Ostend Manifesto - Creation

Creation

Marcy suggested Soulé confer with Buchanan and Minister to France John Y. Mason on U.S. policy toward Cuba. He had previously written to Soulé that, if Cuba's purchase could not be negotiated, "you will then direct your effort to the next desirable object, which is to detach that island from the Spanish dominion and from all dependence on any European power" – words Soulé may have adapted to fit his own agenda. Authors David Potter and Lars Schoultz both note the considerable ambiguity in Marcy's cryptic words, and Samuel Bemis suggests he may have referred to Cuban independence but acknowledges it is impossible to know Marcy's true intent. In any case, Marcy had also written in June that the administration had abandoned thoughts of declaring war over Cuba, yet Robert May writes, "the instructions for the conference had been so vague, and so many of Marcy's letters to Soulé since the Black Warrior incident had been bellicose, that the ministers misread the administration's intent."

After a minor disagreement about the location of the meeting, the diplomats met in Ostend, Belgium from October 9–11, 1854, then adjourned to Aix-la-Chapelle for a week to prepare a report of the proceedings. The resulting dispatch, which would come to be known as the Ostend Manifesto, declared that "Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of states of which the Union is the Providential Nursery".

Prominent among the reasons for annexation outlined in the manifesto were fears of a possible Haiti-type slave revolt in Cuba in the absence of U.S. intervention. The Manifesto urged against inaction on the Cuban question, warning "We should, however, be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo (Haiti), with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger our actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union." Racial fears, largely spread by Spain, raised tension and anxiety in the U.S. over a potential black uprising on the island that could "spread like wildfire" to the U.S.). Thus, it stipulated that the U.S. would be "justified in wresting" Cuba from Spain if the colonial power refused.

A former Senator from Louisiana and member of the Young America movement who sought a realization of American influence in the Caribbean and Central America, Soulé is credited as the primary architect of the Ostend Manifesto, while the experienced and cautious Buchanan is believed to have authored the document and moderated Soulé's aggressive tone. Soulé was very favorable to the expansion of Southern influence outside of the current Union of States; he held a plain belief in Manifest Destiny and foretold "absorption of the entire continent and its island appendages" by the U.S. Mason's Virginian roots predisposed him to the sentiments expressed in the document, but he later regretted his actions. Buchanan's exact motivations remain unclear despite his expansionist tendencies, but it has been suggested that he was seduced by visions of the presidency, which he would go on to win in 1856. One historian would conclude in 1893, "When we take into account the characteristics of the three men we can hardly resist the conclusion that Soulé, as he afterwards intimated, twisted his colleagues round his finger."

To Marcy's chagrin, the flamboyant Soulé made no secret of the meetings. The press in both Europe and the U.S. were well aware of the proceedings if not their outcome, but were preoccupied with wars and midterm elections. In the latter case, the Democratic Party became a minority in the United States Congress, and editorials continued to chide the Pierce administration for its secrecy. At least one newspaper, the New York Herald, published what Brown calls "reports that came so close to the truth of the decisions at Ostend that the President feared they were based on leaks, as indeed they may have been". Pierce feared the political repercussions of confirming such rumors, and he omitted their mention in his State of the Union address at the end of 1854. This led the administration's opponents in the House of Representatives to call for the document's release, and it was published in full four months after its creation.