The Ostend Manifesto, America’s Attempt To Seize Cuba From Spain In 1854

The Ostend Manifesto, America’s Attempt To Seize Cuba From Spain In 1854

On October 18, 1854, three U.S. diplomats drafted a plot to seize Cuba from Spain in an effort to protect slavery in America. James Buchanan, John Y. Mason, and Pierre Soulé met up in Belgium to discuss the document, which became known as the Ostend Manifesto. Rumors that Spain was going to abolish slavery in Cuba concerned the politicians, as they feared that any revolt on the island may spread to the Southern states. They also wanted the U.S. to have more control over the Gulf of Mexico to better guard the valuable port of New Orleans. If America gained possession of Cuba, they figured, both of these issues could be solved. The men first planned to offer to buy Cuba from Spain for $120 million. If Spain refused, however, they were going to take the territory by force. "It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba may be wrested from Spain by a successful revolution," they wrote. "In that event, she will lose both the island and the price we are willing now to pay for it." President Franklin Pierce and Secretary of State William L. Marcy swiftly shot down the proposal, but not before it was leaked — and caused an outcry among the American public. Learn more about this little-known plot: https://bit.ly/3zt7QsZ Now The Story In Details In 1858, Abraham Lincoln famously said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” At the time, the North and the South were deeply divided over the institution of slavery. The South supported the expansion of slavery outside its current bounds. The North wished to contain it — if not totally abolish it. But the South had designs beyond the boundaries of the United States. They dreamed of “a Caribbean empire,” in the words of historian Robert May. Cuba specifically had been in slaveholders’ sights for quite some time. When three U.S. diplomats met in Ostend, Belgium, in October 1854, they wrote a manifesto designed to convince the United States to purchase Cuba. And if Spain wouldn’t sell the island, they wanted to take it by force. Instead, the Ostend Manifesto, as it became known, sparked controversy in both the U.S. and Europe — and ended up dooming Southern designs on Cuba for good. The Argument For U.S. Expansion Into Cuba In the 1850s, U.S. expansionists turned their attention to the Caribbean. There was already a long history of African slavery in the region, particularly on sugar plantations. Cuba was no exception, but there were rumors that Spain was planning to abolish the institution in the territory. Pro-slavery Americans grew concerned that this would spark revolts in the South. The U.S. also wanted to protect the valuable port of New Orleans. If they had control of Cuba, they could better monitor who was coming into the Gulf of Mexico. According to Teaching American History, the U.S. had attempted to buy Cuba from Spain for $100 million in 1848, but Spain had rejected the offer. In 1854, America decided to try again. U.S. Secretary of State William Marcy instructed three American diplomats to take a stab at a solution: James Buchanan, U.S. minister to Great Britain; John Mason, U.S. minister to France; and Pierre Soulé, U.S. minister to Spain. A “full and free interchange of views” between the three was warranted, Marcy wrote. The men gathered in Ostend, Belgium, to put together their ideas, and they sent their work to Marcy on Oct. 18, 1854. The Content Of The Ostend Manifesto The main purpose of the Ostend Manifesto was to convince the United States to buy Cuba from Spain “with as little delay as possible.” Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé believed that this would benefit both nations. And if Spain wouldn’t sell, they argued that the U.S. would “be justified in wresting it” from the country. The trio made three major arguments to support their conclusions, interwoven throughout the course of the manifesto. First, they argued that Cuba’s annexation to the U.S. would benefit global commerce. Nations like England and France would be able to improve their trade volume with Cuba. Spain would also benefit from the influx of cash that the purchase of Cuba would bring. “Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her resources, and removing her financial embarrassments, it may never again return,” Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé explained. Second, they claimed they wanted to end Spain’s “tyranny” over the island. “Its inhabitants are now suffering under the worst of all possible governments — that of absolute despotism delegated by a distant power to irresponsible agents,” they wrote. In addition to the harm that the Spanish government had inflicted on the Cuban people, it had also taken adverse action against U.S. citizens and businesses, they claimed. But the authors did not worry about Spain’s “despotism” for its own sake. Their third concern was that the oppression in Cuba would lead to another slave revolt like the Haitian Revolution — which would be about the worst possible outcome for slaveholding Southerners, per Encyclopedia Britannica. “We should… be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union,” they wrote. Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé suggested that the U.S. pay Spain $120 million for Cuba — and take it by force if the Spanish refused to sell it. “It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba may be wrested from Spain by a successful revolution; and, in that event, she will lose both the island and the price we are willing now to pay for it,” they concluded. sentiment, however. How The Ostend Manifesto Sparked Controversy Both Marcy and U.S. President Franklin Pierce were notably unhappy with the Ostend Manifesto. Marcy protested that the ministers had misinterpreted his instructions and worried that the publicity in Europe would harm the United States diplomatically. The Ostend Manifesto’s publication by the House of Representatives in March 1855 sparked further fierce debate and discussion within the U.S. itself. Anti-slavery publications had a field day arguing against the letter. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune came out firmly against the manifesto. It called Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé the “Buccaneering Embassy” and the manifesto itself “the Manifesto of the Brigands,” according to Daniel J. Burge’s A Failed Vision of Empire. The article also noted the harmful effects on U.S. diplomacy in Europe: “Everyone seems in haste to utter condemnation, and cast ridicule on the miserable abortion of the Ostend triumvirate,” it charged. Scholars agree that the Ostend Manifesto hurt the Pierce administration in an era of fierce sectional controversy. Southerners believed that the publicity surrounding the Ostend Manifesto had permanently damaged their attempts to acquire Cuba. On the other hand, Northerners denounced the Pierce administration for its blatantly pro-Southern diplomatic stances. The Ostend Manifesto resurfaced during the 1856 presidential election. According to Thought Co., it helped James Buchanan secure the Democratic nomination because Southerners agreed with the pro-slavery views put forth in the manifesto. The nascent Republican Party strongly opposed the Ostend Manifesto and its role in Buchanan’s campaign. Its platform decried the “highwayman’s philosophy of might makes right” omnipresent throughout the letter. But Buchanan won the presidency nonetheless, and newspapers sympathetic to the manifesto urged him to follow through with his words. “Let him live up to the letter and the spirit of the Ostend letter; let him look to our interests in Cuba, which, by right of geography and physical necessity, should be ours,” urged The Indiana American newspaper in December 1856. But Buchanan did not take up the paper’s charge. And Cuba would not again become a major issue in U.S. domestic discourse until the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898.