Challenge: Make Cuba Become an American State

I think it would be easier after the Civil War. Antebellum era will have that old debate over slavery to muck up the purchase of Cuba.
 
It's certainly possible for Cuba to become a state, but it wouldn't be because of the Ostend Manifesto. As the Kiat points out, acquiring Cuba in this period would mean adding a slave state, and then there'd have to be a free state added as well.

The easiest way to do this would be to have Congress never pass the Teller Amendment. The Teller Amendment, named for Senator Henry Moore Teller of Colorado, was a resolution of Congress that stated that the U.S. had to give Cuba independence. If this hadn't been adopted, there's a fair chance that Cuba would have been annexed after the war; it likely wouldn't become a state right away, because of its large Latino population, but eventually it might happen.
 
The easiest way to do this would be to have Congress never pass the Teller Amendment. The Teller Amendment, named for Senator Henry Moore Teller of Colorado, was a resolution of Congress that stated that the U.S. had to give Cuba independence. If this hadn't been adopted, there's a fair chance that Cuba would have been annexed after the war; it likely wouldn't become a state right away, because of its large Latino population, but eventually it might happen.

Exactly. Screw that thing.
 
It's certainly possible for Cuba to become a state, but it wouldn't be because of the Ostend Manifesto. As the Kiat points out, acquiring Cuba in this period would mean adding a slave state, and then there'd have to be a free state added as well.

The easiest way to do this would be to have Congress never pass the Teller Amendment. The Teller Amendment, named for Senator Henry Moore Teller of Colorado, was a resolution of Congress that stated that the U.S. had to give Cuba independence. If this hadn't been adopted, there's a fair chance that Cuba would have been annexed after the war; it likely wouldn't become a state right away, because of its large Latino population, but eventually it might happen.
I once planned on writing a TL based on this

Teller switched from Republican to Democrat in 1896

Make that split more acrimonious, say he really makes enemies of the Republican leadership, and the Republican controlled Congress would probably not pass it
 
I think by the 1890s it was not possible for Cuba to remain part of the USA if the USA did annex it from Spain. Cuban revolutionaries were fighting for independence and self determination, not just to be free of Spanish rule. If the US tried to keep it, it would be a low level guerilla war for decades, and eventually the US would leave. It would never be peaceful enough to be a state.

I think the only way Cuba could have become a state is if Spain sold Cuba to the US and the Cuban revolutionaries saw membership in the US as being aligned with their interests. If it happened before the Civil War, there'd need to be some quid pro quo. Perhaps as part of some compromise banning slavery in the southwest territory won from Mexico (which was never conducive to plantation slavery anyway).

The problem with that isn't on the US side, it's determining why Spain would want to get rid of their last major colony in the Western Hemisphere.
 
Let's say the US did by Cuba in the mid-1850's. They could have admitted Minnesota or Oregon early as free states to balance it out.

But here's the kicker - in 1855 Cuba would have had about 1.35 million poeple. See here. That would have made it the 4th largest state in the union. Behind only New York, Pennsylvani and Ohio, and bigger than Virginia.

Not sure how many House seats that would translate into since I'm not sure what the Slave population of Cuba was, or in Virginia for that matter. But since Virginia had 13 house seats between 1850 and 1860, I think we could expect the same for Cuba.

The interesting thing is that adding one more Free state to balance slave-holding Cuba would keep the balance in the Senate (well not really because California had up-ended that), but in the House and the Electoral College it could have an impact.

In the 1856 Election Buchanan won (and as one of the men at Ostend, he may have won even more easily) - 174 electoral votes to Fremont's 114. With Cuba and Minnesota included it would have been 189 to 118. The house which had 132 democrats would have likely seen 145 to 94 Republicans.

Cuba would not be enough to have Breckinridge beat Lincoln in 1860, but maybe the addition of those Senators and Representatives would have impacted the nomination process. Maybe the prospect of a stronger south would have hurt Bell's chances, or maybe the fire-eaters would not have stormed out of the Democratic convention in Charleston. Maybe a southerner would have won the Democratic nomination instead of Douglas.

Even with Cuba the free states still had 180 electoral votes (183 if Oregon was admitted as in OTL) to 135 for the Slave states, so Lincoln would have won. But would having a united anti-Republican campaign have made the southern states less likely to secede - one the reasons for anger in 1860/61 was that the system seemed to be collapsing with four candidates all winning votes in the Electoral College - maybe there would have been no Civil War, though I doubt it.

And how would Cuba have fared in the Civil War? Well the need for a blockade of the island would have stretched the Union Navy's resources much further -and the CSA would have needed a greater naval presence to protect it. The war would have taken on a much greater naval aspect.
 
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