Island of Cuba: Message from the President of the United States in Reference to the Island of Cuba ...

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Page 54 - You are authorized to assure the Spanish government, that in case of any attempt, from whatever quarter, to wrest from her this portion of her territory, she may securely depend upon the military and naval resources of the United States to aid her in preserving or recovering it.
Page 7 - ... there are laws of political as well as of physical gravitation ; and if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connexion with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only towards the North American Union, which, by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off from its bosom.
Page 6 - Cuba, almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considerations, has become an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position, with reference to the Gulf of Mexico and the West India seas; the character of its population ; its situation midway between our southern coast and the island of St.
Page 17 - If the war should continue between Spain and the new republics, and those islands should become the object and the theatre of it, their fortunes have such a connection with the prosperity of the United States, that they could not be indifferent spectators ; and the possible contingencies of such a protracted war might bring upon the government of the United States duties and...
Page 7 - ... it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself.
Page 37 - Should you have reason to suspect any design on the part of Spain to transfer voluntarily her title to the island, whether of ownership or possession and whether permanent or temporary, to Great Britain, or any other Power, you will distinctly state that the United States will prevent it, at all hazards...
Page 26 - Other considerations, connected with a certain class of" our population, make it the interest of the southern section of the Union that no attempt should be made in that island to throw off the yoke of Spanish dependence, the first effect of which would be the sudden emancipation of a numerous slave population, the result of which could not but be very sensibly felt upon the adjacent shores of the United States.
Page 5 - The Government at Washington was in great doubt as to the designs of the European powers upon Cuba, and consequently as to the means of counteracting them. As regarded cession to Great Britain, Mr. Adams wrote that Spain, though disinclined to the transfer, might resist it with more firmness if for a limited period of time she could obtain the joint guarantee of the United States and France securing the island to...
Page 6 - ... its wants, furnishing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable and mutually beneficial. — give it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be compared^ and little inferior to that which binds the different members of this Union together.
Page 9 - The object of this declaration, and of the communication of it here, undoubtedly was to induce the belief that Great Britain entertained no purpose of obtaining the possession of Cuba ; but these assurances were given with reference to a, state of peace then still existing, and which it was the intention and hope of Great Britain to preserve. The condition of all the parties to them has since changed, and however indisposed the British Government might be ungenerously to avail themselves of the distress...

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