr. DANIEL. What I wish to know is whether the Senator, 
 when he recommends these resolutions to us, considers that they 
 embody the views of the President of the United States? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. Mr. President, with all respect for my very good 
 friend the Senator from Virginia I do think that he is a little pre- 
 vious in asking the question. 
 
 Mr. DANIEL. I beg pardon of the Senator. 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I know there is no intention on his part to unduly 
 interrupt me. but 1 had not spoken to the resolutions, although I 
 intended to discuss them in my own way as well as I could and 
 very briefly. I will come to them in a moment. 
 
 Mr. President. I did say with some emphasis, because it came 
 from my heart, that I was here, as I conceive my duty as an 
 American Senator to be, to support in this grave crisis of our 
 country's history an American President, chosen by the American 
 people for the very purpose that he is now seeking to carry out 
 and achieve. 
 
 Mr. President, there is no need that I should occupy the time 
 of this Senate in making, or in attempting to make, a speech, if I 
 were capable of it, that would merely have a tendency to excite 
 the feelings of the American people or my colleagues here if they 
 needed such excitement. We do not need to lash running horses. 
 We all agree — of course I know we all agree — in the patriotic in- 
 tent and purpose to support our country and stand loyally by it 
 in this hour of trial, but 1 want to put, in these few brief hours 
 before final action is taken, for myself and for others who may 
 think that what I say is worthy of attention, the case of niy coun- 
 try upon grounds so high, as I conceive them, that all the world 
 must approve them. 
 
 Mr. President, why have we waited all these long years while 
 Buffering humanity has been crying out across the narrow strait 
 that divides Cuba from the territory of the United States? Why, 
 during all these months of patient waiting and anxious longing, 
 have we been performing our international duty that we owe to a 
 power with whom we are at peace? Why have we patrolled our 
 coast and spent millions of the public money in order that inter- 
 national duty might be kept and performed to the letter? It is 
 
 because the American people, as represented by the American 
 3334 
 
6 
 
 Government, have a conscience. It is because no war or armed 
 collision, with all its frightful sequences, would be tolerated by 
 the civilization of America unless its conscience was satisfied that 
 such collision and such war was righteous altogether. We have 
 no dynastic wars; we have no wars of conquest or aggression: we 
 have marked out in our diplomacy for a hundred years a new 
 pathway, which has led the nations upward to a higher plane, 
 and that is our glory and our pride^Mt is because the conscience 
 of America is satisfied to-day that we stand here and feel that we 
 are reflecting their will when we vote for any of the resolutions 
 which are now before the Senate. 
 
 What has made the case that has thus affected so deeply the 
 heart and conscience of the American people? Exceptional cir- 
 cumstances, circumstances that we had no hand in creating, and 
 out of those circumstances duties have arisen that we can not 
 evade or ignore. Time and propinquity are of the essence of the 
 situation. £Cuba is right at our door, and that colors and quali- 
 fies the duty we owe and the attitude we occupy toward herT] If 
 she were on the other side of the ocean, moored off the coast of 
 Africa or Portugal, while our interest might be excited and our 
 feelings stirred, our duty might be different. But there she is 
 where God placed her. There, during all these three years, we 
 have waited while the drama of blood has been enacted under 
 our eyes, and we have stood as a people strong and conscientious, 
 with a religious and holy hope that humanity at last would assert 
 itself there without our intervention and right those wrongs; 
 and we have waited and waited until, in the language of the 
 President, we can endure it no longer and the situation has be- 
 come intolerable^/ 
 
 Time then enters into it. Time has elapsed sufficient to make 
 our duty clear and plain. God knows that I, with others in this 
 body and outside of it, would have had this occasion pass away, 
 would have avoided all necessity for unrolling the purple testa- 
 ment of bloody war and sought some peaceful solution, as I be- 
 lieve that the President of the United States has, conscientiously 
 and in accordance with the best feelings and aspirations and 
 desires of the American people, sought a peaceful solution of 
 
 this difficulty. Mr. President, I applaud every effort that he has 
 3234 
 
made to secure peace with honor to this peace-loving country. 
 We are to-day stronger morally and materially for those efforts. 
 And he would not have fairly met the high responsibility of hia 
 station had he failed to make them. The American people will 
 not fail to do justice to their President. 
 
 But, as the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] said, it is 
 apparent from the President's message that the function of 
 diplomacy is exhausted and the matter is submitted to the Con- 
 gress of the United States. 
 
 Now, what are the grounds upon which we are to take the grave 
 step which we are about to take? To recognize merely the strug- 
 gling Republic of Cuba in its contest against the parent country? 
 No. Suppose that contest had been waged in such fashion that 
 the rules of civilized war had not been violated; we would not 
 have been justified merely on that account in recognizing this 
 republic as independent from the mother country — we would 
 not have been performing our international duty if we had — but 
 it is because in the course of that contest humanity has been out- 
 raged, the conscience of the American people has been stirred, 
 and a state of things has been produced which no man with a 
 human heart in his breast can look upon calmly and with quiet 
 pulsa. 
 
 Mr. President, the case has been made up. The President has 
 recited the pitiful story in the message which he has sent us. It 
 has been reenforced by the sober, calm, almost colorless statement 
 of our own colleague, the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Proctor] . 
 The consular reports make that statement a moderate one and 
 under, rather than beyond, the truth. We have those reports on 
 our desks. I do not want to read from them; we have it all with 
 us; the world will have it all. I do not want to take up your time 
 to tell you that in January of this year Consul-General Fitzhugh 
 Lee, writing to the Government, says: 
 
 I have the honor to transmit herewith some statistics sent me about the 
 mortality in the town of Santa Clara, the capital of Santa Clara Province, 
 situated about 33 miles south of Sagua, which numbers some 14,000 inhal> 
 itants. It will be noticed that there were 5,489 deaths in that town in the 
 seven years previous to 1897, which included 1,417 in one year, from an epi- 
 demic of yellow fever, while in 1897, owing to the concentration order, there 
 were 6,981; the concentration order went into effect in February. 
 
 In that year, 1897, the month's death rate for January was 78, but in Feb- 
 3234 
 
ruary, the first month of reconcentration, there were 114, and there has 
 been a gradual increase since, as you will see, until in December, 189", the 
 number of deaths was 1.011. 
 
 Or that Mr. Brice, in a letter dated November 17 last, said: 
 
 Death rate in this city over 80 persons daily, and nearly all from want of 
 food, medicines, and clothing. As I write this a dead negro woman lies in 
 the street, within 200 yards of this consulate, starved to death; died some 
 time this morning, and will lie there, maybe, for days. The misery and des- 
 titution in this city and other towns in the interior are beyond description. 
 
 Mr. BACON. What is the date of that letter? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. November 17, 1897. I take these reports at hap- 
 hazard. There are many other things more harrowing still, but 
 I am not here to harrow your feelings, but to state the basis of 
 our action. That is well stated in the preamble to the resolution 
 reported from the Committee on Foreign Relations, which reads 
 as follows: 
 
 Whereas the abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three 
 years in the Island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral 
 sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian 
 civilization, culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United States 
 battle ship, with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the 
 harbor of Havana, and can not longer be endured, as has been set forth by 
 the President of the United States in his message to Congress of April 1 1 , 1898, 
 upon which the action of Congress was invited: Therefore, 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, etc. 
 
 I want to call the attention of the Senate to the ground upon 
 which this committee has placed the action which they invite in 
 this body, not that the Republic of Cuba has sustained a gallant 
 contest for these three years past— and I know that in every fiber 
 of my being I sympathize with those gallant men — not on that 
 account, but on account of the violated womanhood and child- 
 hood and motherhood and manhood that has been perpetrated 
 right at our own doors. That is the morality of the situation. 
 
 I liken the action which is proposed to be taken in this country 
 now, Mr. President, so far as its moral aspect is concerned as a 
 member of the family of nations, to that of a man in a civilized 
 community who is a law-abiding citizen, who has next door to 
 him a villainous and cruel neighbor who every day chokes hia 
 wife and starves and maltreats his children, and because he is a 
 law-abiding citizen he bears it and bears it and bears it for days 
 and weeks, until at last he can bear it no longer, and, law or no 
 
 3234 
 
9 
 
 law, he enters the residence of his neighbor, takes him by the 
 throat, and says, "Take your hand off of that woman and let 
 these children go;*' and all his neighbors applaud. That is what 
 we propose to do, and all our neighbors of the family of nations 
 will applaud our action in so doing. If they do not, God help 
 them and the civilization they represent. 
 
 Mr. President, interference in the government of another coun- 
 try is nowhere countenanced by specific rule or canon of interna- 
 tional law. It can not be. You could not formulate a rule of in- 
 ternational law to say that under certain circumstances one na- 
 tion may invade the territory of another if the purpose is so and 
 so and so and so; but international law stands mute and holds 
 that nation blameless that in the cause of humanity interferes to 
 bring about a cessation of outrageous cruelty, to lift up the fall- 
 ing cause of humanity, and to let the oppressed go free. Every 
 case must stand upon its own merits, and when the case of a civ- 
 ilized Christian country commends itself to the moral judgment 
 of its citizens, then it is sanctioned, then it is justified, in the in- 
 terference it proposes. 
 
 The writers on international law have not been entirely silent 
 upon this subject. Professor Lawrence, of England, in a recent 
 publication in 1895, called Principles of International Law, after 
 stating the general rule that international law does not counte- 
 nance or sanction the interference or invasion of one nation in the 
 affairs or in the territory of another, states this principle thus: 
 At the same time, it — 
 That is, international law — 
 
 At the same time, it will not condemn such interventions if they are under- 
 taken with a single eye to the object in view and without ulterior considera- 
 tions of self-interest and ambition. 
 
 Have we not, Senators, in our conduct purged our action and 
 
 our intent of every possible selfish consideration? Where. Mr. 
 
 President, have you ever heard, either on the floor of the Senate 
 
 or the House of Representatives, in public utterance r private 
 
 deliverance, one suggestion that we should interfere for the sake 
 
 of aggrandizing the territory of the United States or bringing 
 
 about the annexation of Cuba as a star to be added to the galaxy 
 3234 
 
10 
 
 of the States of this Union? Never, I will warrant. I never 
 have. 
 
 Should the cruelty — 
 
 Now, mark you — 
 
 Should the cruelty be so long continued and so revolting that the best in- 
 stincts of human nature are outraged by it, and should an opportunity arise 
 for bringing it to an end and removing its cause without adding fuel to the 
 flame of the contest, there is nothing in the law of nations which will con- 
 demn as a wrongdoer the state which steps forward and undertakes the 
 necessary intervention. Each case must be judged on its own merits. There 
 is a great difference between declaring a national act to be legal, and there- 
 fore part of the order under which states have consented to live, and allow- 
 ing it to be morally blameless as an exception to ordinary rules. I have no 
 right to enter my neighbor's garden without his consent; but if I saw a child 
 of his robbed and ill-treated in it by a tramp, I should throw ceremony to 
 the winds and rush to the rescue without waiting to ask for permission. In 
 the same way, a state may, in a great emergency, set aside everyday re- 
 straints, and neither in its case nor in the corresponding case of the individ- 
 ual will blame be incurred. 
 
 Mr. President, upon that high ground I wish to place the cause 
 of my country, now about to take this important step which may 
 set the world aflame. I desire that statement to go before the 
 forum of nations to justify the course we are about to pursue. 
 Nothing here less high, less holy, less sacred, could impel the 
 great American people thus to stand erect and demand that this 
 cruelty, outrage, and oppression shall cease, and cease at once 
 upon our demand, and if not upon our demand, then by force of 
 American arms. 
 
 We have nothing here to do with the Monroe doctrine. It plays 
 no part in this contest. The circumstances by which we are sur- 
 rounded are exceptional. The case is out of any ordinary rule — 
 the propinquity of Cuba, the tyranny they have endured, the out- 
 rages, and the character of them, as my friend the Senator from 
 Alabama [Mr. Morgan] says. No, Mr. President, it is because 
 outraged nature can not longer stand what we have been com- 
 pelled to endure. We can not forever keep our place and say we 
 are not our brother's keeper. God himself will hold us to respon- 
 sibility if we continue to plead thus. 
 
 Mr. President, there are some lines of a New England poet on 
 another occasion, to express the deep feeling of a strong and right- 
 eous American welling up from an honest heart, that seem to me 
 
11 
 
 to apply to the situation that is forced upon our observation, where 
 he exclaims: 
 
 Look on who will in apathy, 
 
 And stifle ye who can 
 The sympathies, the hopes, the fears, 
 
 That make man truly man. 
 
 i first drew in New England's air. 
 
 And from her hardy breast 
 Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk 
 
 That will not let me rest. 
 
 Mr. President, a word or two more as to the report of the mi- 
 nority of the committee in regard to the recognition of Cuba. I 
 have already touched upon it. The Senator from Indiana | Mr. 
 Turpie] who has just taken his seat, in the eloquent address 
 which he has made— and no one listens to him more gladly and de- 
 lightedly than I always do— used an illustration which it seems to 
 me ought to control the situation. He said suppose France at 
 the end of our Revolutionary struggle, with her armed forces on 
 our shores, had attempted to dictate to the United States as to 
 what form of government they should have and how they should 
 administer that which they already had. The answer, of course, 
 could be only in one vein. 
 
 Is that to be the attitude of the United States on the Island of 
 Cuba when this war shall happily come to end, that we are to 
 stand mute in the presence of this republican government, and 
 no matter what policy is pursued, no matter what form of gov- 
 ernment they set up, that we are to retire without influence, wi1 fr- 
 ont voice, as to the future of the people of that island? Suppose, 
 for instance— and I am making a violent assumption, because 
 from what I know of the people who make that republic and are 
 its leaders I have only admiration for them— that at the end of 
 that struggle Gomez and his followers should seek to wreak 
 vengeance as the result of the not unnatural resentment which 
 he and his followers have against the 200,000 Spanish subjects 
 who still remain upon that island. Are we to have no voice? Is 
 our protest to be of no avail, and is the analogy put by the Sena- 
 tor from Indiana in the case of France and the United States at 
 the end of the Revolutionary struggle to hold? No; it can not. 
 
 No, Mr. President, we are interv ning not to recognize a revo- 
 lutionary government, but we are interfering in the sacred cause 
 3234 
 
12 
 
 of humanity; and if it comes, as surely it will — the independence 
 of the people of that island — due respect and due influence and 
 due weight and consideration will surely be given to the gallant 
 men who have made this struggle and have erected the frame- 
 work of government of which we hear so much; but we will hold 
 their future in our hands, and I am not afraid of any bondhold- 
 ing attack upon the United States on the ground that we have 
 for a single moment controlled the destinies of that island. We 
 do not, in the language of the books, absorb her territory. We do 
 not as we enter into this great drama declare that we wish to absorb 
 the territory. We declare something entirely different. And if 
 you are to take our conduct measured and characterized by our 
 declarations, then we are absolved and free from the conditions 
 upon which any power on earth could claim that we were responsi- 
 ble for the incomes which have been mortgaged to pay Spanish 
 bonds. 
 
 Mr. LINDSAY. If it will not interrupt the Senator from Dela- 
 ware, I should like to make an inquiry. Suppose when we take 
 possession of the Island of Cuba and make the people of Cuba 
 independent they form a government which, in our estimation, 
 operates unjustly toward a portion of the people of that island 
 who adhered to the Spanish Crown, are we to refuse to recognize 
 the government; and if so, to what means are we to resort to 
 cause a government to be erected that comes within our approval? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. We can not guard against every human eventu- 
 ality, but we can take care that a government formed under our 
 supervision and care and tutelage shall be such a government as 
 ■will be just not only to this country but to those for whom we 
 have concern on the score of humanity in the territory over which 
 that government extends. I do not believe that there is any 
 thought now or that there ever has been any thought that we are 
 forever, after this matter shall be accomplished, to exercise a pro- 
 tectorate or suzerainty over that island or any government which 
 may be set up there under our auspices. 
 
 Mr. LINDSAY. Then, if the Senator will permit, I will ask 
 another question. If we are to retain control until a government 
 is formed which meets with our approval, will that government be 
 the act of the people or the act of the United States? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. We are crossing a great many bridges before we 
 
 3234 
 
13 
 
 get to them, but I believe that when that happy consummation of 
 American arms shall come we shall say to all the world, and illus- 
 trate what we say by our acts, that no selfish consideration has 
 actuated us; that we spoke the truth when we said we intervene 
 in the cause of humanity, and that we have aided the people of 
 that island in setting up a republican government, and we will 
 retire and leave them to conduct better housekeeping than was 
 ever conducted under Spanish rule or Spanish protectorate. Now, 
 I leave the subject. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Will the Senator permit me to ask him 
 whether or not, after we intervene, the making of such a govern- 
 ment as we approve of by the United States does not of itself con- 
 stitute a protectorate? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. Oh, Mr. President, I am not here to answer meta- 
 physical conundrums like that. I am here, sir, in the face of 
 
 this 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. Will the Senator pardon me? Does the Sen- 
 ator decline to answer my question? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I decline to answer it now, because it has noth- 
 ing to do with my argument. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. I beg pardon of the Senator for interrupting 
 him. 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I always listen to my friend with pleasure, but I 
 am about to close. 
 
 Mr. CAFFERY. I am so opaque-minded that I do not see any 
 metaphysics in the question. 
 Mr. GRAY. That may be. 
 
 Mr. BACON. Will the Senator from Delaware permit me to 
 ask him a question, as a member of the Committee on Foreign 
 Relations? I ask it because I desire the information. Do I un- 
 derstand the Senator to favor the first resolution reported by the 
 committee? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I favor those resolutions if I can not get what I 
 consider better. I do not think they are the best possible out- 
 come. 
 
 Mr. BACON. The Senator does not favor it? 
 Mr. GRAY. I favor the resolutions in one contingency— when 
 the others are voted down. I am going to vote, if I have the op- 
 portunity, for another set. 
 3234 
 
14 
 
 Mr. BACON. That is a preliminary question which I wanted 
 to ask the Senator. Probably he may not be in a position to reply 
 to what I am about to ask, as he does not give his unqualified 
 consent to the first resolution. I ask it in good faith, in order 
 that I may get the opinion of the Senator, and through him the 
 opinions of his colleagues upon the committee. I ask the Senator 
 to state to the Senate what he means by the term in the resolu- 
 tion, the independence of the people of Cuba? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I will reply to the Senator. The first resolution 
 reads thus: 
 
 First. That the people of the Island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be- 
 free and independent. 
 
 I agree that the people of the Island of Cuba of right ought to 
 be free and independent. I wish to God that I could say that they 
 are. I do not believe it. 
 
 Mr. BACON. The Senator, as I understand it, does not agree 
 to that word " are?" 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I do not. 
 
 Mr. BACON. Then the inquiry which I wish to make must be 
 addressed to some other Senator. I want to know, and I ask the 
 other members of the committee to bear it in mind when they 
 come to address the Senate, what is the meaning of that resolution 
 when it says that the jieople are independent. 
 
 Mr. MORGAN. May I interrupt for a minute? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. MORGAN. I will ask the Senator from Georgia what is 
 the meaning of the very identical language in the Declaration of 
 Independence of the United States in 1776, when the world knows 
 that historically we were not then independent? 
 
 Mr. BACON. I think the answer is a very plain one. We are 
 speaking of another people. We are speaking of the conditions 
 there existing. We say that we recognize that they are inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 Mr. MORGAN. Historically 
 
 Mr. BACON. One moment, if you please. J want to know 
 what you mean when you say it. I am not saying it. 
 
 Mr. GRAY (to Mr. Bacon). Ask him in your own time, if you 
 please. 
 3234 
 
15 
 
 Mr. BACON. Let me finish the answer. I am not responsible 
 for the interjection of the Senator from Alabama. It was he who 
 asked the question. We, in the case of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence in 1776, were speaking of ourselves, which is a vast dif- 
 ference. 
 
 Mr. GRAY. That is the true distinction. I agree with the 
 Senator from Georgia entirely. In 1776 we declared before the 
 world that we were free and independent. 
 
 Mr. MORGAN. Was that the truth? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. We are now called upon to state as a fact in re- 
 gard to another people that which is notoriously not true. 
 
 Mr. MORGAN. Will the Senator allow me? 
 
 Mr. GRAY. I was about to close. 
 
 Mr. MORGAN. When we made the declaration in 1776 that 
 the people of the United States are and of right ought to be free 
 and independent, we certainly were not speaking of history. We 
 were simply uttering a grand political decree which was the basis 
 of our political union at that time, and that was the meaning of 
 that decree at that time, and it is the meaning, as I understand it, 
 of this resolution. 
 
 Mr. GRAY. The President of the United States in his late 
 
 message, besides reciting the pitiful tale of sufferings and outrage 
 
 in the Island of Cuba, has told us, and we are bound to take his 
 
 official declaration as the basis of our action, and the rightful 
 
 and competent basis of our action, that — 
 
 The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the 
 war can not be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smolder 
 with varying seasons, but it has not been and it is plain that it can not be ex- 
 tinguished by present methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a 
 condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of 
 Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of en- 
 dangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak 
 and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. 
 
 And so say the American people, unless I mishear their voice 
 
 entirely. This war must stop in the interests spoken of by the 
 
 President, and for that we intervene, and for that cause we will 
 
 rally the manhood of America, which will go to the seacoast with 
 
 an erect and defiant front, ready to die for the honor of their 
 
 country and in the cause of outraged humanity which we attempt 
 
 to succor. [Applause in the galleries.] 
 
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