Free 1858 by Bruce Chadwick

calamities. He had talked the British into vacating their positions of power in Central America, but his own government’s efforts to acquire those nations through immigration and persuasion had failed. The attempts to seize Nicaragua and Honduras by William Walker, although opposed by the White House, had been international disasters that reflected badly on the whole country. If Buchanan could purchase Cuba it would not only be the huge international coup he had been seeking but, as the year 1858 was drawing to an end, would serve as an event that, like the attack on Paraguay, would distract the attention of the public from the issue of slavery, that grew as the year 1858 was coming to an end.
    When he worked in the State Department, Buchanan advised the government to simply buy the island outright. He was certain that the king of Spain would sell because his country needed the money; the powerful Catholic clergy in Spain and Cuba would support the sale to prevent the king from continuing to sell church lands to raise funds. American bankers would benefit from the purchase of bonds in Cuba. But a rather badly organized conference to arrange the sale of the Caribbean island at that time ended in confusion.
    Now that he was president, Buchanan was determined to annex Cuba by one means or another. He appealed to Christopher Fallon, a friend and Pennsylvania businessman who represented the interests of the Spanish Queen Mother. He insisted on “silence and discretion” from Fallon. He wrote him in December 1857, “The government of the United States is as willing now to obtain the island by fair purchase as it was in 1848. You are well-acquainted with the efforts made in that year to accomplish the object and the cause of their failure. It is now, I think, manifest that a transfer of the island to the United States for a reasonable and fair price would greatly promote the interest of both countries.” 640
    Fallon warned Buchanan that convincing the Spanish crown to part with Cuba would prove very difficult politically, but he sailed off to Madrid in 1858 to attempt it. In Madrid, the intrepid Fallon worked behind the scenes toward his goal. He needed Buchanan to send a new Spanish minister over to facilitate the proceedings; the president agreed. The president also engaged his friend, Democrat Senator John Slidell, of Louisiana, to introduce a bill in Congress to provide $30 million to cover the costs of prepurchase negotiations and expenses to buy Cuba, a bill that would be introduced on New Year’s Day 1859. The president even came up with a political slogan to bring about the annexation of Cuba that he was proud of, “We must have Cuba!” 641
    Buchanan gave Congress what he considered numerous reasons to buy Cuba in his annual message on December 6, 1858, as the dismal year ended. He enumerated a long list of transgressions by the governments of Cuba and Spain, highlighted by Cuba’s refusal to pay back all of the debts it owed American businessmen and its role in the African slave trade. American citizens had suffered economic losses in Cuba that had not been addressed by the Cuban government, he said, and insisted that no real justice could be obtained because all claims had to go to Spain, not Havana, for resolution. After presenting an extended grievance list, Buchanan told Congress, “The truth is that Cuba, in its existing colonial condition, is a constant source of injury and annoyance to the American people.”
    The president said with firmness that the only solution was to buy it. At that point he backed off his previous belief that America should simply attack the Caribbean island and seize it by force. “We would not, if we could, acquire Cuba by any other means,” the president told Congress, disregarding his jingoistic statements of earlier years. “This is due to our national character. All of the territory which we have acquired since the origin of the government has been by fair purchase from