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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Let crushed Cuba arise! : substance of the speech of Gerrit Smith, in Syracuse, July 4th 1873.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 574

LET CRUSHED CUBA ARISE!

SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH OF GERRIT SMITH,

IN SYRACUSE, JULY 4^th 1873.

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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 deliverance 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 by 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 its 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 diseases 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. From year 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. Bat 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 soldiers to Cuba. These, along with some thirty 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 their murderous rage.

Now, why, in the light of these facts, should we not

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sympathize with Cuba, and make this fourth of July beautiful and blessed by expressing our sympathy with her? Does 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 nevertheless 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 I country. By the way, Cuba, by force 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. That is no law, which does violence to nature. Strictly speaking, 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 express 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 attending its enactment forbid 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

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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 connexion - 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 I 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? I hope it is for some worthier reason 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 Cubans? Because, assay 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, arid, 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 beginning of its existence, 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 they hold a great part of the island, they have no ports. The Spanish fleet, recruited to our shame from our own shipyards, controls 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

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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. Nevertheless, 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 warriors, 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.

I 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! I LET MY PEOPLE GO!!" We of Syracuse and its surroundings, who, for half a century, have, quite as much as any other communities, been taught to welcome the solidarity of the human face 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 reached success, did our old abolitionists cease to ring in the ears of the American slaveholder: "Let my people go! Let my people go!!" And never until the Spanish despot and Spanish slaveholder have yielded, should we 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 belligerency, if not indeed their independence also."

Mayor Wallace, the President of the day, then put the Resolution to vote. It passed unanimously. From the vast assembly there came not up one dissenting voice.