So it came to pass that for a time Cuba was actually conquered and seized by an alien power and was forcibly separated from Spanish sovereignty; and that for many years thereafter she was the object of covetous desire and indeed of almost incessant intrigue for acquisition by two of Spain's chief rivals and adversaries. For nearly half a century Great Britain and France were frequently, almost continuously, each planning to annex Cuba as a colonial possession, either by conquest in war or through barter or purchase in time of peace. It was not until a third great power arose and asserted in unmistakable terms its paramount interest in the island, only a little while previous to our own time, that such designs were reluctantly forsaken.
It was the interesting fortune of Cuba, therefore, not only to engage the early and earnest diplomatic interest of the United States in her behalf, but also to afford to that country occasion for the conception, formulation and promulgation of perhaps the most important of all the fundamental principles of its state policy in international affairs. We have suggested, in anticipation of the narrative, that Cuba was largely to be credited with the inception of the impulse for the prompt construction of the Isthmian Canal. In a far more valid and direct sense Cuba suggested the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine. It is true that in relation first to Louisiana and then to Florida there had previously been preliminary hints at and approximations to that Doctrine. But those were territories contiguous with our own and already marked by the United States for eventual annexation and incorporation. Cuba, on the contrary, was entirely detached from our domain, and while there were then those who anticipated and desired her ultimate annexation, there was no such confident and determined resolution to that effect that there was in the case of the other regions named. Cuba was therefore the first detached country, not destined for annexation, to which the United States extended and applied the fundamental principle which was later developed into the Monroe Doctrine. We may not doubt that the Monroe Doctrine would have been put forward, even had it not been for Cuba. We may not deny nor dispute that it was because of Cuba and concerning Cuba that the first specific and indubitable intimation of that doctrine was given.