repose nor possess reliable securities as
long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.

"The intercourse which its proximity to our coast begets and encourages
between them (the inhabitants of Cuba) and the citizens of the United
States has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and
blended their fortunes that they now look upon each other as if they
were one people and had but one destiny.

"The system of immigration and labor lately organized within the limits
of the island, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its
immediate rulers, threaten an insurrection at every moment which may
result in direful consequences to the American people.

"Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause
for anxiety and alarm.

"Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her
resources and removing her financial embarrassments, it may never come
again.

"Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, justifies any
people in endeavoring to free themselves from the yoke of their
oppressors. The sufferings which the corrupt, arbitrary and unrelenting
local administration necessarily entails upon the inhabitants of Cuba
cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive that spirit of resistance and
revolution against Spain which has of late years been so often
manifested. In this condition of affairs it is vain to expect that the
sympathies of the people of the United States will not be warmly
enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors.

"The United States has never acquired a foot of territory except by fair
purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and voluntary
application of the people of that independent State, who desired to
blend their destinies with our own.

"It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves organize an
insurrection against the Spanish government, no human power could, in
our opinion, prevent the people and government of the United States from
taking part in such a civil war in support of their neighbors and
friends."

We have quoted thus largely from the Ostend manifesto, because it seems
to us, with one exception, to be so pertinent to the present status of
affairs.

The one exception is: We no longer desire the annexation of Cuba. The
present war is a holy war. It has been entered into wholly and entirely
from motives of philanthropy, to give to a suffering and downtrodden
people the blessings of freedom which we o