Thereupon I reviewed these alternatives in the light of President
Grant's measured words, uttered in 1875, when, after seven years of
sanguinary, destructive, and cruel hostilities in Cuba, he reached the
conclusion that the recognition of the independence of Cuba was
impracticable and indefensible and that the recognition of belligerence
was not warranted by the facts according to the tests of public law.
I commented especially upon the latter aspect of the question, pointing
out the inconveniences and positive dangers of a recognition of
belligerence, which, while adding to the already onerous burdens of
neutrality within our own jurisdiction, could not in any way extend our
influence or effective offices in the territory of hostilities.

Nothing has since occurred to change my view in this regard, and
I recognize as fully now as then that the issuance of a proclamation of
neutrality, by which process the so-called recognition of belligerents
is published, could of itself and unattended by other action accomplish
nothing toward the one end for which we labor--the instant pacification
of Cuba and the cessation of the misery that afflicts the island.

Turning to the question of recognizing at this time the independence
of the present insurgent government in Cuba, we find safe precedents
in our history from an early day. They are well summed up in President
Jackson's message to Congress, December 21, 1836, on the subject of the
recognition of the independence of Texas. He said:

In all the contests that have arisen out of the revolutions of France,
out of the disputes relating to the crowns of Portugal and Spain, out
of the revolutionary movements of those Kingdoms, out of the separation
of the American possessions of both from the European Governments, and