Read Online American Scoundrel by Thomas Keneally - Free Book Online Page B

is, to a duel. Van Buren hurriedly explained himself and stated, in writing, that he had had no intention of using the language emanating from the Negro, Mr. Downey, as applicable to Dan Sickles. 15
    Always publicly buoyant, Teresa was privately bewildered by the Van Buren affair and its references to Fanny White. Despite the frankness with which she sometimes questioned Dan, it was true that in her eyes her husband was an older and important man, with reasons to seek women who supplied some mysterious element she was not able to. And then, both her parents and the nuns had raised her to obey the authority of her husband. He could always claim, at the threat of discussing personal matters, that he was engaged and distracted by the huge game he and the others were playing for Cuba. 16
    Before Dan’s challenge to the Anglophile banker Peabody, he made a quick visit to Washington to inform President Pierce and Secretary of State Marcy of the strategy devised by the U.S. ministers in Europe for acquiring Cuba. He also told the President that in the Spain of Isabella II, a revolutionary republican party was forming, some members working within the Spanish constitution and some devoted to violent overthrow. Both sets of radicals, he suggested, should be supported with American funds, not least because sufficient trouble at home would keep the Spanish army too stretched to hang on to Cuba. Spain would then sell the island, but perhaps a $5 million bribe to the Queen Mother, Maria Christina, would help smooth the way. Pierce asked Dan to stay on at the White House and produce a report, which was ultimately entitled
On the State of Europe: Its Bearing upon the Policy of the United States
.
    Pierce was impressed by the energy and speed with which this considerable report was produced. Dan was able to return to Europe by the same steamer that had brought him. He carried approval from both Marcy and Pierce for the American ministers in London, Paris, and Madrid to meet at a central and neutral point in Europe with a view to releasing a statement on the future of Cuba and the proposed role of the United States. 17
    When Dan went off to Madrid, almost immediately after his arrival in London, he left behind a surmising London and a rumor that would acquire credit in New York. Unprovable in itself, and perhaps started orimplied by the embittered Mrs. Thomas, it cast a belittling stain over Teresa’s future and Dan’s. The imputation was that, with Dan’s consent, Teresa was engaged in an affair with the entranced Buchanan, despite his supposed homosexuality. But if there was any truth to the matter, the experience must have induced in Teresa a cynicism about the value her husband placed on her. Her later actions would be thereby colored. 18
    A meeting place for Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé was at last chosen in Ostend, the Belgian port city. This was a supreme and exciting moment for Dan. When the three ministers and their aides convened in a grand Ostend hotel that autumn, hostile antislavery papers reported that Dan drove the agenda—to the ultimate embarrassment of Buchanan— but it was the slaveholder Soulé who dominated the proceedings. He was such a fire-eater when it came to acquiring Cuba that he did not need any assistance in folly from Dan, and his vivid personality swamped the sobriety of Mason the Virginian and Buchanan the Pennsylvanian. Soulé argued throughout the meeting that the best way to shake Cuba free from Spanish domination was to let all Europe know that, as an established principle, the United States was ready to invade Cuba if Spain would not agree to a deal. If Europe became alarmed, to hell with Europe and all its hypocrisies! If not, consent would be implied.
    Talking at great length and with great eloquence in the meeting room, Soulé persuaded Buchanan and Mason to help him in preparing and signing a memorandum which would gain notoriety as the Ostend Manifesto. It is believed that Dan had a large role in