What Is The Ostend Manifesto

The Ostend Manifesto was a certificate written by iii American diplomats stationed in Europe in 1854 which advocated for the U.S. government to learn the isle of Cuba through either purchase or forcefulness. The programme created controversy when the certificate was fabricated public in partisan newspapers the following yr and federal officials denounced information technology.

The goal of acquiring Republic of cuba had been a pet project of President Franklin Pierce. The purchase or seizure of the island was also favored by pro-enslavement politicians in the United states of america, who feared a rebellion of enslaved people in Cuba might spread to the American South.

Key Takeaways: Confirm Manifesto

Meeting requested by President Pierce led to proposal by 3 American ambassadors.
Plan to acquire Cuba was rejected by Pierce as too audacious and unacceptable politically.
When the proposal leaked to opposition newspapers the political battling over the arrangement of enslavement intensified.
Ane beneficiary of the proposal was James Buchanan, equally his involvement helped him become president.

The manifesto never led to the U.Southward. acquiring Republic of cuba, of grade. Just it did serve to deepen the sense of distrust in America every bit the effect of enslavement became a simmering crunch in the mid-1850s. In addition, the crafting of the certificate aided one of its authors, James Buchanan, whose rising popularity in the S helped him become president in the election of 1856.

The Meeting at Confirm

A crisis in Cuba developed in early 1854, when an American merchant ship, the Black Warrior, was seized in a Cuban port. The incident created tensions, equally Americans considered the fairly modest incident to be an insult from Kingdom of spain directed at the U.s.a..

The American ambassadors to 3 European countries were directed by President Franklin Pierce to meet quietly in the boondocks of Ostend, Belgium, to come up up with strategies to deal with Spain. James Buchanan, John Y. Mason, and Pierre Soule, the American ministers to Britain, France, and Kingdom of spain, respectively, gathered and drafted the document that would become known equally the Confirm Manifesto.

The certificate, in fairly dry out language, stated the bug the U.S. regime had been having with Spain's possession, Cuba. And information technology advocated that the Usa should offering to purchase the island. It stated that Spain would likely be willing to sell Cuba, but if it didn't, the certificate argued that the U.S. authorities should seize the island.

The manifesto, addressed to Secretarial assistant of State William Marcy, was sent to Washington, where it was received by Marcy and passed along to President Pierce. Marcy and Pierce read the document and immediately rejected it.

American Reaction to the Confirm Manifesto

The diplomats had made a logical case for taking Cuba, and they argued throughout that the motivation was the preservation of the United States. In the document they specifically noted the fear of a rebellion of enslaved people in Cuba and how that might pose a danger.

Less dramatically, they argued that Republic of cuba'due south geographic location made information technology a favorable position from which the United States could defend its southern declension, and specifically the valuable port of New Orleans.

The authors of the Ostend Manifesto were non thoughtless or reckless. Their arguments for what would be a controversial series of actions paid some attending to international police and demonstrated some noesis of naval strategy. Yet Pierce realized that what his diplomats proposed went far beyond any actions he was willing to take. He did not believe the American people, or the Congress, would go along with the plan.

The manifesto might accept been a quickly forgotten exercise in diplomatic brainstorming, merely in the very partisan atmosphere of Washington in the 1850s it quickly turned into a political weapon. Inside weeks of the document arriving in Washington, information technology had been leaked to newspapers favorable to the Whig Party, the opponents of Pierce.

Politicians and paper editors directed withering criticism at Pierce. The work of three American diplomats in Europe turned into something of a firestorm as it touched upon the nearly contentious issue of the day, enslavement.

Anti-enslavement sentiment in America was growing, particularly with the formation of the new anti-enslavement Republican Party. And the Ostend Manifesto was held up as an example of how the Democrats in power in Washington were devising underhanded ways to acquire territory in the Caribbean to extend America's territory that allowed enslavement.

Newspaper editorials denounced the certificate. A political cartoon produced by the noted lithographers Currier and Ives would somewhen ridicule Buchanan for his role in the drafting of the proposal.

Drawing of four ruffians robbing a respectable man with the Confirm Manifesto, to capture Cuba, written on a nearby wall and caption 'The Ostend Doctrine. Practical Democrats Conveying Out The Principle.' circa 1854. Fotosearch / Getty Images

Touch of the Ostend Manifesto

The proposals set along in the Ostend Manifesto never came to fruition, of course. If anything, the controversy over the document probably ensured that any discussion of the United States acquiring Cuba would exist rejected.

While the document was denounced in the northern press, ane of the men who drafted it, James Buchanan, was ultimately helped by the controversy. The accusations that it was a pro-enslavement scheme boosted his profile in the American Southward, and helped him secure the Democratic nomination for the election of 1856. He went on to win the election, and spent his one term as president trying, and failing, to grapple with the outcome.

Sources:

"Confirm Manifesto." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia™, Columbia University Printing, 2018. Research in Context.
McDermott, Theodore, et al. "Confirm Manifesto." The Manifesto in Literature, edited by Thomas Riggs, vol. 1: Origins of the Form: Pre-1900, St. James Printing, 2013, pp. 142-145. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Patrick, J., Pious, R., & Ritchie, D. (1993). Pierce, Franklin. In (Ed.), The Oxford Guide to the Usa Government. : Oxford University Press.