"I am very glad this question has at length come up. I am glad, too, it has antagonized with the nigger question. We are 'shivering in the wind,' are we, sir, over your Cuba question? You may have occasion to shiver on that question before you are through with it. The question will be, shall we give niggers to the niggerless, or land to the landless, etc. . . . When you come to niggers to the niggerless, all other questions sink into perfect insignificance."(89) Although a majority of the Senate seemed to favor the bill, Mr. Slidell withdrew it after much discussion, declaring it was then impracticable to press it to a final vote. The once famous Ostend Manifesto, dated October 18, 1854, was a remarkable document, prepared and signed by Pierre Soule, John Y. Mason, and James Buchanan, then Ministers, respectively, to Spain, France, and England, at a conference held at Ostend and Aix-la- Chapelle, France. It assumed to offer $120,000,000 for Cuba, and, if this were refused, it announced that it was the duty of the United States to apply the "great law" of "self-preservation" and take Cuba in "disregard of the censures of the world." The further excuse stated in the Manifesto was that "Cuba was in danger of being Africanized and become a second St. Domingo." The real purpose, however, was to acquire it, and then admit it into the Union as two or more slave States. Buchanan, as Secretary of State under Polk, had offered $100,000,000 for Cuba. His efforts to obtain Cuba secured for him the support of the South for President in 1856. There was no special instance of acquiring or attempting to acquire territory by the United States authorities to dedicate to freedom. Cuba is still Spanish (though not slave) (90) and just now in the throes of insurrection, and the Congress of the United States has just voted (April, 1896) to grant the Cuban Provisional Government belligerent rights.(91) (84) From one election, held in 1857 at Oxford, Kansas, a roll was returned on which 1624 persons' names appeared which had been copied in alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory. These persons were reported as voting with the anti-slavery party. (85) Keitt of South Carolina and Edmundson of Virginia stood by during the assault, in a menacing manner, to protect Brooks from assistance that might come to Sumner. (86) _Life of Sumner_ (Lesten), pp. 250, etc. (87) Appleton's _Cyclop. Am. Biography_, vol. vi., p. 311. (88) _Manassas to Appotmattox_ (Longstreet), pp. 113, 161. (89) In 1862 the first homestead bill became a law, under which, by July 30, 1878, homesteads were granted to the number of 384,848; in area, 61,575,680 acres, or 96,212 square miles; greater in extent by 7000 square miles than England, Wales, and Scotland.