in various quarters for some sort of positive
intervention on the part of the United States. It was at first proposed
that belligerent rights should be accorded to the insurgents--a
proposition no longer urged because untimely and in practical operation
clearly perilous and injurious to our own interests. It has since been
and is now sometimes contended that the independence of the insurgents
should be recognized; but imperfect and restricted as the Spanish
government of the island may be, no other exists there, unless the will
of the military officer in temporary command of a particular district
can be dignified as a species of government. It is now also suggested
that the United States should buy the island--a suggestion possibly
worthy of consideration if there were any evidence of a desire or
willingness on the part of Spain to entertain such a proposal. It is
urged finally that, all other methods failing, the existing internecine
strife in Cuba should be terminated by our intervention, even at the
cost of a war between the United States and Spain--a war which its
advocates confidently prophesy could neither be large in its proportions
nor doubtful in its issue.

The correctness of this forecast need be neither affirmed nor denied.
The United States has, nevertheless, a character to maintain as a
nation, which plainly dictates that right and not might should be the
rule of its conduct. Further, though the United States is not a nation
to which peace is a necessity, it is in truth the most pacific of powers
and desires nothing so much as to live in amity with all the world.
Its own ample and diversified domains satisfy all possible longings for
territory, preclude all dreams of conquest, and prevent any casting of
covetous eyes upon neighboring regions, however attractive. That our
conduct toward Spain and her dominions has constituted no exception
to this national disposition is made manifest by the course of our
Government, not only thus far during the present insurrection, but
during the ten years that followed the rising at Yara in 1868. No other
great power, it may safely be said, under circumstances of similar
perplexity, would have manifested the same restraint and the same
patient endurance. It may also be said that this persistent attitude of
the United States toward Spain in connection with Cuba unquestionably
evinces no slight respect and regard for Spain on the part of the
American people. They in truth