he next year, and another in 1860, when he
captured Truxillo in Honduras, only to be soon overwhelmed, tried and
shot.

[1852]

If the Government at Washington was not openly implicated in any of
these movements, no more, surely, did it heartily deprecate them.
Fillmore's administration had in 1852 declined to enter into an alliance
with Great Britain and France disclaiming intention to secure Cuba. In
1854, inspired by Pierce, our ministers at London, Paris, and Madrid,
met at Ostend and put forth the "Ostend Manifesto." The tenor of this
was that Spain would be better off without Cuba and we with it, and
further, that, if Spain refused to sell, the United States ought as a
means of self-preservation to take that island by force, lest it should
become a second San Domingo. This proposition, like everything else
relating to the great Repeal, was under umbrage in 1856; but in 1858 the
southern Democrats in Congress brought in a bill to purchase Cuba for
$30,000,000, and the democratic platform of 1860 spoke for the
acquisition thereof at the earliest practicable moment, by all
"honorable and just means."

[1854]

Thus an institution, barbarous, anti-democratic, sectional, an
unmitigated curse even to its section, not so much as named in the
Constitution, beginning with apology from all, by the zeal and
unscrupulousness of advocates, the consolidation of political power at
the South, and apathy, sycophancy, divided counsels, and commercial
greed in the North, gradually amassed might, till, at the middle of Mr.
Buchanan's term, every branch of the national Government was its tool,
the Supreme Court included, enabling it authoritatively to mis-read the
Constitution, declare the Union a pro-slavery compact, and act
accordingly. But justice would not be mocked, and, though advancing upon
halting foot, dealt the death-blow like lightning at last.

We have seen the feeble efforts of the old Liberty Party to make head
against slavery, Birney and Earle being its candidates in 1840, Birney
and Morris in 1844. In 1848 these "conscience Free-soilers" were
re-enforced by what have been called the "political Free-soilers" of the
State of New York, led by ex-President Van Buren. This astute organizer,
aware that his defeat in the democratic convention of 1844 had resulted
from southern and pro-slavery influences, led a bolt in the New York
Democracy. His partisans in this were known as the "Barn-burners," while
the administratio