Here is a difficult question: what was it that impelled the Americans to undertake the adventure: imperialistic ambition or chivalrous impulse, as many Cubans still believe? The opinion of their politicians was always clear; annexation of the island or preservation of the _status quo_. They feared that Spain might cede the colony to a power better armed than herself, and Cuba, since the time of Jefferson, had been reckoned among those countries which a "law of political gravitation" should eventually give them. An eminent Brazilian historian and diplomatist, Oliveira Lima, has even demonstrated that when Bolivar, after convoking the Congress of Panama in 1826, had thereupon proposed, as the last stage of his vast epic, to give liberty to Cuba, it was the United States that prevented him. For they knew that independence would also mean the enfranchisement of subject races, and they needed slaves for the proud and wealthy feudal State of Virginia. These tropical countries, Cuba and Porto Rico, were the promised prey of a future Federal imperialism, and Spain might remain their guardian until the States could demand their cession or undertake their conquest. Thus the very interest which in 1826 vetoed the independence of Cuba was later to give the choice between autonomy or war; a dilemma from which the haughty metropolis could not escape. Between the commercial brutality of old and this recent Quixotism there is only an apparent contrast: a hidden logic has guided American policy. If we consider the end in view--to assure the incontestable control of the Caribbean Sea, by purchase or annexation of its islands--the former attitude of a {317} country which had not yet peopled its own territory, and that provoked to-day by a plethora of wealth and men, no longer appear irreconcilable. As early as 1845 the purchase of Cuba was discussed in Washington. The famous "Ostend manifesto" (1854) issued by the American diplomatists, expounded their right to seize the island in case Spain should refuse to sell it. This resolution to give independence to a country they despaired of buying was therefore only the end of a long campaign.