h their coolies, and their divided and hostile races of whites--their
Spanish blood, and their utter want of experience in the discharge of
any public duties, the Cubans will work out successfully the problem of
self-government. You cannot reason from Massachusetts to Cuba. When
Massachusetts entered into the Revolution, she had had one hundred and
fifty years of experience in popular self-government under a system in
which the exercise of this power was more generally diffused among the
people, and extended over a larger class of subjects, and more
decentralized, than had ever been known before in any part of the world,
or at any period of the world's story. She had been, all along, for most
purposes, an independent republic, with an obligation to the British
Empire undefined and seldom attempted to be enforced. The thirteen
colonies were ships fully armed and equipped, officered and manned, with
long sea experience, sailing as a wing of a great fleet, under the
Admiral's fleet signals. They had only to pass secret signals, fall out
of line, haul their wind, and sail off as a squadron by themselves; and
if the Admiral with the rest of the fleet made chase and gave battle, it
was sailor to sailor and ship to ship. But Cuba has neither officers
trained to the quarter-deck, nor sailors trained to the helm, the yard,
or the gun. Nay, the ship is not built, nor the keel laid, nor is the
timber grown, from which the keel is to be cut.

The natural process for Cuba is an amelioration of her institutions
under Spanish auspices. If this is not to be had, or if the connection
with Spain is dissolved in any way, she will probably be substantially
under the protection of some other power, or a part of another empire.
Whatever nation may enter upon such an undertaking as this, should take
a bond of fate. Beside her internal danger and difficulties, Cuba is
implicated externally with every cause of jealousy and conflict. She has
been called the key to the Gulf of Mexico. But the Gulf of Mexico cannot
be locked. Whoever takes her is more likely to find in her a key to
Pandora's box. Close upon her is the great island of Jamaica, where the
experiment of free Negro labor, in the same products, is on trial. Near
to her is Haiti where the experiment of Negro self-government is on
trial. And further off, separated, it is true, by the great Gulf Stream,
and with the neighborhood of the almost uninhabited and uninhabitable
sea coast of south