part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so.
It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent
injuries or make preparations for our defense. With the movements in this
hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected. We owe it,
therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the
United States and those powers (of Europe) to declare that we should
consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion
of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing
colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and
shall not interfere. But with the Governments that have declared their
independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have recognized,
we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or
controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any
other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward
the United States."

From this time onward, Cuba appears as an almost continuous object of
special interest to both the people and the officials of the United States.
Notwithstanding this disclaimer of President Monroe's message, the idea
of the acquisition of the island, by the United States, soon arose. It
persisted through all the years down to the time of the Teller amendment,
in 1898, and there are many who even now regard annexation as inevitable at
some future time, more or less distant. The plan appears as a suggestion
in a communication, under date of November 30, 1825, from Alexander
H. Everett, then Minister to Madrid, to President Adams. It crops up
repeatedly in various quarters in later years. It would be a difficult and
tedious undertaking to chase through all the diplomatic records of seventy
years the references to Cuba and its affairs.

From that period until the present time, the affairs of the island have
been a matter of constant interest and frequent anxiety in Washington. Fear
of British acquisition of the island appears to have subsided about 1860,
but there were in the island two groups, both relatively small, one of
them working for independence, and the other for annexation to the
United States. The great majority, however, desired some fair measure of
self-government, and relief from economic and financial burdens, under the
Spanish flag. The purchase of the island by the United States was proposed
by Pres