The History of Cuba, vol. 1

cessful, to draw Cuba into the community of republics freed from Spanish rule in Central and South America, because of unwillingness to have her become, like them, free soil; and subsequently the same influences planned and plotted and fought for Cuban annexation to the United States, either by conquest or by purchase, in order that she might thus be added to the slave-holding domain. On the other hand, the anti-slavery party, because of its abhorrence of these schemes, opposed the manifestation of what would have been a quite legitimate and benevolent interest in Cuban affairs. For forty years Cuba was a pawn in the game between these contending factions. Of course this issue was disposed of by the Civil War and the consequent abolition of slavery in the United States.

Another issue was that of expansion. There was from the first a considerable party in the United States that favored the widest possible acquisition of territory, sometimes quite regardless of the means, and it early fixed upon Cuba as