The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930 Page: 104
344 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
upon American vessels in Cuban ports and the indifference of
Spain to claims for losses sustained by American citizens. Many
Americans believed that only the acquisition of the island would
terminate our perennial diplomatic troubles with Spain. There
was the ever-present desire for territorial expansion, which was
by no means peculiar to any section of the country. This am-
bition was reinforced by an extraordinary confidence in the
superiority of American political institutions and the blessings
which they would confer upon the annexed peoples. There was
also the fear on the part of southern men that British pressure
upon Spain would result in the abolition of slavery in Cuba and
in some way endanger the institution of slavery in the United
States; and this fear was heightened by the knowledge that
both Great Britain and France were hostile to American acqui-
sition of the island. A powerful incentive in New Orleans, the
hotbed of the filibustering movements, and also in New York,
was the hope for a lucrative trade with the island after annexa-
tion. There is evidence that some of the planters in the newer
cotton belt hoped to get a supply of cheaper slaves from Cuba
where the prices were about half what they were in the southern
states. Finally, there was the desperate hope of the extreme
southern-rights group that, by the admission of Cuba to the
Union as a slave state, increased political strength would be
added to the defenses of the South.
All these motives were so mixed that it is impossible to assign
to each its relative weight. The southern demand for annexa-
tion, because of the frankness of the pro-slavery leaders who ad-
vocated it and because it was made the point of attack by the
anti-slavery group, has been magnified out of its true propor-
tion. Even in the South there was nothing like general approval,
by responsible men, of the filibustering enterprises of Lopez
and Quitman, for many of those pro-slavery leaders who ad-
mitted a desire for the island repudiated the suggestion of forci-
bly seizing it from Spain.o Although both Presidents Pierce
"1See, for instance, a spech of Senator Jefferson Davis before the
Democratic State Convention in Jackson, Mississippi, July 6, 1859, in
Dunbar Rowland (ed.), Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist (Jackson,
1923), IV, 80-81. Also a speech of W. W. Boyce of South Carolina in
the House of Representatives, Jan. 15, 1855, in opposition to the annexa-
tion of Cuba. Pamphlet in library of University of Texas.104
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930, periodical, 1930; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101090/m1/118/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.