The following is in relation to the article on this earlier post...
A Card.
To the Editor of the Union:
I ask of you the kindness to correct the misstatements made by certain correspondents of newspapers in relation to myself--connected, as I was, by accident, rather than design, with the late meeting in this city in relation to the recent massacre of fifty of our countrymen in Cuba by the ipse dixit of the captain-general--by branding my remarks as inflammatory. So far from that, they were rather conservative, considering the theme and the excited state of the public mind on the subject of that massacre. I acknowledged the right of Spain to maintain her nationality by all the means within her power, and I excused the President in the exercise of his powers, knowing that, by the law of 1794 and the law of 1818, it was made his duty to suppress all expeditions gotten up in this country to aid the Cubans; but I, at the same time, denied to Congress the constitutional power to pass such laws, because they were in derogation of the spirit of our free institutions, and alien to the feelings of our people. The constitution is a delegation of powers, and I can find in that instrument no such power given to Congress; but, on the other hand, the people are guarantied the right to bear arms, and the government has no right to establish an inquisition to know what they intend to do with them, (or to use the American navy as a police force for the government of Spain.) so long as they are not emphatically organized within the jurisdiction of the United States. The right to bear arms and the right of expatriation. taken together as concomitants, I contended gave our people the right to embark in any service they chose; and, their sympathies being in favor of freedom, their natural inclination led them to aid those who were disposed to achieve it. These were the main topics upon which I spoke. But I also said that, in a geographical point of view, it belonged to the United States, and the most prudential course for Spain was to cede it to us by treaty, or that she would lose it by force, and particularly since she had thrown herself out of the pale of civilization by the recent cold-blooded massacre. If these remarks were inflammatory, I am perfectly willing they should bear the epithet, because I know they are in unison with the feelings of every lover of liberty throughout the world.
I ask of you the kindness to correct the misstatements made by certain correspondents of newspapers in relation to myself--connected, as I was, by accident, rather than design, with the late meeting in this city in relation to the recent massacre of fifty of our countrymen in Cuba by the ipse dixit of the captain-general--by branding my remarks as inflammatory. So far from that, they were rather conservative, considering the theme and the excited state of the public mind on the subject of that massacre. I acknowledged the right of Spain to maintain her nationality by all the means within her power, and I excused the President in the exercise of his powers, knowing that, by the law of 1794 and the law of 1818, it was made his duty to suppress all expeditions gotten up in this country to aid the Cubans; but I, at the same time, denied to Congress the constitutional power to pass such laws, because they were in derogation of the spirit of our free institutions, and alien to the feelings of our people. The constitution is a delegation of powers, and I can find in that instrument no such power given to Congress; but, on the other hand, the people are guarantied the right to bear arms, and the government has no right to establish an inquisition to know what they intend to do with them, (or to use the American navy as a police force for the government of Spain.) so long as they are not emphatically organized within the jurisdiction of the United States. The right to bear arms and the right of expatriation. taken together as concomitants, I contended gave our people the right to embark in any service they chose; and, their sympathies being in favor of freedom, their natural inclination led them to aid those who were disposed to achieve it. These were the main topics upon which I spoke. But I also said that, in a geographical point of view, it belonged to the United States, and the most prudential course for Spain was to cede it to us by treaty, or that she would lose it by force, and particularly since she had thrown herself out of the pale of civilization by the recent cold-blooded massacre. If these remarks were inflammatory, I am perfectly willing they should bear the epithet, because I know they are in unison with the feelings of every lover of liberty throughout the world.
E.B. ROBINSON.
Washington, August 29, 1851
[The Daily Union, City Of Washington [D.C.], Saturday Morning, August 30, 1851. Volume I. Number 117. Pg. 3]
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