the next day, April 20.
A copy was at once communicated to the Spanish minister at this capital,
who forthwith announced that his continuance in Washington had thereby
become impossible, and asked for his passports, which were given him.
He thereupon withdrew from Washington, leaving the protection of
Spanish interests in the United States to the French ambassador and the
Austro-Hungarian minister. Simultaneously with its communication to
the Spanish minister here, General Woodford, the American minister at
Madrid, was telegraphed confirmation of the text of the joint resolution
and directed to communicate it to the Government of Spain with the
formal demand that it at once relinquish its authority and government
in the island of Cuba and withdraw its forces therefrom, coupling this
demand with announcement of the intentions of this Government as to
the future of the island, in conformity with the fourth clause of the
resolution, and giving Spain until noon of April 23 to reply.

That demand, although, as above shown, officially made known to the
Spanish envoy here, was not delivered at Madrid. After the instruction
reached General Woodford on the morning of April 21, but before he could
present it, the Spanish minister of state notified him that upon the
President's approval of the joint resolution the Madrid Government,
regarding the act as "equivalent to an evident declaration of war," had
ordered its minister in Washington to withdraw, thereby breaking off
diplomatic relations between the two countries and ceasing all official
communication between their respective representatives. General Woodford
thereupon demanded his passports and quitted Madrid the same day.

Spain having thus denied the demand of the United States and initiated
that complete form of rupture of relations which attends a state of war,
the executive powers authorized by the resolution were at once used by
me to meet the enlarged contingency of actual war between sovereign
states. On April 22 I proclaimed a blockade of the north coast of Cuba,
including ports on said coast between Cardenas and Bahia Honda, and the
port of Cienfuegos, on the south coast of Cuba,[14] and on the 23d I
called for volunteers to execute the purpose of the resolution.[15] By
my message of April 25 the Congress was informed of the situation, and
I recommended formal declaration of the existence of a state of war
between the United States and Spain. [16] The Congress accor