Candor compels the frank statement that there was much fault on both sides. Spain was tremendously at fault because of her misgovernment of Cuba, and indeed her whole policy in relation to that island, which was quite unworthy of a civilized power in an enlightened age. A generation before Spain had practically sacrificed her right to continued possession of Florida by her maladministration of that territory, which had made it an intolerable nuisance to the neighboring United States. She was now making of Cuba a scarcely less international nuisance and scandal.
On the other hand, the United States, or some of its people, undoubtedly gave Spain cause for grievance. The intentions and the conduct of the United States government were beyond reproach. At the same time, they were entirely insufficient for the prevention of serious wrongs to Spain. Webster himself confessed that the United States government had no power to protect Spanish subjects from such outrages as those which had just been committed in New Orleans. There was no doubt that the intentions and conduct of a large portion of the American people were not only hostile to Spain, but were quite lawless in the manifestation of that feeling. Among the offenders, moreover, were some men who stood high in official life and who exerted much political influence. Nor could these things be so well understood in Spain as in the United States. Spain could scarcely be expected to distinguish between the case of a man in his private capacity as a citizen and in his public capacity as a member of Congress or other official of the government. When she saw public officials participating in the organization and operations of the "Order of the Lone Star," the confessed purpose of which was to take Cuba from Spain by force, and without compensation, she very naturally assumed that such things were being done with the permission and sanction of the United States government, if not at its direct instigation.
At this point, moreover, a serious complication was injected into the problem of Spanish-American relations by the attempted intervention of Great Britain and France. Both these powers sought to persuade Spain that they were better friends to her, especially in relation to Cuba, than the United States. They impressed upon her the idea that the United States intended to take Cuba away from her, while they were willing to respect her title to it, and to protect her in possession of it.
These suggestions were followed by the menace of overt acts which, if committed, would have had very serious results. In 1851, the British and French governments let it be known that instructions had been given to their naval commanders to increase their forces in the waters adjacent to Cuba, and to exercise guardianship over the shores of that island to prevent the landing of any more filibustering expeditions from the United States or elsewhere, such as those of Lopez. It does not appear that this was done at the request of Spain. It was probably an entirely gratuitous performance intended partly to ingratiate the Spanish government, and partly to prevent the possibility of the seizure by the United States of Cuba. But it was certainly a most unwarrantable meddling in affairs which concerned only the United States and Spain. No possible justification for it could be found in international law. In the absence of a state of war, it was intolerable that vessels under the United States flag should be subjected to search upon the high seas, while, when they reached Cuban territorial waters, no other power than Spain had any right to interfere with them.
Daniel Webster was at that time ill and unable to perform the duties of his office, but J. J. Crittenden, who was acting as Secretary of State, made a forcible protest against any such action by Great Britain and France, and gave warning in the plainest terms that it would not be tolerated by the United States, and that any interference with American shipping between the United States and Cuba would be resented in the most vigorous manner. The result was that the British and French navies refrained from the contemplated meddling.
Following this, however, Spain made a direct appeal to the British government for protection against American aggression. The request was not so much for immediate military intervention as for securing treaty guarantees. The British government was in a receptive mood, and, in consequence, in April, 1852, it proposed to the United States that that country should join it and France in a tripartite convention, guaranteeing to Spain continued and unmolested possession of Cuba, and explicitly renouncing any designs of their own for the acquisition of that island. It may be recalled that a similar proposal had been made by Great Britain and France in 1825, and that its acceptance had been favored by no less an American statesman than Thomas Jefferson, although, under the wiser counsels of John Quincy Adams, it had been rejected.
At this renewal of the proposal, in 1852, rejection was prompt and emphatic. Edward Everett was then the Secretary of State, under the Presidency of Millard Fillmore, and he refused positively to enter into any such compact. His ground was that American interests in Cuba and American relations toward that island were radically different, in kind as well as in degree, from those of any other power. That was of course a perfectly logical and sincere application of the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, and of the traditional policy of the United States in refusing to permit European intervention in the affairs of the United States or in affairs exclusively concerning the United States and a single European power.
It may be assumed that Everett had in mind at the time, also, the exceedingly unsatisfactory results of an attempt to establish just such a tripartite protectorate guarantee over the Hawaiian Islands.
There was still another reason for the refusal of the United States to enter into such a compact. That country had already and repeatedly guaranteed the Spanish possession of Cuba as against the aggressions of any other power, but it had not guaranteed and would not guarantee her possession of Cuba against the self-assertion of the Cuban people. It recognized the right of revolution. It knew that the Cubans were dissatisfied, and that with good reason, with Spanish rule, and that sooner or later they would successfully revolt and establish their independence, and it had no thought of making itself the accomplice of Spain in repressing their aspirations for liberty.