YALE UNIVERSITY
9EP 23 19
The Cuban Question

American Diplomacy.

BY
Daniel J. Ryan.
COLUMBUS, O.

Spahr & Glenn,
1897.

The Cuban Question in American
Diplomacy*

BY the treaty of 1819, Spain ceded to the United
States the territory of Florida, and from that
date the island of Cuba became a subject of
interest and concern to this government. Its proximity
to the United States, its natural richness, its desirable
location, and the fact that it was the last of the vast
possessions originally held by Spain on the Western
Hemisphere, made it a subject of diplomatic anxiety on
the part of the United States. From Monroe to
McKinley it has at different times occupied considera
ble space in the portfolio of the Department of State.
Upon the commencement of the war between
France and Spain in 1823, the destiny of Cuba first
became a serious question of American diplomacy.
John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, in an
elaborate and able letter of instruction, dated April 28,
1823, to our Minister to Spain, Hugh Nelson, wrote of
the relations of Cuba to the United States. He said :
" "Whatever may be the issue of this war as between
those two European powers, it may be taken for granted
that the domain of Spain upon the American continents,
north or south, is irrevocably gone. But the islands of
Cuba and Porto Rico still remain nominally, and so far
really, dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the
power of transferring her own dominion over them,
together with the possession of them, to others. These
islands, from their local position, are natural appendages
to the North American Continent, and one of them
(Cuba) almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude

2 $0e CuBan (Dueefton in
of considerations has become an object of transcendent
importance to the commercial and political interests of
our Union. Its commanding position with reference to
the Gulf of Mexico and the "West India seas ; the char
acter of its population ; its situation midway between
our southern coast and the island of San Domingo ; its
safe aud capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a
long line of our shores destitute of the same advantage ;
the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnish
ing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce
immensely profitable and mutually beneficial, give it an
importance in the sum of our national interests with
which that of no other foreign territory can be com
pared, and little inferior to that which binds the differ
ent members of this Union together. Such, indeed, are,
between the interests of that island and of this country,
the geographical, commercial, moral and political rela
tions formed by nature, gathering in the process of
time, and even now verging to maturity, that, in look
ing forward to the probable course of events for the
short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to
resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our
Federal Republic will be indispensable to the continu
ance and integrity of the Union itself."
At this time President Monroe was deeply dis
turbed by the semi-official information received from
France that Great Britain had been negotiating with
Spain for the past two years to obtain possession of
Cuba. So anxious was England to own it, that Gib
raltar was said to have been offered as a consideration
for the cession. That this matter was contemplated
with much disfavor by our own government may be
inferred from the language of Mr. Adams, in the letter
of instruction referred to. He declared that the trans
fer of Cuba to Great Britain would be " an event unpro-

®me«tcan ©tpfomacg. 3
pitious to the interests of this Union." As to the
position of the administration in such an emergency,
the distinguished Secretary of State voiced its policy
when he said that it was its duty and right to prevent
this by diplomatic and peaceful means if possible, but
by force if necessary. Thomas Jefferson shared the
views of Mr. Adams on this subject. From his retreat
at Monticello the venerable framer of the Declaration of
Independence wrote President Monroe (June 11, 1823),
that the possession of Cuba by Great Britain " would
indeed be a calamity to us." Mr. Jefferson believed
that Cuba should belong to the United States; his
opinion was that " her addition to our confederacy is
exactly what is wanted to round out our power as a
nation to the point of its uttermost interest."
When John Quincy Adams became President, he
maintained throughout his administration the ideal
American policy of his predecessor and former chief,
James Monroe. Through his Secretary of State, Henry
Clay, he announced to Rufus King, the American Min
ister to Spain, that the determined policy of the United
States would not admit of the occupation of Cuba by
any European power other than Spain. Similar
instructions were sent under the date of October 17,
1825, to James Brown, our Minister to France. While
the United States was publicly announcing its position
on Cuba, the British Ministry was conniving with
Spanish Refugees in London with a view to revolution
izing and possessing the island. In a confidential com
munication to the Spanish Secretary of State, Alexander
H. Everett, the American Minister, in December, 1827,
bluntly reproached the Spanish government with a
knowledge of the fact and notified Spain that the United
States would not permit such an arrangement or transfer
to be consummated. The underground conspiracy and

4 #0e CuBan Question tn
negotiations of the British government had Cuba as its
subject for fully a third of a century, commencing with
President Monroe's administration, and it required the
most pronounced declarations and the utmost diplo
matic vigilance on the part of the United States to
thwart these English designs. England's insatiable
appetite for territory, fully in keeping with her unpar
alleled record as a land thief, kept our Department of
State busy. She was constantly using the Cuban
question, for such it had now become in international
politics, as a pretext for obtruding her intermeddling
and dictatorial suggestions. It was at this time that
England wanted to be one of a triple protectorate over
Cuba. A proposition embodying this policy was made
to France and the United States. It was rejected by
both these nations.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1852, a similar policy
was urged by France and Great Britain when they
framed the Tripartite Treaty and urged the United
States to sign it. By this treaty the three nations were
pledged never to attempt to annex Cuba to their
respective dominions. Edward Everett, the Secretary
of State, in a masterly state paper, refused for our
government to consider any such proposition. Upon
this subject he said: "To enter into a compact with
European powers to the effect that the United States,
as well as other contracting powers, would decline all
intentions, now or hereafter, to obtain possession of
Cuba, would be inconsistent with the principles, the
policy and the traditions of the United States."
It will thus be seen that from 1823 to 1852 the
Cuban question was one of the foremost issues involved
in American diplomacy. Once during that period, the
United States, with a view to ridding herself of the
dangerous possibility of its acquisition by foreign

@-mericcm ©tpfomaeg. 5
powers, other than Spain, made a direct offer to Spain
through President Polk, in 1848, to purchase the island
for $100,000,000. This proposition was made through
the American Minister at Madrid, but was promptly
rejected by Spain as a national indignity, both by the
Spanish Crown and the Cortes. The Cuban question
again came to the surface in the administration of Presi
dent Pierce. In the summer of 1854 three American
Ministers, James Buchanan, John Y. Mason and Pierre
Soule, accredited severally to Great Britain, to France
and to Spain, met under the direction of President
Pierce at Ostend, Belgium, and considered the destiny
of Cuba in relation to the United States. This confer
ence forwarded to the Department of State a long joint
dispatch which is known in history as the " Ostend
Manifesto." They substantially recommended that if
Spain would not sell Cuba the United States would be
justified from national policy and self preservation in
seizing it. Nothing ever came out of this conference
or its manifesto. President Buchanan was strongly in
favor of acquiring Cuba by purchase, and urged it in
his second (1858) third (1859) and fourth (1860) mes
sages to Congress. In his second message he argued
thus : " The island of Cuba from its geographical
position commands the mouth of the Mississippi and
the immense and annually increasing trade, foreign and
otherwise, from the valley of that noble river, now em
bracing half the sovereign states of the Union. With
that island under the dominion of a distant foreign
power, this trade of vital importance to these states, is
exposed to the danger of being destroyed in time of
war, and it has hitherto been subjected to perpetual
injury and annoyance in time of peace. Our relations
with Spain which ought to be of the most friendly
character, must always be placed in jeopardy, whilst

6 #0e £uBem Question in
the existing colonial government over this island shall
remain in its present condition."
Commencing in 1868, war for independence was
waged by the Cubans for ten years. During this time
state papers pertaining to intervention and belligerency
were numerous. In order to put a stop to the bloodshed
in Cuba the United States in the interest of humanity
proposed their good offices to bring the existing contest
to a termination. Spain refused to accede to any
reasonable request in the matter. President Grant in
his first annual (1869) message reviewed the Cuban sit
uation, but offered no recommendations, nor did he say
anything concerning it that was not commonplace.
The next year the President in a special message of
June 13th, called the attention of Congress to the
question of recognizing the belligerency of the Cubans,
but throughout the message argued that the time was
not ripe for such action. In a diplomatic way this
country again in 1870 tendered its good offices to Spain,
and Mr. Fish, the Secretary of State, proposed terms
for the cession of Cuba to the Cubans. Both tenders
were rejected, and Spain continued her campaign of
blood and devastation against a people struggling for
independence. In vain did Germany, Russia, Italy and
the United States urge the inauguration of reforms and
the restoration of peace in Cuba. With the savagery
of a maddened beast Spain has carried on her butcheries
in a greater or lesser degree ever since. No one can
review with candor the relative positions, historically
and politically, of our country and Cuba, without
believing what Hamilton Fish as Secretary of State
wrote to Caleb Cushing, Minister to Spain, in 1874 :
" Cuba, like the former continental colonies of Spain in
America, ought to belong to the great family of Ameri
can republics, with political forms and public policy of

®*nmcan ©tyfomocg. 7
their own, and attached to Europe by no ties save those
of international amity and intellectual, commercial and
social intercourse. The desire of independence on the
part of the Cubans is a natural and legitimate aspira
tion of theirs because they are Americans, and while
such independence is the manifest exigency of the
political interests of the Cubans themselves, it is equally
so that of the rest of America, including the United
States." From the present conditions it looks as if the day
of the realization of the traditional aspirations of
the American people was at hand. It is within the
constitutional power of the President to do the act that
will bring ultimate independence to Cuba. His deep
patriotism and love of freedom should make this act one
of pleasure. History will make it immortal. What
that great tribune of liberty, Owen Lovejoy, once said
in a debate in Congress, can properly be repeated now :
" To be president, to be king, to be victor, has happened
to many; to be embalmed in the hearts of mankind
throughout all generations as liberator and emancipator
has been vouchsafed to few."

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