Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/196

Rh serve; then there will be one more ex-President—ranking with Tyler and Fillmore. Mr. Seward need not agitate,

III. The next thing is the enslavement of Cuba. That is a very serious matter. It has been desired a long time. Lopez, a Spanish fillibuster, undertook it and was legally put to death. I am not an advocate for the garrote, but I think, all things taken into consideration, that he did not meet with a very inadequate mode of death: and I believe that is the general opinion, not only in Cuba, but in the United States. But Young America is not content with that. Mr. Dean, a little while ago, in the House, proposed to repeal the neutrality laws—to set fillibusterism on its legs again. You remember the President's message about the "Black Warrior"—how black warrior like it was; and then comes. the "imanimous resolution" of the Louisiana legislature asking the United States to interfere and declare war, in case Cuba should undertake to emancipate her slaves. Senator Slidell's speech is still tingling in our ears, asking the Government to repeal the neutrality laws and allow every pirate who pleases to land in Cuba and bum and destroy. You know Mr. Soul's conduct in Madrid. It is rumoured that he has been authorized to offer $250,000,000 for Cuba. The sum is enormous; but, when you consider the character of this Administration and the Inaugural of President Pierce, the unscrupulous abuse made of public money, I do not think it is a very extraordinary supposition.

But this matter of getting possession of Cuba is something dangerous as well as difficult. There are three conceivable ways of getting it : one is by buying, and that I take it is wholly out of the question. If I am rightly informed, there is a certain Spanish debt owing to Englishmen, and that Cuba is somehow pledged as a sort of collateral security for the Spanish bonds. I take it for granted that Cuba is not to be bought for many years without the interference of England, and depend upon it England will not allow it to be sold for the establishment of Slavery; for I think it is pretty well understood by poli-