Part 15 (2/2)

”I am very glad this question has at length come up. I am glad, too, it has antagonized with the n.i.g.g.e.r question. We are 's.h.i.+vering in the wind,' are we, sir, over your Cuba question? You may have occasion to s.h.i.+ver on that question before you are through with it. The question will be, shall we give n.i.g.g.e.rs to the n.i.g.g.e.rless, or land to the landless, etc... . When you come to n.i.g.g.e.rs to the n.i.g.g.e.rless, all other questions sink into perfect insignificance.”(89)

Although a majority of the Senate seemed to favor the bill, Mr.

Slidell withdrew it after much discussion, declaring it was then impracticable to press it to a final vote.

The once famous Ostend Manifesto, dated October 18, 1854, was a remarkable doc.u.ment, prepared and signed by Pierre Soule, John Y.

Mason, and James Buchanan, then Ministers, respectively, to Spain, France, and England, at a conference held at Ostend and Aix-la- Chapelle, France. It a.s.sumed to offer $120,000,000 for Cuba, and, if this were refused, it announced that it was the duty of the United States to apply the ”great law” of ”self-preservation” and take Cuba in ”disregard of the censures of the world.” The further excuse stated in the Manifesto was that ”Cuba was in danger of being Africanized and become a second St. Domingo.”

The real purpose, however, was to acquire it, and then admit it into the Union as two or more slave States.

Buchanan, as Secretary of State under Polk, had offered $100,000,000 for Cuba. His efforts to obtain Cuba secured for him the support of the South for President in 1856.

There was no special instance of acquiring or attempting to acquire territory by the United States authorities to dedicate to freedom.

Cuba is still Spanish (though not slave) (90) and just now in the throes of insurrection, and the Congress of the United States has just voted (April, 1896) to grant the Cuban Provisional Government belligerent rights.(91)

(84) From one election, held in 1857 at Oxford, Kansas, a roll was returned on which 1624 persons' names appeared which had been copied in alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory. These persons were reported as voting with the anti-slavery party.

(85) Keitt of South Carolina and Edmundson of Virginia stood by during the a.s.sault, in a menacing manner, to protect Brooks from a.s.sistance that might come to Sumner.

(86) _Life of Sumner_ (Lesten), pp. 250, etc.

(87) Appleton's _Cyclop. Am. Biography_, vol. vi., p. 311.

(88) _Mana.s.sas to Appotmattox_ (Longstreet), pp. 113, 161.

(89) In 1862 the first homestead bill became a law, under which, by July 30, 1878, homesteads were granted to the number of 384,848; in area, 61,575,680 acres, or 96,212 square miles; greater in extent by 7000 square miles than England, Wales, and Scotland.

(90) In 1870 the Spanish Government enacted a law emanc.i.p.ating all slaves in Cuba over sixty years of age, and declaring all free who were born after the enactment. In 1886 but 25,000 slaves remained, and these were emanc.i.p.ated _en ma.s.se_ by a decree of the Spanish Cortes. The last vestige of slavery (the patronato system) was swept away by a royal decree dated October 7, 1886.

(91) But see _Service in Spanish War_, Appendix A.

XIX DRED SCOTT CASE--1857

On March 6, 1857, two days after Buchanan was inaugurated President of the United States, the famous Dred Scott case was decided.

Chief-Justice Taney of Maryland, Justices Wayne of Georgia, Catron of Tennessee, Daniel of Virginia, Campbell of Alabama, Grier of Pennsylvania, and Nelson of New York concurred in the decision, though some of them only in a qualified way.

Chief-Justice Taney read the opinion of the court.

Justices McLean of Ohio and Curtis of Ma.s.sachusetts dissented on all points. All the justices read opinions at length.(93)

Chief-Justice Taney was a devout Roman Catholic, given much to letters, of great industry, and generally regarded as a great jurist. When the case was decided he was nearly eighty years of age, and he was then, in the distracted condition of the country, deeply imbued with the idea that the Supreme Court had the power to and could settle the slavery question.

All the other justices were eminent jurists and men of learning.

The decision reached marked an epoch in American history, and it gave slavery an apparent perpetual lease of life; this was, however, only apparent.

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