OSTEND MANIFESTO

OSTEND MANIFESTO. Southern desires to expand slave territory led to this foreign policy debacle in 1854. Even though U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War, 1846–1848, annexed California and the Southwest to the nation, it brought little prospect for new slave territory. Eager to permanently add slave states and increase their representation in Congress, southerners wanted Spanish-held Cuba.

In 1854, William Marcy, secretary of state under President Franklin Pierce, bowed to southern pressure and instructed James Buchanan, John Mason, and Pierre Soulé, ambassadors to England, France, and Spain, respectively, to meet in a convenient place to discuss further U.S. attempts to acquire Cuba. They met in Ostend, Belgium, and crafted the so-called Ostend Manifesto. It said that Cuba was vital to U.S. domestic interests. Further, if Spain would not sell Cuba, the United States had no choice but to take it by force. The document caused a diplomatic firestorm, reinforcing foreign fears of aggressive American expansion. Pierce and Marcy tried to distance the administration from the manifesto, but to no avail. Domestically, the document was one of several events leading to the Civil War, helping convince old Whigs and new Republicans that a Democrat-controlled "slave power" ran the country.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Connell-Smith, Gordon. The United States and Latin America: A Historical Analysis of Inter-American Relations. London: Heinemann Educational, 1974.

Gara, Larry. The Presidency of Franklin Pierce. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1991.

Plank, John, ed. Cuba and the United States: Long-Range Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1967.

Schoultz, Lars. Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Smith, Elbert B. The Presidency of James Buchanan. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1975.

R. StevenJones

See alsoCuba, Relations with ; South, the: The Antebellum South .