Edward Bates to the Whig Committee of New York, February 24, 1859

St. Louis, Feb. 24, 1859.

To Messrs. J. PHILIPS PHOENIX, WILLIS BLACKSTONE, H. M. BININGER, DAVID J. LILET AND H. R. SMITH, Committee, New York.

Sirs: A short time ago I was favored with your note of the 7th inst., covering a resolution of the Committee, to the effect that it is inexpedient at this time further to discuss or agitate the Negro question, but rather to turn the attention of the people to other topics — "topics of general importance, such as our Foreign Relations, including the Extension of Territory; the building of Railroads for National purposes; the improvement of our Harbors, the navigation of our Rivers to facilitate Internal Commerce; the subject of Currency, and a Tariff of Duties, and other means of developing our own internal resources, our home wealth, and binding together by ties of national and fraternal feelings, the various parts and sections of our widely extended Republic."

Your letter, gentlemen, opens a very wide field, in asking for my "opinion upon the subject, and my views as to the signs of the times." Books have been written upon these matters, and speeches delivered by the thousand ; and yet the argument seems as far from being exhausted as it was at the beginning ; and I take it for certain that you do not expect or desire me to discuss at large, all or any of these interminable quarrels. That I have opinions upon all or most of them, is true — not the opinions of this or that party, ready to be abandoned or modified to suit this or that platform, but my own opinions — perhaps the more fixed and harder to be changed because deliberately formed in the retirement of private life, free from the exigencies of official responsibility and from the perturbations of party policy. They are my own opinions, right or wrong.

As to the Negro question — I have always thought, and often declared in speech and in print, that it is a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousy of sections, and by those bad means foist some unfit men into office, and keep some fit men out. It is a sensitive question into whose dangerous vortex it is quite possible for good men to be drawn unawares. But when I see a man, at the South or the North, of mature age and some experience, persist in urging the question, after the sorrowful experience of the last few years, I can attribute his conduct to no higher motive than personal ambition or sectional prejudice.

As to the power of the General Government to protect the persons and properties, and advance the interests of the people, by laying taxes, raising armies and navies, building forts and arsenals, light houses, moles, and breakwaters, surveying the coasts and adjacent seas, improving rivers, lakes, and harbors, and making roads — I should be very sorry to doubt the existence of the power, or the duty to exercise it, whenever the constituted authorities have the means in their hands, and are convinced that its exercise is necessary to protect the country and advance the prosperity of the people.

In my own opinion, a government that has no power to protect the harbors of its country against winds and waves and human enemies, nor its rivers against snags, sands and rocks, nor to build roads for the transportation of its armies and its mails and the commerce of its people, is a poor, impotent government, and not at all such a government as our fathers thought they had made when they produced the Constitution which was greeted by intelligent men everywhere with admiration and gratitude as a government free enough for all the ends of legal liberty and strong enough for all the purposes of national and individual protection. A free people, if it be wise, will make a good constitution; but a constitution, however good in itself, did never make a free people. The people do not derive their rights from the government, but the government derives its powers from the people; and those powers are granted for the main, if not the only, purpose of protecting the rights of the people. Protection, then, if not the sole, is the chief end of government.

And it is for the governing power to judge, in every instance, what kind and what degree of protection is needful — whether a Navy to guard our commerce all around the world, or an Army to defend the country against armed invasion from without, or domestic insurrection from within; or a Tariff, to protect our home industry against the dangerous obtrusion of foreign labor and capital.

Of the existence of the power and duty of the Government to protect the People in their persons, their property, their industry and their locomotion, I have no doubt; but the time, the mode and the measure of protection, being always questions of policy and prudence, must of necessity be left to the wisdom and patriotism of those whose duty it is to make laws for the good government of the country. And with them I freely leave it, as the safest, and indeed the only, constitutional depository of the power.

As to our Foreign Policy generally, I have but little to say. I am not much of a progressive, and am content to leave it where Washington [Jefferson] placed it, upon that wise, virtuous, safe maxim — "Peace [. . .] with all nations; entangling alliance[s] with none." The greedy and indiscriminate appetite for foreign acquisition, which makes us covet our neighbor's lands, and devise cunning schemes to get them, has little of my sympathy. I view it as a sort of political gluttony, as dangerous to our body politic as gluttony is to the natural man — producing disease certainly, hastening death, probably. Those of our politicians who are afflicted with this morbid appetite are wont to cite the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, as giving countenance to their inordinate desires. But the cases are wholly unlike in almost every particular. Louisiana was indispensable to our full and safe enjoyment of an immense region which was already owned, and its acquisition gave us the unquestioned control of that noble system of Mississippi waters, which nature seems to have made to be one and indivisible, and rounded off the map of the nation into one uniform and compacted whole. Nothing remained to mar and disfigure our national plat, but Florida, and that was desirable, less for its intrinsic value, than because it would form a dangerous means of annoyance, in case of war with a Maritime Power, surrounded as it is, on three sides by the ocean, and touching three of our present States, with no barrier between. The population of Louisiana and Florida, when acquired, was very small compared with the largeness of the territory; and, lying in contact with the States, was easily and quickly absorbed into and assimilated with the mass of our people. Those countries were acquired, moreover, in the most peaceful and friendly manner, and for a satisfactory consideration.

Now, without any right or any necessity, it is hard to tell what we do not claim in all the continent south of us, and the adjacent islands. Cuba is to be the first fruit of our grasping enterprise, and that is to be gotten at all hazards, by peaceful purchase if we can, by war and conquest if we must.² But Cuba is only an outpost to the Empire of Islands and continental countries that are to follow. A leading Senator³ has lately declared (in debate on the Thirty Million bill⁴) that we must not only have Cuba, but all the islands from Cape Florida to the Spanish Main, so as to surround the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and make them our "mare clausum" like the Mediterranean, in old times, when the Roman Emperor ruled both its shores, from the pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont.⁵ This claim of mare nostrum implies, of course, that we must own the continent that bounds our sea on the west, as well as the string of islands that inclose it on the east — that is, Mexico, Central America, and all South America, so far south at least as the Orinoco.⁶ In that wide compass of sea and land there are a good many native governments, and provinces belonging to the strongest maritime powers, and a narrow continental isthmus which we ourselves, as well as England and France, are wont to call the highway of nations. To fulfill the grand conception, and perfect our tropical empire, we must buy or conquer all these torrid countries, and their mongrel populations. As to buying them, it strikes me that we had better waite [sic] awhile, at least until the Government has ceased to borrow money to pay its current expenses. And as to conquering them, perhaps it would be prudent to pause and make some estimate of costs and contingencies, before we rush into war with all maritime Europe and half America.

I am not one of those who believe that the United States is not an independent and safe nation, because Cuba is not a part of it. On the contrary, I believe that we are quite capable of self-defense, even if the "Queen of the Antilles" were a province of England, France or Russia; and surely, while it remains an appendage of a comparatively feeble nation, Cuba has much more cause to fear us than we have to fear Cuba. In fact, gentlemen, I cannot help doubting the honesty of the cowardly argument by which we are urged to rob poor old Spain of this last remnant of her Western empire, for fear that she might use it to rob us.

But suppose we could get, honestly and peaceably, the whole of the country — continental and insular — from the Rio Grande to the Orinoco, and from Trinidad to Cuba, and thus establish our mare clausum, and shut the gate of the world across the Isthmus, can we govern them wisely and well? For the last few years, in the attempt to govern our home Territories of Kansas and Utah, we have not very well maintained the dignity and justice of the nation, nor secured the peace and prosperity of the subject people.⁷ Can we hope to do better with the various mixed races of Mexico, Central and South America, and the West India Islands? Some of those countries have been trying for fifty years to establish republican governments on our model, but in every instance have miserably failed; and yet, there was no obstacle to complete success but their own inaptitude.

For my part, I should be grieved to see my country become, like Rome, a conquering and dominant nation; for I think there are few or no examples in history, of Governments whose chief objects were glory and power, which did ever secure the happiness and prosperity of their own people. Such Governments may grow great and famous, and advance a few of their citizens to wealth and nobility; but the price of their grandeur is the personal independence and individual freedom of their people. Still less am I inclined to see absorbed into our system, "on an equal footing with the original States," the various and mixed races (amounting to I know not how many millions) which inhabit the continent and islands south of our present border. I am not willing to inoculate our body politic with the virus of their diseases, political and social — diseases which, with them, are chronic and hereditary, and with us could hardly fail to produce corruption in the head and weakness in the members.

Our own country, as it is, in position, form and size, is a wonder which proclaims a wisdom above the wit of man. Large enough for our posterity, for centuries to come: All in the temperate zone, and therefore capable of a homogeneous population, yet so diversified in climates and soils, as to produce everything that is necessary to the comfort and wealth of a great people: Bounded east and west by great oceans, and bisected in the middle by a mighty river, which drains and fructifies the continent, and binds together the most southern and northern portions of our land by a bond stronger than iron. Beside all this, it is new and growing — the strongest on the continent, with no neighbor whose power it fears, or of whose ambition it has cause to be jealous. Surely such a country is great enough and good enough for all the ends of honest ambition and virtuous power.

It seems to me that an efficient home-loving Government, moderate and economical in its administration, peaceful in its objects, and just to all nations, need have no fear of invasion at home, or serious aggression abroad. The nations of Europe have to stand continually in defense of their existence; but the conquest of our county by a foreign power is simply impossible, and no nation is so absurd as to entertain the thought. We may conquer ourselves by local strifes and sectional animosities; and when, by our folly and wickedness, we have accomplished that great calamity, there will be none to pity us for the consequences of so great a crime.

If our Government would devote all its energies to the promotion of peace and friendship with all foreign countries, the advancement of Commerce, the increase of Agriculture, the growth and stability of Manufactures, and the cheapening, quickening and securing the internal trade and travel of our country ; in short, if it would devote itself in earnest to the establishment of a wise and steady policy of internal government, I think we should witness a growth and consolidation of wealth and comfort and power for good, which cannot be reasonably hoped for from a fluctuating policy, always watching for the turns of good fortune, or from a grasping ambition to seize new territories, which are hard to get and harder to govern.

The present position of the Administration is a sorrowful commentary upon the broad democracy of its professions. In theory, the people have the right and ability to do anything; in practice, we are verging rapidly to the One-Man power.

The President, the ostensible head of the National Democrats, is eagerly striving to concentrate power in his own hands, and thus to set aside both the People and their Representatives in the actual affairs of government. Having emptied the Treasury, which he found full, and living precariously upon borrowed money, he now demands of Congress to entrust to his unchecked discretion the War power, the Purse and the Sword. First, he asks Congress to authorize him, by statute, to use the Army to take military possession of the Northern Mexico, and hold it under his protectorate, and as a security for debts due to our citizens⁸ — civil possession would not answer, for that might expose him, as in the case of Kansas, to be annoyed by a factious Congress and a rebellious Territorial Legislature.

Secondly: Not content with this, he demands the discretionary power to use the Army and Navy in the South, also in blockading the coast and marching his troops into the interior of Mexico and New Granada, to protect our citizens against all evil-doers along the transit routes of Tehuantepec and Panama.⁹ And he and his supporters in Congress claim this enormous power upon the ground that, in this particular at least, he ought to be the equal of the greatest monarch of Europe. They forget that our fathers limited the power of the President by design, and for the reason that they had found out by sad experience that the monarchs of Europe were too strong for freedom.

Third: In strict pursuance of this doctrine, first publicly announced from Ostend,¹⁰ he demands of Congress to hand over to him thirty millions of dollars to be used at his discretion, to facilitate his acquisition of Cuba.¹¹ Facilitate how ? Perhaps it might be imprudent to tell.

Add to all this, the fact (as yet unexplained) that one of the largest naval armaments which ever sailed from our coast is now operating in South America, ostensibly against a poor little republic far up the Plate River,¹² to settle some little quarrel between the two Presidents.¹³ If Congress had been polite enough to grant the President's demand of the sword and the purse against Mexico, Central America and Cuba, this navy, its duty done at the south, might be made, on its way home, to arrive in the Gulf very opportunely, to aid the " Commander-in-Chief " in the acquisition of some very valuable territory.

I allude to these facts with no malice against Mr. Buchanan, but as evidences of the dangerous change which is now obviously sought to be made in the practical working of the Government — the concentration of power in the hands of the President, and the dangerous policy, now almost established, of looking abroad for temporary glory and aggrandizement, instead of looking at home, for all the purposes of good government — peaceable, moderate, economical, protecting all interests alike, and by a fixed policy, calling into safe exercise all the talents and industry of our people, and thus steadily advancing our country in everything which can make a nation great, happy, and permanent.

The rapid increase of the Public Expenditures (and that, too, under the management of statesmen professing to be peculiarly economical) is an alarming sign of corruption and decay.

That increase bears no fair proportion to the growth and expansion of the country, but looks rather like wanton waste or criminal negligence. The ordinary objects of great expense are not materially augmented — the Army and Navy remain on a low peace establishment— the military defenses are little, if at all, enlarged — the improvement of Harbors, Lakes and Rivers is abandoned, and the Pacific Railroad is not only not begun but its very location is scrambled for by angry sections, which succeed in nothing but mutual defeat. In short, the money to an enormous amount (I am told at the rate of $80,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year) is gone, and we have little or nothing to show for it. In profound peace with foreign nations, and surrounded with the proofs of National growth and individual prosperity, the Treasury, by less than two years of mismanagement, is made bankrupt, and the Government itself is living from hand to mouth, on bills of credit and borrowed money!

This humiliating state of things could hardly happen if men in power were both honest and wise. The Democratic economists in Congress confess that they have recklessly wasted the Public Revenue; they confess it by refusing to raise the Tariff to meet the present exigency, and by insisting that they can replenish the exhausted Treasury and support the Government, in credit and efficiency, by simply striking off their former extravagances.

An illustrious predecessor of the President is reported to have declared "that those who live on borrowed money ought to break." I do not concur in that harsh saying; yet I am clearly of opinion that the Government, in common prudence (to say nothing of pride and dignity), ought to reserve its credit for great transactions and unforeseen emergencies. In common times of peace, it ought always to have an established revenue, equal, at least, to its current expenses. And that revenue ought to be so levied as to foster and protect the Industry of the country employed in our most necessary and important manufactures.

Gentlemen, I cannot touch upon all the topics alluded to in your letter and resolution. I ought rather to beg your pardon for the prolixity of this answer. I speak for no party, because the only party I ever belonged to has ceased to exist as an organized and militant body.

And I speak for no man but myself.

I am fully aware that my opinions and views of public policy are of no importance to anybody but me, and there is good reason to fear that some of them are so antiquated and out of fashion as to make it very improbable that they will ever again be put to the test of actual practice.

Most respectfully,

EDWARD BATES.

_______________

² This was the substance of the Ostend Manifesto which Buchanan as Minister to Great Britain had joined Ministers John Y. Mason and Pierre Soulé in promulgating. As Secretary of State under President Polk, Buchanan had tried to buy Cuba. In his second, third, and fourth annual messages he urged Congress to cooperate with him in securing it by negotiation.

³ Robert Toombs of Georgia: Whig state legislator, 1837-1840, 1841-1844; states' rights Democratic congressman, 1845-1853; U. S. senator, 1853-1861. He was later a leader in the Georgia Secession Convention, and congressman, brigadier-general, and secretary of State under the Confederacy.

⁴ January, 1859, Senate Reports, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., ser. no. 994, doc. no. 351. The bill purposed to appropriate $30,000,000 "to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba by negotiation." Senator Slidell (infra, Nov. 24, 1859, note 89) introduced it on January 10. 1859 (Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 277) ; it was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Relations of which he was chairman, on January 24, 1859 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538) ; it was debated at great length on January 24, February 9-10, February 15—17, February 21, and February 25 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538-544, 904-909, 934-940, 960968, 1038, Appendix [155-169], 1058-1063, 1079-1087, 1179-1192, 1326-1363) ; but because of opposition, it was withdrawn on February 26 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 13S51387). At the next session, on December 8, 1859, Senator Slidell reintroduced this bill (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 53), had it referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on December 21 (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 199), reported it out favorably to the Senate on May 30, 1860, but because of opposition did not push it (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 2456). He promised to call it up again at the next session, but when that time arrived was too busy seceding to bother about Cuba.

⁵ On January 24, Toombs had said, "Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Caribbean Sea, a mare clausum. Probably younger men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float there except by permission of the United States of America . . . that development, that progress throughout the tropics [is] the true, fixed unalterable policy of the nation." Ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 543.

⁶ I. e., as far as Venezuela.

⁷ Bitterness over the slavery question had reached the point of armed conflict, raids, and murder in Kansas in 1855-1856, and Utah was at this time subject to frequent Indian raids. It was in 1859, too, that the Republicans tried to prohibit polygamy in Utah and the Democrats succeeded, probably with slavery in other territories in mind, in preventing Congressional legislation on the subject.

⁸ Dec. 6, 1858, James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 514. See infra, Feb. 15, 1860.

⁹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 516-517.

¹⁰ Supra, April 20, 1859, note 2.

¹¹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 508-511.

¹² Rio de La Plata in South America.

¹³ An expedition of some 19 ships, 200 guns, and 2.500 men which was sent against Paraguay because a vessel of that nation had fired upon the United States steamer Water Witch. A mere show of force sufficed to secure both an apology and an indemnity on February 10, 1859. The President of Argentina was so interested and so pleased that he presented the commander with a sword.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 1-9

The Ostend Manifesto,* October 18, 1854

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, October 18th, 1854.

TO THE HON. WM. L. MARCY,
        Secretary of State.

SIR: The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed by the President in the several confidential despatches you have addressed to us respectively to that effect, have met in conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th instant, and then at Aix-la-Chapelle, in Prussia, on the days next following, up to the date hereof.

There has been a full and unreserved interchange of views and sentiments between us, which, we are most happy to inform you, has resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on the grave and important subjects submitted to our consideration.

We have arrived at the conclusion and are thoroughly convinced that an immediate and earnest effort ought to be made by the Government of the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain, at any price for which it can be obtained, not exceeding the sum of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.

The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in such a manner as to be presented, through the necessary diplomatic forms, to the Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous question, in which the people both of Spain and the United States are so deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to be open, frank, and public. They should be of such a character as to challenge the approbation of the World.

We firmly believe that, in the progress of human events, the time has arrived when the vital interests of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale as those of the United States in the purchase of the Island, and that the transaction will prove equally honorable to both nations.

Under these circumstances, we cannot anticipate a failure, unless, possibly, through the malign influence of foreign Powers who possess no right whatever to interfere in the matter.

We proceed to state some of the reasons which have brought us to this conclusion; and, for the sake of clearness, we shall specify them under two distinct heads:

1. The United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba with as little delay as possible.

2. The probability is great that the Government and Cortes of Spain will prove willing to sell it, because this would essentially promote the highest and best interests of the Spanish people.

Then—1. It must be clear to every reflecting mind that, from the peculiarity of its geographical position and the considerations attendant on it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American Republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of States of which the Union is the Providential Nursery.

From its locality it commands the mouth of the Mississippi and the immense and annually increasing trade which must seek this avenue to the ocean.

On the numerous navigable streams, measuring an aggregate course of some thirty thousand miles, which disembogue themselves through this magnificent river into the Gulf of Mexico, the increase of the population, within the last ten years, amounts to more than that of the entire Union at the time Louisiana was annexed to it.

The natural and main outlet of the products of this entire population, the highway of their direct intercourse with the Atlantic and the Pacific States, can never be secure, but must ever be endangered whilst Cuba is a dependency of a distant Power, in whose possession it has proved to be a source of constant annoyance and embarrassment to their interests.

Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security, as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.

Its immediate acquisition by our Government is of paramount importance, and we cannot doubt but that it is a consummation devoutly wished for by its inhabitants.

The intercourse which its proximity to our coasts begets and encourages between them and the citizens of the United States has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and blended their fortunes, that they now look upon each other as if they were one people and had but one destiny.

Considerations exist which render delay in the acquisition of this Island exceedingly dangerous to the United States.

The system of emigration and labor lately organized within its limits, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its immediate rulers, threaten an insurrection, at every moment, which may result in direful consequences to the American People.

Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm.

But we need not enlarge on these topics. It can scarcely be apprehended that foreign Powers, in violation of international law, would interpose their influence with Spain to prevent our acquisition of 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 who are changed at short intervals, and who are tempted to improve the brief opportunity thus afforded to accumulate fortunes by the basest means.

As long as this system shall endure, humanity may in vain demand the suppression of the African Slave trade in the Island. This is rendered impossible whilst that infamous traffic remains an irresistible temptation and a source of immense profit to needy and avaricious officials who, to attain their end, scruple not to trample the most sacred principles under foot.

The Spanish Government at home may be well disposed, but experience has proved that it cannot control these remote depositories of its power.

Besides, the commercial nations of the world cannot fail to perceive and appreciate the great advantages which would result to their people from a dissolution of the forced and unnatural connection between Spain and Cuba, and the annexation of the latter to the United States. The trade of England and France with Cuba would, in that event, assume at once an important and profitable character, and rapidly extend with the increasing population and prosperity of the Island.

2. But if the United States and every commercial nation would be benefited by this transfer, the interests of Spain would also be greatly and essentially promoted.

She cannot but see that such a sum of money as we are willing to pay for the Island would effect in the development of her vast natural resources.

Two thirds of this sum, if employed in the construction of a system of Railroads, would ultimately prove a source of greater wealth to the Spanish people than that opened to their vision by Cortes. Their prosperity would date from the ratification of the Treaty of cession. France has already constructed continuous lines of Railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valenciennes, and Strasbourg, via Paris, to the Spanish frontier, and anxiously awaits the day when Spain shall find herself in a condition to extend these roads, through her Northern provinces, to Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and the frontiers of Portugal.

This object once accomplished, Spain would become a centre of attraction for the travelling world and secure a permanent and profitable market for her various productions. Her fields, under the stimulus given to industry by remunerating prices, would teem with cereal grain, and her vineyards would bring forth a vastly increased quantity of choice wines. Spain would speedily become, what a bountiful Providence intended she should be, one of the first Nations of Continental Europe, rich, powerful, and contented.

Whilst two thirds of the price of the Island would be ample for the completion of her most important public improvements, she might, with the remaining forty millions, satisfy the demands now pressing so heavily upon her credit, and create a sinking fund which would gradually relieve her from the overwhelming debt now paralysing her energies.

Such is her present wretched financial condition, that her best bonds are sold, upon her own Bourse, at about one third of their par value; whilst another class, on which she pays no interest, have but a nominal value and are quoted at about one sixth of the amount for which they were issued. Besides, these latter are held principally by British creditors, who may, from day to day, obtain the effective interposition of their own Government, for the purpose of coercing payment. Intimations to that effect have been already thrown out from high quarters, and unless some new, source of revenue shall enable Spain to provide for such exigencies, it is not improbable that they may be realized.

Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her resources and removing her present financial embarrassments, it may never again return.

Cuba, in its palmiest days, never yielded her Exchequer, after deducting the expenses of its Government, a clear annual income of more than a million and a half of dollars. These expenses have increased to such a degree as to leave a deficit chargeable on the Treasury of Spain to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars.

In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the Island is an encumbrance instead of a source of profit to the Mother Country.

Under no probable circumstances can Cuba ever yield to Spain one per cent. on the large amount which the United States are willing to pay for its acquisition.

But Spain is in imminent danger of losing Cuba without remuneration.

Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, justifies any people in endeavoring to relieve themselves from the yoke of their oppressors. The sufferings which the corrupt, arbitrary, and unrelenting local administration necessarily entails upon the inhabitants of Cuba cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive that spirit of resistance and revolution against Spain which has of late years been so often manifested. In this condition of affairs, it is vain to expect that the sympathies of the people of the United States will not be warmly enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors.

We know that the President is justly inflexible in his determination to execute the neutrality laws, but should the Cubans themselves rise in revolt against the oppressions which they suffer, no human power could prevent citizens of the United States and liberal minded men of other countries from rushing to their assistance.

Besides, the present is an age of adventure, in which restless and daring spirits abound in every portion of the world.

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 which we are now willing to pay for it—a price far beyond what was ever paid by one people to another for any province.

It may also be here remarked that the settlement of this vexed question, by the cession of Cuba to the United States, would forever prevent the dangerous complications between nations to which it may otherwise give birth.

It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves organize an insurrection against the Spanish Government, and should other independent nations come to the aid of Spain in the contest, no human power could, in our opinion, prevent the people and Government of the United States from taking part in such a civil war in support of their neighbors and friends.

But if Spain, deaf to the voice of her own interest, and actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then the question will arise, what ought to be the course of the American Government under such circumstances?

Self-preservation is the first law of nature, with States as well as with individuals. All nations have, at different periods, acted upon this maxim. Although it has been made the pretext for committing flagrant injustice, as in the partition of Poland and other similar cases which history records, yet the principle itself, though often abused, has always been recognized.

The United States have never acquired a foot of territory, except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and voluntary application of the people of that independent State, who desired to blend their destinies with our own.

Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no exception to this rule, because, although we might have claimed them by the right of conquest in a just way, yet we purchased them for what was then considered by both parties a full and ample equivalent.

Our past history forbids that we should acquire the Island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great law of self-preservation. We must in any event preserve our own conscious rectitude and our own self-respect.

Whilst pursuing this course, we can afford to disregard the censures of the world to which we have been so often and so unjustly exposed.

After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba, far beyond its present value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be time to consider the question, does Cuba in the possession of Spain seriously endanger our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union?

Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law human and Divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power; and this, upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor, if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home.

Under such circumstances, we ought neither to count the cost, nor regard the odds which Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the question, whether the present condition of the Island would justify such a measure.

We should, however, 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 neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union.

We fear that the course and current of events are rapidly tending towards such a catastrophe. We, however, hope for the best, though we ought certainly to be prepared for the worst.

We also forbear to investigate the present condition of the questions at issue between the United States and Spain,

A long series of injuries to our people have been committed in Cuba by Spanish officials, and are unredressed. But recently a most flagrant outrage on the rights of American citizens, and on the flag of the United States, was perpetrated in the harbor of Havana, under circumstances which without immediate redress would have justified a resort to measures of war, in vindication of national honor. That outrage is not only unatoned, but the Spanish Government has deliberately sanctioned the acts of its subordinates and assumed the responsibility attaching to them.

Nothing could more impressively teach us the danger to which those peaceful relations it has ever been the policy of the United States to cherish with foreign nations are constantly exposed than the circumstances of that case.

Situated as Spain and the United States are, the latter have forborne to resort to extreme measures. But this course cannot, with due regard to their own dignity as an independent nation, continue; and our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated by the firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the United States, with stipulations as beneficial to Spain as those suggested, is the only effective mode of settling all past differences and of securing the two countries against future collisions.

We have already witnessed the happy results for both countries which followed a similar arrangement in regard to Florida.

Yours very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

J. Y. MASON.

PIERRE SOULÉ.

_______________

* MSS. Department of State, 66 Despatches from England. Printed in H. Ex. Doc. 93. 33 Cong. 2 Sess. 127-132; Horton's Buchanan, 392-399. An extract is given in Curtis's Buchanan, II. 139.

SOURCE: John Bassett Moore, The Works of James Buchanan: Comprising His Speeches, State Papers and Private Correspondence, Volume 9: 1853-1855, p. 260-6