Our own civil conflict is too recent for us not to
consider the difficulties which surround a government distracted by a
dynastic rebellion at home at the same time that it has to cope with a
separate insurrection in a distant colony. But whatever causes may have
produced the situation which so grievously affects our interests, it
exists, with all its attendant evils operating directly upon this
country and its people. Thus far all the efforts of Spain have proved
abortive, and time has marked no improvement in the situation. The armed
bands of either side now occupy nearly the same ground as in the past,
with the difference, from time to time, of more lives sacrificed, more
property destroyed, and wider extents of fertile and productive fields
and more and more of valuable property constantly wantonly sacrificed
to the incendiary's torch.
In contests of this nature, where a considerable body of people who have
attempted to free themselves of the control of the superior government
have reached such point in occupation of territory, in power, and in
general organization as to constitute in fact a body politic; having a
government in substance as well as in name; possessed of the elements
of stability and equipped with the machinery for the administration of
internal policy and the execution of its laws; prepared and able to
administer justice at home, as well as in its dealings with other
powers, it is within the province of those other powers to recognize its
existence as a new and independent nation.
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