The Ostend Manifesto

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>Manifest Destiny remained a driving force in the years following the war with Mexico. Throughout the nation Democrats, especially, flocked to the “Young America” movement, which championed the European revolutionaries of 1848 and the spread of democratic ideals around the globe. Expansionists also sought new markets and further territorial acquisitions. Southerners particularly coveted Cuba, the final remnant of Spain’s once grand empire in the Western Hemisphere, and they had an ally in the White House. Franklin Pierce, a Democrat from New Hampshire, defeated General Winfield Scott for the presidency in 1852, despite being derided by abolitionists as “a northern man with southern principles.” The Pierce administration actively sought to annex Cuba, lying 90 miles off the Florida Keys, even though President James K. Polk’s previous offer of 100 million dollars for the island had been scornfully rejected by the Spanish government.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>On February 28, 1854, an incident took place in Havana, Cuba, that heightened the tensions between the United States and Spain. An American merchant ship, the <I>Black Warrior</I>, was seized by Spanish authorities and its owners subsequently fined six thousand dollars for violating customs regulations. Southerners were willing to use this affront to national honor as a pretext for war with Spain, expecting to gain Cuba in the process. Spanish officials, however, realized the gravity of the situation and soon released the <I>Black Warrior</I>. This temporarily defused the diplomatic crisis, but the Pierce administration responded with a secret plan to acquire Cuba.<BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Secretary of State William L. Marcy, a New Yorker, instructed several American diplomats in Europe to devise a solution to the Cuba question. Two of the ministers were aggressively in favor of extending slavery—Pierre Soulé of Louisiana, who represented the U.S. in Madrid; and James M. Mason of Virginia, ambassador to France. The third was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, minister to Great Britain, who joined many northern Democrats who supported territorial expansion, be it slave or free. The American ministers first met in Ostend, Belgium, before concluding their talks at Aix-la-Chapelle in Prussia. They drafted a truly remarkable document, known as the Ostend Manifesto, on October 18, 1854. <BR></P> </p> <p> <P>Soulé, Mason, and Buchanan claimed that Cuba was “an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm” to the United States. They urged the Pierce administration to “purchase Cuba from Spain at any price for which it can be obtained.” If the Spanish refused to sell the island, however, Americans, “By every law, human and divine, . . . shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power.” The Ostend Manifesto was leaked to the <I>New York Herald</I>, and it created a furor in the north. The Pierce administration appeared ready to go to war with Spain to acquire more slave territory. Secretary of State Marcy publicly disavowed the “buccaneering document,” and Soulé resigned in protest. The Ostend Manifesto, coupled with <I>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</I>, drove a wedge between the North and the South and undermined the effectiveness of the Compromise of 1850 as the final solution to the sectional controversy. <BR></P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>