s pending their
struggle by saying:

As soon as the movement assumed such a steady and consistent form as
to make the success of the Provinces probable, the rights to which
they were entitled by the laws of nations as equal parties to a civil
war were extended to them.

The strict adherence to this rule of public policy has been one of
the highest honors of American statesmanship, and has secured to this
Government the confidence of the feeble powers on this continent,
which induces them to rely upon its friendship and absence of designs
of conquest and to look to the United States for example and moral
protection. It has given to this Government a position of prominence and
of influence which it should not abdicate, but which imposes upon it the
most delicate duties of right and of honor regarding American questions,
whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or colonies still
subject to European dominion.

The question of belligerency is one of fact, not to be decided by
sympathies for or prejudices against either party. The relations
between the parent state and the insurgents must amount in fact to
war in the sense of international law. Fighting, though fierce and
protracted, does not alone constitute war. There must be military forces
acting in accordance with the rules and customs of war, flags of truce,
cartels, exchange of prisoners, etc.; and to justify a recognition
of belligerency there must be, above all, a _de facto_ political
organization of the insurgents sufficient in character and resources
to constitute it, if left to itself, a state among nations capable
of discharging the duties of a state and of meeting the just
responsibilities it may incur as such toward other powers in the
discharge of its national duties.

Applying the best information which I have been enabled to gather,
whether from official or unofficial sources, including the very
exaggerated statements which each party gives to all that may prejudice
the opposite or give credit to its own side of the question, I am unable
to see in the present condition of the contest in Cuba those elements
which are requisite to constitute war in the sense of international law.

The insurgents hold no town or city; have no established seat of
government; they have no prize courts; no organization for the receiving
and collecting of revenue; no seaport to which a prize may be carried or
through which access can be had by a foreign p