374 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



authorized Mr. Soule to reopen negotiations at once for the 



i purchase of the island, raising, upon this occasion, the price 



, offered to $130,000,000. If, however, the Spanish prejudice 



to a sale was found to be too strong to overcome, Soule 



was authorized to suggest delicately to Spain that she might 



permit Cuba to detach herself from her dominion, and to 



become a free nation ; in this indirect way the same object 



could ultimately be accomplished. 



Just at that moment, the alleged illegal seizure of the cargo 

 of an American vessel, the Black Warrior, by the customs au- 

 thorities in Havana, suddenly brought the two nations almost 

 to the verge of war. This Spanish assault against American 

 shipping was eagerly caught up by the South as an excuse 

 to substitute force for diplomacy, and President Pierce was 

 very nearly induced to give way to the passionate appeals of 

 his own party leaders. The slavery party raised the stand- 

 ard of the Monroe Doctrine, and had their counsels pre- 

 vailed, a peculiar adaptation of those principles would have 

 resulted. It had, for many years, been a favorite object of 

 i Great Britain to do away with the institution of negro slavery 

 Jin Cuba. Spain had, from time to time, displayed a willing- 

 ness to accede to England's repeated solicitations in this 

 respect, and especially at those moments when English good- 

 will or cooperation was desirable in maintaining inviolate 

 her control over the island. The South pretended to regard 

 i the emancipation of Cuban slaves as a measure fraught with 

 ' the gravest danger to the United States. The absorption of 

 a free-soil Cuba into the Union was, from their point of view, 

 undesirable. With Cuba as a slave state added to the Union, 

 " slavery might bid defiance to its enemies." 



In 1855, the Richmond Enquirer, a leading Democratic 

 organ, declared that the " menace of a design to Africanize 

 Cuba, or to emancipate the slaves, would be a grievous act 

 of hostility, and would authorize the United States to take 

 any means of retaliation, or to wage war." The freedom of 

 the Cuban slaves would leave that island in the control of a 

 vast number of blacks who might at any moment convert 

 Cuba into a second Haiti or Santo Domingo. At the very 



