Invasion of Cuba

In 1851, General Lopez renewed his attempt to cause an insurrectionary movement in Cuba, by landing a strong military force, organized in this country, upon its shores. Our government watched these movements and the violation of neutrality laws with great vigilance, detaining vessels and dispersing illegal associations; but in August, Lopez managed to sail from New York, with almost five hundred followers, whom he landed on the northern coast of Cuba. There he left Colonel W. L. Crittenden (son of the Attorney-General of the United States) in command of one hundred soldiers, and with the remainder he pushed into the interior. At that time forty thousand Spanish troops were concentrated in Cuba. Crittenden and his party were soon captured and shot. Again Lopez found the Cubans unwilling to revolt. He became a fugitive, and at near the close of August, he and six of his followers were arrested, taken to Havana, and executed.

At the same time our government was making peaceful acquisitions of territory in the northwest by the purchase from the Sioux Indians of millions of acres of fertile lands beyond the Mississippi, in the newly organized Territory of Minnesota. This had become a necessity, for a stream of population was pouring into that Territory and threatening to overflow the Indian reservation there. At the same time emigration from Europe was flowing in an immense tide over portions of our domain. Territories and States were increasing in number, and swelling the volume of representatives in the national legislature. To accommodate these, the halls of legislation had to be enlarged, and in the summer of 1851, the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol was laid by President Fillmore, with appropriate Masonic ceremonies. On that occasion Daniel Webster delivered an oration in the presence of a vast multitude of people.

Toward the close of the same year, our government reaffirmed its policy of non-interference with the domestic affairs of European nations, under peculiar circumstances. In December, Louis Kossuth, the exiled governor of Hungary, arrived in the United States to plead the cause of his countrymen, who were struggling for their independence of the rule of Austria, and to ask for material aid from our government. The touching story of his career had preceded and had created here almost universal sympathy for him and his cause. He was received with great enthusiasm, and his mission was the theme of many debates on the floors of Congress. On his arrival at New York he became the guest of the city, and was welcomed by cheers from an immense multitude of citizens, who fringed the streets through which he passed in procession. At Washington he was welcomed by the President, the heads of departments, and the National Congress. The latter gave him a banquet, at which the Acting Vice-President presided. So demonstrative was the welcome, that the Austrian minister formally protested against it, and because his protest was unheeded, he left his post. The President, however, at his first interview with Kossuth, told him frankly that our policy of non-interference would not allow our government to give him any material aid. This was afforded, to a considerable extent, by private subscriptions.

There was a little ruffling of the good feeling between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, in 1852, in consequence of the alleged violation by American fishers off the coast of British America, of treaty stipulations, which provided that they should not cast their nets nearer such coast than three miles. A new interpretation of that agreement had recently been made by the British government, which claimed that the American fishers had no rights in bays within a line drawn from headland to headland; and that government sent a naval force to support these pretensions. The President sent a naval force to protect our fishermen, and a spark of war seemed inevitable, when the dispute was amicably settled by mutual concessions.

Owing to our increasing intercourse with Asia across the Pacific Ocean, friendly relations with the Japanese was desirable. To establish such amity, our government sent a squadron of seven vessels, commanded by Commodore M. C. Perry, in the summer of 1853, to convey a letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan, asking him to consent to the negotiation of a treaty of friendship and commerce between the two governments. The mission was successful, and friendly relations were then established between the two countries which have continually increased in strength and importance. In 1860, a large and imposing embassy from the Empire of Japan, visited the United States, and were welcomed by President Buchanan at a personal interview in the reception-room of the executive mansion. Intercourse between the two nations is now free and cordial.