territory, united
under some known and defined form of government, acknowledged by those
subject thereto, in which the functions of government are administered
by usual methods, competent to mete out justice to citizens and
strangers, to afford remedies for public and for private wrongs, and
able to assume the correlative international obligations and capable of
performing the corresponding international duties resulting from its
acquisition of the rights of sovereignty. A power should exist complete
in its organization, ready to take and able to maintain its place among
the nations of the earth.

While conscious that the insurrection in Cuba has shown a strength and
endurance which make it at least doubtful whether it be in the power
of Spain to subdue it, it seems unquestionable that no such civil
organization exists which may be recognized as an independent government
capable of performing its international obligations and entitled to be
treated as one of the powers of the earth. A recognition under such
circumstances would be inconsistent with the facts, and would compel the
power granting it soon to support by force the government to which it
had really given its only claim of existence. In my judgment the United
States should adhere to the policy and the principles which have
heretofore been its sure and safe guides in like contests between
revolted colonies and their mother country, and, acting only upon the
clearest evidence, should avoid any possibility of suspicion or of
imputation.

A recognition of the independence of Cuba being, in my opinion,
impracticable and indefensible, the question which next presents itself
is that of the recognition of belligerent rights in the parties to the
contest. In a former message to Congress I had occasion to consider this
question, and reached the conclusion that the conflict in Cuba, dreadful
and devastating as were its incidents, did not rise to the fearful
dignity of war. Regarding it now, after this lapse of time, I am unable
to see that any notable success or any marked or real advance on the
part of the insurgents has essentially changed the character of the
contest. It has acquired greater age, but not greater or more formidable
proportions. It is possible that the acts of foreign powers, and even
acts of Spain herself, of this very nature, might be pointed to in
defense of such recognition. But now, as in its past-history, the United
States should carefully avoid