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 IXlcQcnc (Tuba 1Row/' 
 
 GERRIT SMITH 
 
 1873. 

 
 LET CRUSHED CUBA ARISE. 
 
 Substance of the Speech Delivered in Syracuse, 
 July 4th, 1873. 
 
 In our Fourth of July celebrations there are two events, 
 which, far above all other events, we come together to celebrate. 
 One of these is the deliverance of our country, nearly a century ago, 
 from political despotism, and the other is the practical recognition by 
 our nation, a few years since, of the grand doctrine that "all men 
 are created equal." I might rather say its practical recognition of 
 this grand doctrine wrought out into the grander fact of the deliver- 
 ance of four millions of our countrymen from the yoke of slavery. 
 
 But how can we best prove to the world that we celebrate 
 these two events in our hearts as well as with our lips? I answer 
 that we can best prove it by showing that we sympathize with those 
 peoples amongst whom this twofold bondage, from which we have 
 escaped, still exists. There are still many such peoples on the 
 earth — many who still suffer from political slavery or domestic 
 slavery or from both. One of these peoples is very near to our 
 country — and this day will not be in vain either to them or to us if 
 we shall use it in kindling our pity and our prayers for them. 
 
 The island of Cuba is less than a hundred miles from us. 
 Look at her on the map. She lies at the feet of this great nation; 
 and lies there as it were imploring our mercy. She is, probably, at 
 once the most fertile and beautiful island on the globe God has 
 dealt very bountifully with her — but man has dealt very cruelly with 
 her Her vast aboriginal population melted rapidly away under new 
 disease and under the heavy tasks, which Spanish greed of gain 
 imposed upon it. History says that in the year 1853 not one Indian 
 was left upon the island Some had escaped to Florida; some had 
 committed suicide But the most of them had disappeared before 
 wasting toil and sweeping disease. Poor Africa, the prey of 
 Christendom for centuries, was taxed to supply the place of the 
 Indians. Negro slavery succeeded to Indian slavery With the 
 exception of the few brief and small footholds which England and 
 France acquired in Cuba, she has, from the time of her discovery, 
 been ruled by Spain, and invariably by a rod of iron F'rom yt;ar
 
 to year, Spain has, under the terrors and tortures of the lash and 
 under other terrors and tortures, drawn from poor Cuba all that she 
 could possibly be made to yield Spanish hunger has never ceased 
 to feed on Cuban fatness. But it is only in the last five years that 
 the sufferings and sorrows of Cuba have reached their climax. 
 During this period Spain has sent some seventy thousand Spaniards 
 on the island, she has employed to rivet the chains of slavery upon 
 four hundred thousand negroes and to slaughter all, both whites and 
 blacks, who should dare to resist her authority. Cuban diseases 
 and Cuban valor account for the destruction of nearly the whole of 
 these seventy thousand soldiers. Very few of them have lived to 
 return to Spain. On the other hand quite as many of the insurgents 
 have fallen. Spain spares none of her Cuban prisoners; and even 
 women and children do not always escape her murderous rage. 
 
 Now, why, in the light of these facts, should we not sympathize 
 with Cuba, and make this Fourth of July beautiful and blessed by 
 expressing our spmpathy with her? Does not the objector say; 
 "Charity begins at home, and that there are enough objects just 
 around us to exhaust our beneficence?" But if charity begins at 
 home, it neverless does not end at home. For my own part, I 
 welcome the idea that charity has no home — but is ever on the wing 
 in quest of objects needing her relief and comfort. Say not that 
 the Cuban is not our countryman. The good 'Samaritan, so far 
 from confining his charity to his countrymen, extended it to those of 
 even a hostile country. By the way, Cuba, by torce of geographical 
 position and indissoluble commercial ties, is a part of our country. 
 Is it said that international law forbids our helping the Cuban? If it 
 does, then away with international law. If international law thus 
 wars upon our nature and demands the suppression of its righteous 
 sympathies, then accursed be international law. That is law, 
 which harmonizes with nature. This is no law, which does violence 
 to nature. Strictly speaktng, the world has not, as yet, international 
 law. Each nation decides for herself how she shall deal with other 
 nations. But let me here say that I believe there will be, and that 
 too at no distant day, a real international law — one that shall ex- 
 press the joint and just and fraternal sense of all the leading nations. 
 
 A few years ago, our Government, whilst sternly denying all 
 favor to Cuba, allowed Spain to build in the harbor of New York 
 and supply with munitions of war thirty gunboats. That they were 
 to be used in carrying on her infernal war against the poor Cubans 
 was as plain as day Now, if we have laws for this wickedness still 
 in force, then we should hasten to repent of them and to repeal them. 
 But we have not such laws; and, in showing this favor to Spain and
 
 this disfavor to Cuba, we went in the face of our laws, and went 
 back upon our better days. 
 
 It is true that by our Congressional Statute of 1794 Spain 
 would not be prohibited from fitting out vessels in our waters to be 
 used in subduing her insurgent colony. But in the year 1817 
 another and very different law on the subject of neutrality was 
 enacted by Congress. The law of 1794 does not mention a colony. 
 But the law of 1817 forbids the fitting out in our waters of vessels 
 to be used against any state or any colony with which we are at 
 peace. This law puts a colony on the same footing with a state. 
 It no more allows our waters to be used in a war against a colony 
 with which we are at peace than against an independent state or 
 nation with which we are at peace The law is perfectly plain. 
 Nevertheless, plain as it is, there are learned gentlemen who seem 
 to insist that it was enacted solely in the interest of the independent 
 state or nation. But the law, not only does not read as they say it 
 does, but the circumstances attendiug its enactment forbids such a 
 reading of it. What were these circumstances? At the time the 
 law was enacted, the Spanish colonies in America were struggling to 
 cast off the yoke of Spain and to become free and independent 
 states. Moreover, the government and people of our country were 
 warmly in sympathy with these struggling colonists. How strange, 
 if in these circumstances we should have enacted laws against, 
 instead of in favor of the colonies! One thing more in this 
 connection — no other man was so earnest, eloquent and efficient an 
 advocate of the cause of these Spanish colonies as Henry Clay. 
 He has the credit of having carried through this law. Suppose you 
 that he thought it to be a law discriminating against the colonies? 
 Preposterous supposition! It is true that this law was, by its own 
 limitation, to expire in two years. But so well pleased were the 
 American people with its provisions in question, that in one year 
 they were re-enacted in a permanent law, which has neither been 
 repealed nor modified 
 
 Now, why is it that our Government has not lived up to the 
 requirements of its own law? Why is it that it has suffered vessels 
 of war to go from our shipyards against the Cubans, and, this too, 
 whilst sparing no pains to shut out all pity and all succor from these 
 oppressed and outraged brethren?! hope it is for some worthier rea- 
 son than to propitiate a nation by helping her to sacrifice her colony. 
 Nevertheless what good reason can we plead for helping Spain 
 to prolong slavery in Cuba and to carry on wholesale murder there? 
 
 Why has not our Government accorded belligerent rights to the 
 Cuban? Because, as say some of our statesmen, the insurgents
 
 have amounted to no more than a mob Surely, they are more 
 than a mob, who have carried on a war for nearly five years against 
 a strong and warlike nation, and this, too, with steadily increasing 
 prospects of ultimate success. Surely, a cause which has enlisted 
 the sympathies of all but a mere handful of the native Cuban 
 population— a cause which, during all these years, has maintained a 
 constitutional form of government, and. which, at the very begin- 
 ning of its existance, was honored by a sincere and solemn decree 
 of the abolition of slavery, should not be spoken of as the movement 
 of a mob. And some of our statesmen belittle the progress of the 
 Cubans, and excuse the apathy of our Government toward them, by 
 the cry that the insurgents have no ports. It is true that, although 
 tney hold a great part of the island, they have no ports. The 
 Spanish fleet, recruited to our shame from our own shipyards, con- 
 trols all the ports. Nevertheless, may not the insurgents be 
 recognized as carrying on a war? Our southern brethren carried on 
 a war, yes and a very effective war, against us, although they had no 
 ports — not so much as one port into which to bring a prize. The 
 three or four ports they so bravely and persistingly contended for 
 were so closely blockaded as to be of little or no value to them. 
 In our revolutionary war our fathers had literally no ports. Never- 
 theless, though England was mistress of the seas, we won from her 
 our liberties. Thus a people, determined and brave, can not only 
 carry on a war without ports, but even a conquering war. A people, 
 more determined and brave than the Cuban worriers, there never 
 were — nor, alas, a people more heartlessly forsaken by a calculating 
 Christendom. The nations of Europe recognized the belligerent 
 rights of our revolutionary fathers. Even Spain came to their help — 
 and, this too, though, like the Cubans, they had no ports. Years 
 ago, our Government should have admitted not only the belligerent 
 rights of the Cubans, but their national independence also. 
 
 1 close with saying that, in this very strange and very sad default 
 of our Government, the people must take the Cuban matter into 
 their own hands. President Grant has repeatedly spoken right 
 words regarding this abominable war of Spain upon Cuba. From 
 every part of the land must come up the cry of the people for right 
 action to follow these right words. Moreover, our whole people 
 should incessantly cry in the ears of thrice guilty, thrice barbarous, 
 thrice bloody Spain, the words of Jehovah to Pharaoh: "Let my people 
 GO ! Let my people go ! !" We of Syracuce and its surroundings, 
 who, for half a century, have, quite as much as any other communi- 
 ties, been taught to welcome the solidarity of the human race and 
 and the doctrine that every man whatever his clime or color, and be
 
 he Cuban or American, is our brother, are emphatically bound to 
 call every people my people. Never, until they reach success did 
 our old abolitionists cease to ring in the ears of the American slave- 
 holder: "Let my people go ! Let my people go ! ! " And never 
 until the Spanish despot and Spanish slaveholder have yielded, 
 should v/e cease to ring in their ears: "Let my people go! Let 
 my people go! ! " 
 
 At the close of Mr. Smith's Speech, Alderman Gardner offered 
 the following Resolution: 
 
 "Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with the oppressed and 
 outraged Cubans, and that we call on our Government to delay no 
 longer to acknowledge their beligerency, if not indeed their inde- 
 pendence also." 
 
 Mayor Wallace, the president of the day then put the Resolu- 
 tion to vote. It passed unanimously. From the vast assembly 
 there came not up one dissenting voice.
 
 SPAIN CUBA. 
 
 In a speech, made in February, 1861 , in the Capitol at Albany 
 and printed in the New York Tribune, the position was taken that 
 France and England and the other nations were bound to intervene 
 and put an end to American slavery The argument, which issued 
 in this position, was that mankind being a unite, and the whole world 
 being charged with the care of the whole world, every part of the 
 human family is responsible for the huge and persistent wrongs suf- 
 fered in any part of it. The conventional arrangement which divides 
 the people of the earth into nations, and leaves to each of them the 
 ordinary government of itself, was admitted to be necessary. Never- 
 theless it was held that this arrangement does not authorize a mo- 
 ment's abdication of the world's government of the world, nor a 
 moment's neglect on the part of that wide and universal government 
 to supervise the workings of the subordinate or national governments. 
 The great sacred principle, which lies at the base of this all-com- 
 prehensive, and out of which such government grows, is that by 
 Divine appointment every man is the brother and keeper of every 
 other man. The argument admitted that it is not for this universal 
 government to take cognizance of all wrongs — of such as are tem- 
 porary and of such as are comparatively small. It must look to the 
 national governments to correct these; and it must always be patient, 
 even generously patient, with those governments. But in the pres- 
 ence of such gigantic crimes as slavery, the inquisition, the thuggee 
 and other monstrous outbreakes against human rights, this world 
 government must act promptly and effectually, or justly be held 
 responsible for them. 
 
 This position taken in the speech referred to was, of course, 
 disapproved by many as unpatriotic and even traitorous. It was, 
 however, true and called for. Better was it thus to testify against a 
 wicked nation, even though it be our own, that had imbruted and 
 worse than murdered many more millions, then to be disloyal to 
 humanity and heaven. But if intervention was right in the case of 
 these high crimes in our own country, with all possible emphasis is 
 it allowable, yes demanded, in the case of the higher, more heinous 
 and more persistent crimes in Cuba. For Cuba is of all the earth 
 the land of slavery and slaughter. One of our eloquent men has 
 well said that the record of Spain in that unhappy island is a river of 
 blood with a border of gold. She has, indeed, sought gold there at 
 the cost of an ever-ceasing flow of blood. 
 
 When I ascribed to Cuba the pre-eminence in crimes and 
 horrors. I make no account of such comparatively little things as
 
 the summary and murderous disposition of scores of the crew and 
 passengers of the Virginius, the murder of the school boys for 
 playing in the cemetery of Havana or the murder of Speakman and 
 Wyeth. These were but some of Spain's mere sips of blood. This 
 pre-eminence consists in that broad and deep current of her 
 cruelties, which in its sweep through nearly four centuries, has left 
 of the vast number of natives she found upon the island and of their 
 descendants not so much as one individual. Las Casas" history of 
 these unparalleled cruelties gives but a few specimens or small 
 sections of them. This pre-eminence consists, too, in her enslaving 
 of Africans, many millions of whom have gone up from that blood- 
 soaked island to testify at the bar of God against the cruellest type 
 of slavery the world ever saw. What further justifies the ascription 
 of this pre-eminence is the fact that Spain still holds in Cuba 
 several hundred thousand slaves, and holds them, too, not only in 
 defiance of the well-nigh universal sentiment of Christendcm but of 
 that decree of the Revolutionary government of the island, which, 
 five years ago, abolished all the slavery existing upon it. By the 
 way, how cruel and causeless and suspicion still entertained by 
 some honorable men of the honesty of this decree ! There is not 
 one fact to impeach, but there are innumerable facts to attest, the 
 perfect sincerity of its authors. Right here let me say that nothing 
 can be more absurd than to look to Spain for good faith in the 
 matter of slavery. She is the nation, that was so base as to give 
 her promise to Great Britian to abandon the slavetrade and that, 
 after being paid much money for the lying promise, did nothing 
 whatever toward fulfilling it. And what still further entitles Spain 
 to this pre-eminence in wickedness in her destroying, within the last 
 five years, the lives of nearly a hundred thousand native Cubans, 
 who had to resist her because they could on longer bear her heavy 
 iron yoke. This destruction of life is so great, because Spain, what- 
 ever she may do elsewhere, spares the life of no prisoner in Cuba. 
 
 Surely, surely, if there were ever a case where nations are 
 bound to intervene for the rescue of a most cruelly crushed people, 
 the poor peeled and persecuted Cubans present such a case. 
 Amongst the many reasons for it are the following : 
 
 First At the rate the population and wealth of this exceeding- 
 ly fertile and beautiful island are wasting away, she would, ere long, 
 become a thinly-peopled desert 
 
 Second. Scarcely more does Cuba need to get rid of Spain 
 than Spain to get rid of Cuba. Spain is fast wasting her men and 
 money in her attempt to re-subjugate the native Cubans; and the 
 attempt is not more expensive than vain ' She can never overcome
 
 the revolutionists. F^or five years she has put forth her frantic and 
 infernal efforts to this end, and has yet been continually getting 
 further from it. The revolutionists possess, or at least control, more 
 than half the territory of the island; and of the hundred thousand 
 soldiers sent to subdue them, very few (thanks to the Cuban climate 
 as well as to Cuban valor!) have lived to return. The revolutionists 
 can never be at peace with Spain. They can never forgive the 
 matchless wrongs that goaded them into revolution. It is in a word, 
 for the life of Spain as well as for the life of Cuba, that the nations 
 insist on her abdicating the government of Cuba. Her merciless 
 and greedy rule of Cuba has for ages been the great clog to the 
 prosperity of Spain — especially to her advancement in all that in- 
 vests a nation with dignity and moral grandeur. 
 
 Third. This intervention and rescue would be such an upward 
 step in the history of mankind as would effectually warn the 
 wicked in any part of the world not to trample upon any portion of 
 mankind. It would serve mightily to make human nature sacred and 
 glorious in the eyes of all. Heaven forbid that the most favorable 
 opportunity there has ever been for this universal or world-govern- 
 ment to make a signal and impressive manifestation of its care for 
 all the children of men, and to assert its supremacy over nations, 
 may not be allowed to pass away unimproved! Now is the time to 
 bless the whole earth by an example which will tell upon the whole 
 earth. Rescue Cuba now, and therein will a warning to the wicked go 
 down through all the ages. Rescue Cuba now,Sind there will probably 
 never be such another land of sufferings and sorrows to rescue. On 
 the other hand there will be but too probably be many another such 
 land, if the appeal which wronged and wretched Cuba makes to the 
 nations shall be ignored by them. 
 
 Fourth. This proposed action would be pleasing to the Great 
 Father of us all because it would be an emphatic and sublime recog- 
 nition of the human brotherhood, and of the equal rights of all His 
 children. 
 
 Fifth. Cavillers may stigmatize this intervention and rescue 
 as war. But it would be a war of fraternity and love, in which a 
 selfish war, instead of finding countenance, would find but rebuke 
 and shame. The spirit of hell has much to do with ordinary wars. 
 In this war would be the spirit of heaven. It may be added in this 
 connection that but little blood would be shed in this truly "holy 
 war." If only Spain were held back, Cuba with her fifteen hundred 
 thousand well united people, including of course all her slaves, would 
 quickly free herself from the thirty or forty thousand Spanish 
 butchers in her island.
 
 Let then Great Britian or America or both, or some other nation 
 or nations to whom it mignt be as convenient, go forth in the name 
 of the nations and the God of the nations to deliver poor bleeding 
 Cuba from her cruel thraldom; and let there be no delay in this work 
 of wisdom and love — a work whose blessed effect will be to bring 
 man nearer to man and earth nearer to heaven. I would here say 
 that it is all important for such effect that this work be and be seen 
 of all men to be entirely and sublimely disinterested. To this end, 
 whatever nation shall have a part in delivering Cuba should pledge 
 itself in advance not to annex her to itself nor to suffer such annexa- 
 tion, unless Cuba shall, after a period of say some five or ten years, 
 insist upon such annexation. No ulterior object should accompany 
 the undertaking to make Cuba absolutely free and independent. 
 
 Idle and worse than idle — even very wicked — is all this talk 
 about settling the Virginius matter with Spain and then letting Cuba 
 remain in the hands of her torturer and murderer. What she would 
 hereafter do with Cuba is but too plain in the light of what she has 
 heretofore done with her. 
 
 Nor is there any wisdom in the advice to delay decisive action 
 regarding Cuba until the Spanish Republic is consolidated. The 
 probabilities of such consolidation is exceedingly slight. No nation 
 has poorer material for a Republic than has Spain. I see that some 
 of our prominent old abolitionists look to the Spanish Republic and 
 especially to the influence of that admirable and eloquent republican, 
 Castelar, for the abolition of Cuban slavery. But what if Spain 
 should become an established Rebublic, would the abolition 
 of Cuban slavery necessarily follow? By no means. Republican- 
 ism no less than monachy accommodates itself to slave-holding. 
 We were a Republic when we held so tenaciously to the enslave- 
 ment of many millions. The Garrisons and the Phillipses of 
 America, no less wise and eloquent than the Castelars of Spain, 
 long plied the public conscience with the sins and miseries 
 of slavery — all in vain however to effect its abolition. But 
 for the timely advent of John Brown of that grand old hero, whose 
 "soul goes marching on" —slavery would have been as vigorous upon 
 our soil to-day as it ever was. God grant that this dear old soul 
 may keep marching on until, not only in Cuba but in all the broad 
 earth, the Sun shall not rise upon a slaveholder or set upon a slave ! 
 
 Peterboro, Dec. 1st, 1873.
 
 10 
 (^Call for the First Madison County Cuban Meeting.) 
 
 Let us help poor Cuba ! 
 
 To the friends of justice and liberty 
 
 IN THE COUNTY OF MADISON, N. Y. 
 
 The people of the United States are every where asleep to the 
 
 unequalled horror in Cuba; and until there is a waking up to them, 
 their Government will do nothing toward bringing these horrors to 
 an end. 
 
 People of Midison County, will not you be the first to 
 wake up to the fact that greedy, barbarous, bloody Spain has made 
 Cuba above all other lands the land of slavery and slaughter? — that 
 there, hundreds of thousands are under the cruelest form of slavery, 
 and that there within the last five years little if any less than a hun- 
 dred thousand persons have been slain because they refuse to wear 
 the yoke of slavery or the yoke of Spanish authority? 
 
 The type of our abolished slavery was mild compared with 
 that with which Spain crushes Cuba. Nevertheless, though you 
 are unmoved by Spanish slavery, you did what you could to over- 
 throw our own slavery. You held meetings; felt the inspiration of 
 speeches, and contributed money to pay lecturers and printers. Do 
 the like now in the cause of Cuba, and your reward will be as sure 
 as it was then. It is true the Cuban is not of your own nation, but 
 human sympathy leaps over national boundaries. It is true that the 
 though the Cuban is an American, he is not such in our more com- 
 mon use of the word. Nevertheless, he is more than an American 
 — for he is your brother, and child with yourselves of the one Great 
 Father. * 
 
 It is proposed that the first Madison County Cuban Meetings 
 beheld in PETERBORO at half-past 1 P. M., SATURDAY. 
 JUNE 2\s\. 1873 Our countryman. General Jordan, who was for 
 a time in command of the Cuban forces, and Miguel de Aldama, an 
 eminent exiled Cuban gentleman, have promised to attend it. We 
 hope that they will be accompanied by Charles A. Dana, formerly 
 editor of the N. Y. Tribune and now editor of the N. Y. Sun. Let 
 us coma together in great numbers to hear what they will say; and 
 then let us organize a County Society, and go to work systematic- 
 ally for the salvation of oppressed and outraged Cuba 
 
 ]unc t6th, 1873. GERRIT SMITH.
 
 
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