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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
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