Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/246

192 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS state, declined to act, declaring, however, that our government would never question Spain s title to the island. On August 16, 1854, President Pierce directed James Buchanan, John Y. Mason, arid Pierre Soule, the American ministers to Great Britain, France, and Spain, to meet and discuss the Cuban question. They met at Ostend, October 9, and afterward at Aix la Chapelle, and sent to their government that famous despatch known as the "Ostend manifesto." It declared that, if Spain should obstinately refuse to sell Cuba, self- preservation would make it incumbent on the United States to wrest it from her and prevent it from being Africanized into a second Santo Do mingo. But the hostile attitude of the great Euro pean powers, and the Kansas and Nebraska excite ment, shelved the Cuban question till 1858, when a feeble and abortive attempt was made in congress to authorize its purchase for $30,000,000. President Pierce, in his first message to congress, December, 1853, spoke of the repose that had fol lowed the compromises of 1850, and said: "That this repose is to suffer no shock during my official term if I have power to prevent it, those who placed me here may be assured." Doubtless such was then his hope and belief. In the following January, Mr. Douglas, chairman of the senate committee on the territories, introduced a bill to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which per-