The Winslow mail., 1899-04-15
SLAVERY IN CUBA.
Attitude of the United States in
Times Gone By.
Efforts of American Slave Holders
to secure Annexation OF the Is
land and Their Repeated
Failure,

The United States had undertaken to
stop the movement for the liberation
of Spanish colonies at the point selected
by itself, and had deliberately entered
upon the policy of maintaining Spanish
rule in its own neighbcrhood. This pol
icy meant the assumption of heavy
responsibility, as well as a continuous
effort to put to rest an unsettled ques-
ton, by stoutly, and in defiance of facts,
asserting that it really was settled if
people would only agree pleasantly to
think so. But in this, as in ali ke
cases, the effort was vain. Cuba was
held under Spanish rule, and the ques-
tion which had received the wrong an
swer began almost at once to make
itself heard, after the awkward fashion
of questions which men pretend to
have disposed of, but which are still
restlessy seeking the right and final
answer, and, without respect for pol
icies or vested interests, keep knock
ing ard 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,
hat Cuba must be annexed. and that
it would become indispensable to the
integrity of the union. Even then lid
Adams also assert that the transfer Of
Cuba to some other power was danger
obtruding 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 1843, inGeed,
Webster said that negro emancipation
in Cuba would strike a 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 Cf its
Cuban policy, changed its own atti-
tude completely. From desiring to
keep Cuba in the hands of Spain, in
order that the Cuban negroes might
remain slaves, it passed, as dangers
tUlchGuSQ drOuIu II III HOIS, " Tue
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-
yised by American shareholders and
o1Ii oJ
from Buchanan's offer to purchase, re-
jected with deep scorn by Spain the in
telligent, to the Ostend manifesto--a
barefaced argument for compassionate
included attempts to bring about Gu
ban independence by exciting insurrec-
tions and landing flibustering eXpedi-
tions. 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
volzed the ordeal Of battle, and perished
utterly. With it died its political pow
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 5 dead. Among these debts was
Cuba. Nobody had thought CT it since
tbe Ostepd manifesto If apybOGv
chanced to remember it during CT 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.
Sudden End