The Reformation did not disturb Spain; it was crushed out within twenty years. The spirit of liberty that had been growing in England since Bosworth's Field, and that was manifesting itself in Germany and the Netherlands, and that had begun to quiver even in France, did not dare stir itself in Spain. Spain was united, or rather, was solidity itself, and this solidity was both its strength and its death. England was not so united, and England went steadily onward and upward; but Spain's unity destroyed her, because it practically destroyed individualism and presented the strange paradox of a strong nation of weak men.
As a machine Spain in the sixteenth century was a marvel of power; as an aggregation of thinking men, it was even then contemptible. Ferdinand, Charles V and Philip II were able and illustrious rulers, and they appeared at a time when their several characters could tell on the immediate fortunes of Spain. They were warriors, and the nation was entirely warlike. During this period the Spaniard overran the earth, not that he might till the soil, but that he might rob the man who did. With one hand he was raking in the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru; with the other confiscating the profits of the trade and manufactures of the Low Countries—and all in the name of the Great God and Saints!
How was Spain overthrown? The answer is a short one. Spain, under Philip II staked her all upon a religious war against the awakening age. She met the Reformation within her own borders and extinguished it; but thought had broken loose from its chains and was abroad in the earth. England had turned Protestant, and Elizabeth was on the throne; Denmark, Norway and Sweden, indeed all countries except Spain and Italy had heard the echoes from Luther's trumpet blast. Italy furnished the religion, and Spain the powder, in this unequal fight between the Old and the New. Spain was not merely the representative of the old, she WAS the old, and she armed her whole strength in its behalf.
Here was a religion separated from all moral principle and devoid of all softening sentiment—its most appropriate formula being, death to all heretics. Death—not to tyrants, not to oppressors, not to robbers and men-stealers—but death to heretics. It was this that equipped her Armada.
The people were too loyal and too pious to THINK, and so were hurled in a solid mass against the armed thought of the coming age, and a mighty nation crumbled as in a day. With the destruction of her Armada her warlike ascendancy passed and she had nothing to put in its place. She had not tillers of the soil, mechanics or skilled merchants. Business was taking the place of war all over the world, but Spain knew only religion and war, hence worsted in her only field, she was doomed.
From the days of Philip II her decline was rapid. Her territory slipped from her as rapidly as it had been acquired. Her great domains on our soil are now the seat of thriving communities of English-speaking people. The whole continent of South America has thrown off her yoke, though still retaining her language, and our troops now embarked from Port Tampa are destined to wrest from her the two only remaining colonies subject to her sway in the Western World,—Cuba and Porto Rico. With all her losses hitherto, Spain has not learned wisdom. Antagonistic to truth and liberty, she seems to sit in the shadow of death, hugging the delusions that have betrayed her, while all other people of earth are pressing onward toward light and liberty.
The struggle in Cuba had been going on for years, and in that colony of less than two millions of inhabitants, many of whom were Spaniards, there was now an army four times as large as the standing army of the United States. Against this army and against the Government of Spain a revolt had been carried on previous to the present outbreak for a period of ten years, and which had been settled by concessions on the part of the home government. The present revolt was of two years' standing when our government decided to interfere. The Cubans had maintained disorder, if they had not carried on war; and they had declined to be pacified. In their army they experienced no color difficulties. Gomez, Maceo and Quintin Banderas were generals honored and loved, Maceo especially coming to be the hero and idol of the insurgents of all classes. And it can truthfully be said that no man in either the Cuban or Spanish army, in all the Cuban struggle previous to our intervention, has earned a loftier fame as patriot, soldier and man of noble mould than ANTONIO MACEO.
Cuba, by far the most advanced of all the West Indian colonies; Cuba, essentially Spanish, was destined to be the battle ground between our troops and the veterans of Spain. The question to be settled was that of Spain's sovereignty. Spain's right to rule over the colonies of Cuba and Porto Rico was disputed by the United States, and this question, and this alone, is to be settled by force of arms. Further than this, the issue does not go. The dictum of America is: Spain shall not rule. The questions of Annexation, Expansion and Imperialism were not before us as we launched our forces to drive Spain out of the West Indies. The Cuban flag was closely associated with our own standard popularly, and "Cuba Libre" was a wide-spread sentiment in June, 1898. "We are ready to help the Cubans gain their liberty" was the honest expression of thousands who felt they were going forward in a war for others.