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 power to the limited interior territory and mountain fastnesses which they occupy.  The existence of a legislature representing any popular constituency is more than doubtful.

In the uncertainty that hangs around the entire insurrection there is no palpable evidence of an election, of any delegated authority, or of any government outside the limits of the camps occupied from day to day by the roving companies of insurgent troops; there is no commerce, no trade, either internal or foreign, no manufactures.

The late commander in chief of the insurgents, having recently come to the United States, publicly declared that “all commercial intercourse or trade with the exterior world has been utterly cut off;” and he further added:  “To-day we have not 10,000 arms in Cuba.”

It is a well-established principle of public law that a recognition by a foreign state of belligerent rights to insurgents under circumstances such as now exist in Cuba, if not justified by necessity, is a gratuitous demonstration of moral support to the rebellion.  Such necessity may yet hereafter arrive, but it has not yet arrived, nor is its probability clearly to be seen.

If it be war between Spain and Cuba, and be so recognized, it is our duty to provide for the consequences which may ensue in the embarrassment to our commerce and the interference with our revenue.

If belligerency be recognized, the commercial marine of the United States becomes liable to search and to seizure by the commissioned cruisers of both parties; they become subject to the adjudication of prize courts.