2d Session. No. 351. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. JANUARY 24, 1859.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. SLIDELL made the following REPORT. [To accompany Bill S. 497.] The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the bill (S. 497) "making appropriations to facilitate the acquisition of the island of Cuba, by negotiation," have had the same under consideration, and now respectfully report: It is not considered necessary by your committee to enlarge upon the vast importance of the acquisition of the island of Cuba by the United States. To do so would be as much a work of supererogation as to demonstrate an elementary problem in mathematics, or one of those axioms of ethics or philosophy which have been universally received for ages. The ultimate acquisition of Cuba may be considered a fixed purpose of the United States, a purpose resulting from political and geographical necessities which have been recognized by all parties and all administrations, and in regard to which the popular voice has been expressed with a unanimity unsurpassed on any question of national policy that has heretofore engaged the public mind. The purchase and annexation of Louisiana led, as a necessary corollary, to that of Florida, and both point with unerring certainty to the acquisition of Cuba. The sparse and feeble population of what is now the great west called in 1800 for the free navigation of the Mississippi, and the enforcement of the right of deposit at New Orleans. In three years not only were these privileges secured, but the whole of the magnificent domain of Louisiana was ours. Who now doubts the wisdom of a measure which at the time was denounced with a violence until then unparalleled in our political history? From the day we acquired Louisiana the attention of our ablest statesmen was fixed on Cuba. What the possession of the mouth of the Mississippi had been to the people of the west that of Cuba became to the nation. To cast the eye upon the map was sufficient to predict its destiny. A brief reference will show the importance attached to the question by our leading statesmen, and the steadiness and perseverance with which they have endeavored to hasten the consummation of so vital a measure. Mr. Jefferson in a letter to President Madison, of the 27th of April, 1809, speaking of the policy that Napoleon would probably pursue towards us, says: "He ought to be satisfied with having forced her (Great Britain) to revoke the orders on which he pretended to retaliate, and to be particularly satisfied with us, by whose unyielding adherence to principle she has been forced into the revocation. He ought the more to conciliate our good will, as we can be such an obstacle to the new career opening on him in the Spanish colonies. That he would give us the Floridas to withhold intercourse with the residue of those colonies cannot be doubted. But that is no price, because they are ours in the first moment of the first war, and until a war they are of no particular necessity to us. But, although with difficulty, he will consent to our receiving Cuba into our Union, to prevent our aid to Mexico and the other provinces. That would be a price, and I would immediately erect a column on the southernmost limit of Cuba and inscribe on it a ne plus ultra as to us in that direction. We should then have only to include the north in our confederacy, which would be, of course, in the first war, and we should have such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation; and I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government. * * * "It will be objected to our receiving Cuba that no limit can then be drawn to our future acquisitions. Cuba can be defended by us without a navy, and this develops the principle which ought to limit our views. Nothing should ever be accepted which would require a navy to defend it." Again, in writing to President Monroe on the 23d June, 1823, he says: "For certainly her addition to our confederacy is exactly what is wanting to advance our power as a nation to the point of its utmost interest. And in another letter to the same, on the 24th October, 1823, he says: "I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, would fill up the measure of our political well being.' John Quincy Adams while Secretary of State under Mr. Monroe, in a despatch to Mr. Nelson, our minister at Madrid, of the 28th April, 1823, says: "In the war between France and Spain, now commencing, other interests, peculiarly ours, will in all probability be deeply involved. Whatever may be the issue of this war as between those two European powers, it may be taken for granted that the dominion of Spain upon the American continents, north and south, is irrecoverably gone. But the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico still remain nominally and so far really dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the power of transferring her own dominion over them, together with the possession of them, to others. These islands, from their local position and natural appendages to the North American continent, and one of them, 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. Domingo, its safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a long line of our shores destitute of the same advantage, the nature of its productions and of 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. Such, indeed, are, between the interests of that island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral, and political relations formed by nature, gathering in the process of time, and even now verging to maturity, that, in looking forward to the probable course of events, for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be iudispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself. It is obvious, however, that for this event we are not yet prepared. Numerous and formidable objections to the extension of our territorial dominions beyond sea, present themselves to the first contemplation of the subject: obstacles to the system of policy by which alone that result can be compassed and maintained, are to be foreseen and surmounted, both from at home and abroad; but 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 selfsupport, can gravitate only towards the North American Union, which, by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off from its bosom. 'The transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpropitious to the interests of this Union. This opinion is so generally entertained, that even the groundless rumors that it was about to be accomplished, which have spread abroad, and are still teeming, may be traced to the deep and almost universal feeling of aversion to it, and to the alarm which the mere probability of its occurrence has stimulated. The question both of our right and of our power to. prevent it, if necessary by force, already obtrudes itself upon our councils, and the administration is called upon, in the performance of its duties to the nation, at least to use all the means within its competency to guard against and forefend it.” 66 On April 27, 1825, Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, in a despatch to Mr. A. H. Everett, our minister at Madrid, instructing him to use his exertions to induce Spain to make peace with her revolted colonies, says: "The United States are satisfied with the present condition of those islands (Cuba and Porto Rico) in the hands of Spain, and with their ports open to our commerce, as they are now open. This gov ernment desires no political change of that condition. The population itself of the islands is incompetent at present, from its composition and its amount, to maintain self-government. The maritime force of the neighboring republics of Mexico and Colombia is not now, nor is it likely shortly to be, adequate to the protection of those islands, if the conquest of them were effected. The United States would entertain constant apprehensions of their passing from their possession to that of some less friendly sovereignty; and of all the European powers, this country prefers that Cuba and Porto Rico should remain dependent on Spain. 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 connexion 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 obligations the performance of which, however painful it should be, they might not be at liberty to decline." Mr. Van Buren, writing to Mr. Van Ness, our minister to Spain, October 2, 1829, says: "The government of the United States has always looked with the deepest interest upon the fate of those islands, but particularly of Cuba. Its geographical position, which places it almost in sight of our southern shores, and, as it were, gives it the command of the Gulf of Mexico and the West India seas, its safe and capacious harbors, its rich productions, the exchange of which, for our surplus agricultural products and manufactures, constitutes one of the most extensive and valuable branches of our foreign trade, render it of the utmost importance to the United States that no change should take place in its condition which might injuriously affect our political and commercial standing in that quarter. 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. On the other hand, the wisdom which induced the Spanish government to relax in its colonial system, and to adopt with regard to those islands a more liberal policy which opened their ports to general commerce, has been so far satisfactory in the view of the United States as, in addition to other considerations, to induce this government to desire that their possession should not be transferred from the Spanish crown to any other power. In conformity with this desire, the ministers of the United States at Madrid have, from time to time, been instructed attentively to watch the course of events and the secret springs of European diplomacy, which, from information received from various quarters, this government had reason to suspect had been put in motion to effect the transfer of the possession of Cuba to the powerful allies of Spain. "You are authorized to say that the long established and well known policy of the United States, which forbids their entangling themselves in the concerns of other nations, and which permits their physical force to be used only for the defence of their political rights and the protection of the persons and property of their citizens, equally forbids their public agents to enter into positive engagements, the performance of which would require the employment of means which the people have retained in their own hands; but that this government has every reason to believe that the same influence which once averted the blow ready to fall upon the Spanish islands would again be found effectual on the recurrence of similar events; and that the high preponderance in American affairs of the United States as a great naval power, the influence which they must at all times command as a great commercial nation, in all questions involving the interests of the general commerce of this hemisphere, would render their consent an essential preliminary to the execution of any project calculated so vitally to affect the general concerns of all the nations in any degree engaged in the commerce of America. The knowledge you possess of the public sentiment of this country in regard to Cuba will enable you to speak with confidence and effect of the probable consequences that might be expected from the communication of that sentiment to Congress, in the event of any contemplated change in the present political condition of that island. " And again, on the 13th of October, 1830: "This government has also been given to understand that, if Spain should persevere in the assertion of a hopeless claim to dominion over her former colonies, they will feel it to be their duty, as well as their interest, to attack her colonial possessions in our vicinity, Cuba and Porto Rico. Your general instructions are full upon the subject of the interest which the United States take in the fate of those islands, and particularly of the former; they inform you that we are content that Cuba should remain as it now is, but could not consent to its transfer to any European power. Motives of reasonable state policy render it more desirable to us that it should remain subject to Spain rather than to either of the South American States. Those motives will readily present themselves to your mind; they are principally founded upon an apprehension that, if possessed by the latter, it would, in the present state of things, be in greater danger of becoming subject to some European power than in its present condition. Although such are our own wishes and true interests, the President does not see on what ground he would be justified in interfering with any attempts which the South American States might think it for their interest, in the prosecution of a defensive war, to make upon the islands in question. If, indeed, an attempt should be made to disturb them, by putting arms in the hands of one portion of their population to destroy another, and which in its influence would endanger the peace of a portion of the United States, the case might be different. Against such an attempt the United States (being informed that it was in contemplation) have already protested and warmly remonstrated, in their communications last summer with the government of Mexico; but the information lately communicated to us in this regard was accompanied |