I am glad that you have explained the discordance in the reports of the debate in the Spanish Cortes.
I will add a note of it to my speech in the pamphlet publication.
For three years I have regarded this Cuba demonstration as the most dangerous one to us that the Democracy could get up, and when it came at last, it was made a subject of anxious and careful discussion.
It was apparent to me that the scheme had not yet embodied any such partisan support as could carry it through Congress, and that it could easily be pushed aside and be rendered harmless, if the Republican party should not in its zeal accept and assume the false issue it tendered, and so drive the Democracy into Union.
I felt on the other side the embarrassment which might result from a manifest disinclination to meet so plaguy a proposition boldly.
But our Northwestern friends told me, what I knew instinctively to be true, that to suffer the issue to go out as the Democrats had expected it to be made up would be disastrous to us in their part of the Union, What was done finally was in full consideration and agreement, and entirely satisfactory to all sides.
When the subject comes up again we must meet it as we best can. We are anxious to draw out some Southern opposition, and this may be expected, if we do not too readily and selfishly appropriate the resistance to it to our own party uses.
I expect Mr. Crittenden and Mr. Bell to oppose it, Mr. Hammond to vote against it, and some others, whom I will not name, to be relentless in their support.
I see that the Post, usually so very right, calls for a more decided activity on our side.
If you can do anything in the emergency to reconcile our friends to the system of defence
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if not their personal, relations were close and confidential.
If proof were needed on this point, it will be found in a holograph letter from Seward, marked “Private,” and addressed to “Charles A. Dana, Esq., editor of the Tribune.”
It runs as follows:
Harper and Brothers, New York and London, 1907.
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