Chapter 72: A leaked memo reveals attempts to acquire Cuba by force if necessary.

President Pierce is embarrassed when a confidential October 15, 1854 memorandum known as the Ostend Manifesto shows further attempts to acquire outside land for slavery.

In this case the target is Cuba and the perpetrators are three foreign ministers — James Buchanan (UK), James Mason (France) and Pierre Soule (Spain). They gather in Belgium to draft a recommendation to Pierce:

After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba far beyond its present value, and
this shall have been refused… then, by every law, human and divine, we shall be
justified in wresting it from Spain

When The New York Herald publishes the text, the plot ends.