Daily camera., 1899-03-06
SLAVERY IN CUBA.
Attitude of the United States in
Times Gone By.
Efforts of American Slave Holders
to Secure Ans--0- of the Is
land and l-A-Ar Nepeated
Failure.

The United States had undertaken to
stop the movement FOR the l:o~-.:ion
OF ;-v.Eish co.uriie> a, .h- I-.nt Sc iected
by itself, and had DE-. L"fately entered
uponathe policy Of III. 4 ,'>:ning Spanish
rule in its own neigh borl ood. This pol
icy meant the assumption of heavy
possibility, as well as a continuous
effort to put to rest an unsettled ques-
ton. by s1ouLly, and in d-rance of facts,
asserting that it reA-., was settled if
people would only a. ee pleasantly to
think so. But in this, as in all like
cases, the effort was vain, Cuba was
held under Spanish rule, and the ques-
ton which had received the wrong an
swer began almost at once to make
itself hea I'd. after the awkward fashion
CT questions which men pretend to
nave disposed of, but which are still
resilessiy seeking the right and final
answer, and, without respect for pol
icies or vested interests, keep knock
ing and crying at the door. Some
American statesmen saw that there
was real question in Cuba demanding
a real settlement, and declared. like
John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay,
that Cuba must be annexed, and that
il would become indispensable to the
integriiy y of the ur ion. Even then did
ADAMS also assert thai the transfer of
Cuba to some other power was danger
ubtruding Itself upon our councils. But
the plan of leaving, the island with
Spain prevailed. Cuba had come near
to both independence and annexation,
but both gave way before the slave
power, and for 20 years the policy OF
1925 had sway. As late as 1S43 indeed,
Webster said that negro emancipation
in Cuba would strike death blow to
slavery in the United States, thus Civ
ing cynically and frankly the bad and
true reason for the policy steadily
pressed since 1925. Never at rest, how
ever, the slave power itself, few years
after Webster's lucid definition of its
Cuban policy, changed its own atti-
tude completely. From desiring to
keep Cuba in the hands of Spain, in
remain slaves. it passed, as dangers
thickened around it at home, to the
determination to secure Cuba, in order
that more slavery territory might be
added to the United States. Hence a
continuous effort to get the island by
annexation, and various projects, all
fallen into more or less oblivion now,
to bring that result about, were de-
vised by American Shareholders and
their allies. Their schemes ranged
from Buchanan's offer to purchase, re-
jected with deep scorn by Spain the in
telligent, to the Ostend manfesto-a
barefaced argument for conquest-and
included 3attempts to bring about Gu
ban independence by exciting insurrec-
tions and landing tilibustering expedi-
tons. But the time was, fast drawing
near, even, while the American slave
holders were thus seeking new terri
tory, when the slave power would be
thinking not of extension, but of ex-
istence In 1861 American slavery in
voked the ordeal of battle. and perished
u
er, and the policies, foreign and domes-
tic, which it had so long imposed upon
the United States. But slavery also
left a number of debts to humanity
which were not buried with it, but
which required payment at the hands
of the American people. who had been
responsible for slavery living, and
could not avoid settling its debts when
it was dead. Among these debts was
Cuba. Nobody had thought of it since
the Ostend manifesto. If anybody
CHANGED to remember it during or after
the civil war, the thought probably was
that Cuba at last was well out of the
way, together with the slave power
which had been forever meddling with
it, and talking about it, and casting
covetous eyes upon its rich lands and
forests.-Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, in
Harper's Magazine.