Secretary of State William Marcy, reflecting on the disastrous showing of the Democratic Party in the 1854 elections, wrote: "The Nebraska Question has sadly shattered our party in all the free states and deprived it of that strength which was needed and could have been much more profitably used for the acquisition of Cuba." (Quoted in David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis 1848-1861, p.198.) Some years ago I raised this question in soc.history.what-if: What in fact if the South had in 1854 concentrated on acquiring Cuba instead of making a futile attempt (and one which was recognized as futile by many Southerners at the time) to make Kansas a slave state? I do not think northern opposition to the acquisition of Cuba would have been as violent as to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. After all, slavery already existed in Cuba, so that the total area of slavery would not have been expanded. There would of course have been northern opposition, but I doubt that one could form a major party over it. (The Know Nothings might have taken the lead in opposing annexation by stressing the danger of a *Catholic* state, not a slave one--though some northern Know Nothings might use both arguments. In the South, the Know Nothings could argue that Cuba had too many free dark-colored people...)