How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [107]
Whenever the people of Cuba shall show themselves worthy of freedom by asserting and maintaining their independence and establishing republican institutions, my heart, my sympathies, my prayers, are with them for the accomplishment of the object.… When that independence shall have been established, if it shall become necessary to their interest or safety to apply as Texas did for annexation, I shall be ready to do by them as we did by Texas, and receive them into the Union.5
In Cuba, meanwhile, Spain sought to preempt American designs by issuing a number of decrees regarding slavery and race. One freed those slaves illegally imported from the United States. Another established a procedure enabling slaves to purchase their freedom. A third allowed Cubans of any color to join the militia. And a fourth legalized interracial marriage. Journalists in the United States referred to these decrees as the “Africanization” of Cuba.
With Quitman recruiting troops, stockpiling armaments, and raising funds through the issuance of Cuban bonds bearing his signature as “Commander-in-Chief,” the Senate took up consideration of a proposal to suspend the Neutrality Act. The legislation was sent to the Foreign Relations Committee, but Quitman’s quest suddenly became an uphill effort when Senator Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Because Douglas’s bill would end federal regulation of where slavery could and could not exist, the annexation of Cuba became embroiled in rumors that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was part of a grand Southern conspiracy. Senator Thomas Hart Benton brought those rumors out in the open:
I must now … look out for [the bill’s] real object—the particular purpose for which it was manufactured, and the grand movement of which it is to be the basis. First, the mission of Mr. Gadsden to Santa Anna. It must have been conceived about the time that this bill was. Fifty million dollars for as much Mexican territory on our southern border as would make five or six states.… Secondly, the mission of [Ambassador] Soulé to Madrid—also a grand movement in itself … two hundred and fifty million dollars for Cuba.… I only call attention to them as probable indexes to this grand movement … and my own belief [that] this Nebraska bill is only an entering wedge to future enterprises—a thing manufactured for a particular purpose—a stepping stone to a grand movement which is to develop itself in this country of ours.
Senator Benton’s fear
The “grand movement” that Benton suspected consisted of Cuba being annexed as a slave state, Kansas becoming a slave state, James Gadsden acquiring the regions of Mexico he sought, a slave state being created from the southern half of the New Mexico Territory, and a slave state being created from the southern half of California. Taken together, these possibilities would have made the slave-holding South indomitable. Such a movement had in fact been suggested by López in a letter to Governor Quitman the day after their initial meeting. López had linked the annexation of Cuba to a “union of the Southern States … [that] could never be broken.”
Despite Senator Benton’s misgivings, President Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and, the following day, sought to mitigate Northern anger by issuing a proclamation regarding Cuba:
Whereas information has been received that sundry persons, citizens of the United States and others residing therein, are engaged in organizing and fitting out a military expedition for the invasion of the island of Cuba; and
Whereas the said undertaking is contrary to the spirit and express stipulations of treaties between the United States and Spain, derogatory to the character of this nation,