The report also recommended that all proceedings in reference to the negotiations with Spain "ought to be open, frank, and public." This recommendation, together with the general character of the report, indicates that its authors were rather bent on making political capital of the affair at home than on seriously furthering negotiations at Madrid. As a matter of fact the Ostend Manifesto made Buchanan an acceptable presidential candidate to the southern wing of the Democratic party and played no small part in securing for him the nomination in 1856.[107] The objectionable features of the report were politely but firmly repudiated by the administration in Marcy's reply to Soule and Soule promptly resigned his mission. This fact was generally overlooked at the time, while the unfortunate publicity given to the proceedings at Ostend brought endless censure upon President Pierce and Secretary Marcy. In spite of the "jingo" policy attributed to the Pierce administration, the complications arising out of the seizure of the _Black Warrior_ were not made a _casus belli_, as might easily have been done. After Mr. Soule's return to the United States the negotiations were continued by his successor. The conduct of the officials concerned in the seizure was disavowed, and the indemnity claimed by the American citizens concerned was paid. The administration closed on terms of comparative friendship with Spain, although there were numbers of claims still unadjusted. The Cuban question figured conspicuously in the campaign of 1856. The platform of the Democratic party was strongly in favor of acquisition, while the new Republican platform stigmatized the Ostend manifesto as the highwayman's plea. Until the Buchanan administration all negotiations for the purchase of Cuba had been undertaken on the authority of the executive alone. An effort was now made to get the two houses of Congress to concur in an appropriation for this purpose. It was thought that united action on the part of the legislative and executive branches of the government would produce some impression on Spain. Accordingly, in his second, third and fourth annual messages, President Buchanan brought the matter to the attention of Congress, but his appeal met with little encouragement. In January, 1859, Senator Slidell, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, reported a bill carrying $30,000,000, to be placed at the disposal of the President as a preliminary sum for the purchase of Cuba.[108] This report created violent opposition, and in February the bill was withdrawn by Mr. Slidell at the urgent request of his friends.