The volatile Louisianian somehow persuaded the normally cautious Buchanan as well as the naive Mason to sign a memorandum that became known as the Ostend Manifesto. “Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present . . . family of states,” proclaimed this document. If the United States decided that its security required possession of the island, and Spain persisted in refusing to sell, then “by every law, human and Divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain.”
