His Majesty, the King Our Lord, desiring to obviate the inconveniences that might in extraordinary cases result from a division of command, and from the interferences and prerogatives of the respective officers; for the important end of preserving in that precious island his legitimate sovereign authority and the public tranquillity through proper means, has resolved in accordance with the opinion of his council of ministers to give to your Excellency the fullest authority, bestowing upon you all the powers which by the royal ordinances are granted to the governors of besieged cities.  In consequence of this, his Majesty gives to your Excellency the most ample and unbounded power, not only to send away from the island any persons in office, whatever their occupation, rank, class, or condition, whose continuance therein your Excellency may deem injurious, or whose conduct, public or private, may alarm you, replacing them with persons faithful to his Majesty and deserving of all the confidence of your Excellency; but also to suspend the execution of any order whatsoever, or any general provision made concerning any branch of the administration as your Excellency may think most suitable to the Royal Service.

This decree since that time has been substantially the supreme law of Cuba, and has never been radically modified by any concessions except those given as a last and lingering effort to preserve the sovereignty of Spain, when after three years’ progress of the revolution she realized that her colony had slipped away from her authority.  The decree quoted in itself offers sufficient justification for the Cuban revolution in the name of liberty.

Attempted annexation to the united states.

During the present century there have been a number of attempts on the part of men prominent in public life, both in the United States and Cuba, to arrange a peaceable annexation by the purchase by this country of the island from Spain.  Statesmen of both nations have been of the opinion that such a settlement of the difficulty would be mutually advantageous, and have used every diplomatic endeavor to that end.

During Thomas Jefferson’s term of office, while Spain bowed beneath the yoke of France, from which there was then no prospect of relief, the people of Cuba, feeling themselves imcompetent in force to maintain their independence, sent a deputation to Washington, proposing the annexation of the island to the federal system of North America.

In 1854 President Pearce instructed Wm. L. Marcy, his Secretary of State, to arrange a conference of the Ministers of the United States to England, France and Spain, to be held with a view to the acquisition of Cuba.