In
the language of Honorable Edward Everett, in his famous diplomatic
correspondence with the Compte De Sartiges in relation to the Island of
Cuba, in 1852, when asked to join England and France in a tripartite
treaty, in which a clause was embodied forbidding the United States from
ever acquiring or annexing that Island to this republic, "It may well be
doubted, whether the Constitution of the United States would allow the
treaty making power to impose a permanent disability on the American
government for all coming time, and prevent it under any future change
of circumstances from doing what has so often been done in the past. In
1803 the United States purchased Louisiana of France, and in 1819 they
purchased Florida of Spain. It is not within the competence of the
treaty-making power in 1852 effectually to bind the government in all
its branches, and for all coming time, not to make a similar purchase of
Cuba. There is an irresistible tide of affairs in a new country which
makes such a disposition of its future rights nugatory and vain.
America, but lately a waste, is filling up with intense rapidity, and is
adjusting on natural principles those territorial relations which, on
the first discovery of the continent, were, in a good degree,
fortuitous.
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