Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1859 — The Purchase of Cuba. [ARTICLE]

The Purchase of Cuba.

It begins to look as if the whole body of the Democrats in Congress are prepared to act in conformity with the President’* views in regard to a negotiation for the purchase ol Cuba. Mr. Slidell’s bill, making an appropriation of >530,000,000 for the purpose or some bill like it, may pass the Senate and possibly the House. It is thought that it will do no harm, and may be popular. A» the negotiation will never be made, the money will be neither raised nor expended. But an important consequence upon the passage of such a bill would be the inference, that the effort for a peaceful acquisition failing, Cuba must be acquired by force. Ihe argument of the President is generally understood to be that Cuba is necessary to our safety, and that it must be acquired by purcha ,«e or force. The offer to buy is thereore to be considered merely as a pretext for future appeal to force. Tim VVashington correspondent of the Aew York Tribune snys the movement looking to the acquisition of Cuba is regarded there by all parties ns a mere electioneering dodge. It is a desperate attempt by Democ atic leaders to raise a new issue with which to divert the attention from their wretched mismanagement of the national finances and rom the embarrassing question attending the revival of the African slave trade. They have not the slightest hope of acquiring Cuba, either by purchase or force, and lauoffi openly in private at the folly of expecting Spain to relinquish her most valuble province. The movement is a humbug a transparent trick— the last device of baffled and and despairing polititians. They wish toget up a popular agitation for the acquisition of Cuba, and then charge upon the Republicans the inevitable failure of the ati ternpt. to acquire i I heir recent Senatorial caucus was tc sham—the mere cloak of a cut, and dried programme the object of being to fix public attention upon the matter. The caucus affected great secrecy, but a written acco .rrj ot the proceedings was handed to a reporter soon after the meeting dissolved, and the--B>en ators themselves have since taken areat to ma^e ll public, being apparently totally unconscious of the atrocity of their propositions. Their speeches, reported bv themselves, sounded like the plottings of banditti or pirates planning the seizure of some rich town. Mr. B rod eric said, on hcaring an account of the caucus, that it resembled the meeting of a gang of burglars.