f legislation
or proposed legislation. President after President dealt with it in
messages to Congress. The acquisition of the island, by purchase or
otherwise, was again and again discussed. Popular interest was again and
again excited; the Spanish colonial policy was denounced; and the burdens
and sufferings of the Cubans were depicted in many harrowing tales. For the
policy that led to the imposition of a restraining hand on proposals to
free Cuba, in those early days, the people of the United States today must
blush. The independence movement in the States of Spanish-America may be
said to have had its definite beginning in 1806, when Francisco Miranda,
a Venezuelan, sailed from New York with three ships manned by American
filibusters, although the first land battle was fought in Bolivia, in 1809,
and the last was fought in the same country, in 1825. But the great wave
swept from the northern border of Mexico to the southernmost point of
Spanish possession. When these States declared their independence, they
wrote into their Constitutions that all men should be free, that human
slavery should be abolished forever from their soil. The attitude of the
United States in the matter of Cuba was determined by the objection to the
existence of an anti-slavery State so near our border. The experience of
Haiti and Santo Domingo was, of course, clearly in mind, but the objection
went deeper than that. Those who are interested may read with profit the
debates in the Congress of the United States, in 1826, on the subject of
the despatch of delegates to the so-called Panama Congress-of that year. On
the whole, it is not pleasant reading from any present point of view.

Our cherished Monroe Doctrine was one of the fruits of this period, and in
the enunciation of that policy the affairs of Cuba were a prominent if not
the dominant force. The language of this doctrine is said to have been
written by Secretary Adams, but it is embodied in the message of President
Monroe, in December, 1823, and so bears his name. In April, of that year,
Secretary Adams sent a long communication to Mr. Nelson, then the American
Minister to Spain. For their bearing on the Cuban question, and for the
presentation of a view that runs through many years of American policy,
extracts from that letter may be included here.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, April 28, 1823.

"In the war between France and Spain, now commencing, other interests,
peculiarly