The Ostend Manifesto was a secret document written in 1854 by U.S. diplomats at Ostend, Belgium, describing a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain. The document declared that "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."¹ Jump to: navigation, search 1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... ...

On orders from U.S. Secretary of State William L. Marcy, three U.S. diplomats—minister to Britain James Buchanan, minister to France John Y. Mason, and minister to Spain Pierre Soulé—devised a plan to purchase Cuba, for $120 million, for the United States. Further, if Spain were to refuse the offer, the manifesto suggested that America would be "justified in wresting" Cuba from Spain. The document was then sent back to the U.S. State Department, but news of it leaked out and it was soon made public. William Learned Marcy ( December 12, 1786– July 4, 1857) was an American statesman. ... Jump to: navigation, search James Buchanan (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th President of the United States (1857-1861). ... John Young Mason (April 18, 1799–October 3, 1859) was an American politician and diplomat. ... Pierre Soulé (August 31, 1801–March 26, 1870) was a U.S. politician and diplomat during the mid-19th century. ... The United States Department of State, often referred to as the State Department, is the Cabinet-level foreign affairs agency of the United States government, equivalent to foreign ministries in other countries. ...

The aggressively worded document, and Soulé's advocacy of slavery, caused outrage among Northerners who felt it was a Southern attempt to extend slavery. American free-soilers, just recently stirred with the Fugitive Slave Law passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, decried the "manifesto of brigands." Thus the American scheme to capture Cuba fizzled. Jump to: navigation, search The Buxton Memorial Fountain, celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, London. ... The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States organized in 1848 that petered out by about 1852. ... The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slaveholding interests and Northern Free-Soilers and abolitionists. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Compromise of 1850, in the history of the United States, was a series of Congressional legislative measures addressing slavery and the boundaries of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–48). ...

American intervention in Cuba would next surface near the end of the nineteenth century in the Spanish-American War. Jump to: navigation, search The Spanish-American War took place in 1898, and resulted in the United States of America gaining control over the former colonies of Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific. ...

Notes

References

• Potter, David M, The Impending Crisis, 1948 - 1961. New York, New York: Harper & Row, 1976. ISBN 0060134038.