My conscience tells me that my life’s greatest desire, the absolute independence of the Antilles-so very possible because of the geographical and economic conditions of these societies-would be a difficult task for the generation destined to conquer it, which has already heroically begun to conquer it, if this generation is not cured in time of two vices with which despotism has infected our people. From the first vice, an inevitable product of the pathetic principle of authority that smothered our human dignity in addition to our liberty, comes a false idea of liberty. The second vice, a cursed creation of autocratic government, produces the habit of entrusting others with what we should do for ourselves. The first breeds anarchy; the second begets dictators; they complement each other, and wherever systematic hatred for authority produces anarchy, the people have an idol that enslaves them; and wherever there is political idolatry, there is a latent or patent state of anarchy. A society that suffers these evils is not free. And if I want the absolute independence of the Antilles, it is because I want to prove to our slanderers that the Antilles can be free.
— EUGENIO MARÍA DE HOSTOS