José Martí Reader. Jose Marti
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the illustrious lives which Spain has caused to be lost. Does this new, regenerated Spain called the Spanish Republic wish to become involved in the disgrace of imposing oppression that is, above all, unfair, ungodly and irrational? This would be such a mistake that I hope it will never engage in anything so filled with misery.
The revolutionaries in Cuba declared its 400,000 Negro slaves free before Spain did any such thing. The government’s political prisons are filled with 10- and 11-year-old Negroes who have just been shipped in, venerable 80-year-olds and idiot Negroes of 100, and they are whipped through the streets and mutilated — and killed — by the blows. In Cuba, the authorities shoot those who seem suspicious — even members of the government — and the women are raped and dragged through the streets. Those who are fighting for their homeland are killed, either immediately or, if their immediate deaths cannot be excused, slowly. Some leaders have been sentenced to imprisonment for having beaten captured rebels to death and for having continued to vent their rage on their dead bodies, yet others, who have presented parts of the bodies of mutilated rebels as trophies, have been pardoned. Such horrors have taken place that I don’t want to remind the Republic of them, nor do I want to tell you, lest I upset you, but they are so terrible that merely to say that they must be corrected is to offend your honor.
This shows that any union between Cuba and Spain is quite impossible. If there is to be a fruitful, loyal and affectionate union, as a fair and patriotic resolution is needed, the fate of the peoples must be decided by working with perfect reason, and the homeland — disfigured by the arrogant, debased by the ambitious, discredited by fools and deserving of so little fortune because of its actions in Cuba — must be honored by strictly upholding justice.
Cuba calls for the independence to which it is entitled by life itself, which it knows it has; by the energetic steadfastness of its sons; by the richness of its territory; by the natural independence of that territory; and, more than anything else, because this is the firm, unanimous will of the Cuban people.
Spain feels that it must hold on to Cuba and cannot do so except — I’ve forgotten why — by trampling on its rights, imposing its will and staining its honor. Whoever wanted to retain Cuba’s wealth at such a cost would be unworthy, as would anyone who let other nations think he was sacrificing his honor for material benefit.
Virtue now is simply the performance of duty, no longer its heroic exaggeration, and the Republic does not consent to its diminution. Its government knows how to build a foundation on wise and generous justice and does not govern a people against its will — for justice brings forth all powers from the will of the people. That government does not struggle against itself; is not dishonored; does not fear; and does not cede to demands of ridiculous arrogance, exaggerated pride or disguised ambition. Because the law, the needs of republics and sublime republican ideas recognize Cuba’s independence, it recognizes it, too. Thus, if it should end its domination over Cuba, which would be simply the legitimate consequence of its principles, the strict observance of the tenets of justice, it would bring imperishable glory to Spain. For too long, Spain has been beset by indecision and fear; let Spain at last have the courage to be glorious.
Does the government of the Republic fear that the people would not respect such a noble solution? This would be to confess that the Spanish people are not republicans.
Does it not dare persuade the people that this is what true honor demands? This would mean that it prefers power to heeding the prompting of conscience.
Won’t the Republican government think as I do? This would mean that the Spanish Republic neither respects the will of the sovereign people nor has managed to understand the republican ideal.
I do not think that it will give way to fear. But, if it should, that trans feral of its rights would be the first sign of the loss of all.
If it does not do as I think it should, because it fails to understand things as I do, this means that it pays more attention to its past errors than to the extension of new ideas — sublime because they are limitless and pure — and that irrational pride over very painful glories still disturbs its spirit and makes it want to hold fast to things it never should have possessed, because it never knew how to possess them.
If it thinks as I do, meets with resistance, defies it (even though its effort is not crowned with victory) and accepts Cuba’s independence — because Cuba’s sons declare that only force can make them belong to Spain — it will lose nothing, because Cuba is already lost to Spain. It will wrest nothing from its territory, for Cuba has already torn itself away. It will be complying with the republican ideal in its legitimate purity. It will be opting for life, because failure to accept is tantamount to suicide. It will be confirming its own freedoms, because anyone who denies the right to govern itself to a people that has already freed itself does not deserve to have freedoms himself. It will avoid the shedding of republican blood and will not be oppressive and fratricidal. It will acknowledge that it is losing — in fact, it has already lost — possession of a people that does not want to belong to it and has shown that it does not need its protection or its government to live in glory and firmness. In short, by sanctioning a right, it will be renouncing the shedding of blood and giving up a territory it has already lost in exchange for the respect of humankind; the admiration of peoples; and ineffable, eternal glory in the future.
If the Spanish Republic’s ideal is the universe and believes that it must live as a single people, as a province of God, what right does it have to take the lives of others who seek the same goal? More than unfair, more than cruel, shedding the blood of its brothers is infamous. When faced with the rights of the world, what weight do Spain’s rights have? When compared with future divinity, what value does the violent wish for domination have? What value do rights acquired by means of conquest and bloodied by never interrupted but always sanctified oppression have?
Cuba wants to be free. That is what it says with incalculable hardships, with its struggle for the cherished Republic, with the blood of heroic American young men. Anyone who is too afraid to listen to his con science must be a coward. Any republic that strangles another republic must be fratricidal.
Cuba wants to be free. And, since the peoples of South America obtained their freedom from the reactionary governments — as did Spain from the French; Italy from Austria; Mexico from Napoleon’s ambitions; the United States, from England; and all the other peoples, from their oppressors — so, under the law of its irrevocable will and the law of historical necessity, Cuba, too, must achieve its independence.
It will be said that the Republic will not oppress Cuba any more, and perhaps it will not, but Cuba became a Republic before Spain did. Why should those who have taken to the field of battle as free men and martyrs to make their country a republic accept that condition from someone who, posing as a master, offers it as a gift?
Let the Spanish Republic not be dishonored; let its triumphant ideal not be halted. Let it not murder its brothers or have its sons shed the blood of its other sons. Let it not oppose Cuba’s independence. Otherwise, the Republic of Spain will be a Republic of injustice and ignominy, and the government of freedom will, in this case, be liberticidal.
Madrid, February 15, 1873
The Memorial Meeting in Honor of Karl Marx
Following the death of Karl Marx in London on March 14, 1883, a memorial meeting was held in the Cooper Union hall in New York City, March 20, 1883. The walls were hung with banners proclaiming “Workers of all lands, unite!” José Martí’s account of the meeting was published in La Nación, Buenos Aires, May 13 and 16, 1883.
Look at this large hall. Karl Marx is dead. He deserves to be honored for declaring himself on the side of the weak. But the virtuous man is not the one who points out the damage and burns with generous anxiety to put it right; he is the one who teaches a gentle amendment of the injury.
The task of setting men in opposition against men is frightening. The compulsory brutalization of men for the profit of others stirs anger. But an outlet must be found for this anger, so that the brutality might cease before it overflows and terrifies. Look at this hall: dominating the room, surrounded by green leaves, is the picture of that ardent reformer, uniter of men