John A. Quitman - Filibustering

Filibustering

It was in his capacity as governor that Quitman was approached by the filibuster Narciso López to lead his filibuster expedition of 1850 to Cuba. He turned down the offer because of his desire to serve out his term as Governor, but did offer assistance to López in obtaining men and material for the expedition. López’s effort ended in failure and the repercussion led to Quitman’s being charged with violations of neutrality law and his resignation from the post of Governor so that he could defend himself. The charges were dropped after three hung juries allowed him to avoid conviction.

With the encouragement of President Franklin Pierce, Quitman, with assistance from later Confederate General Mansfield Lovell, began preparations in July 1853 for a filibuster expedition of his own. The preparations were nearly complete, with several thousand men prepared to go, when in May 1854 the administration reversed course and undertook steps to stop what it had almost put into motion, presumably because it felt that in the wake of the furor over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that action to add slaveholding territory such as Cuba would cause irreparable damage to the Democratic Party in the North.