filibustering effort by John A. Quitman to acquire Cuba received the tentative support of the president. Pierce backed off, however, and instead renewed the offer to buy the island, this time for $130 million. When the public learned of the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, which argued that the United States could seize Cuba by force if Spain refused to sell, this effectively killed the effort to acquire the island. The public now linked expansion with slavery; if Manifest Destiny had once enjoyed widespread popular approval, this was no longer true. The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1860 put a temporary end to the expansionist attempts, but as the Civil War faded into history, the term Manifest Destiny experienced a brief revival. In the 1892 U.S. presidential election, the Republican Party platform proclaimed: "We reaffirm our approval of the Monroe doctrine and believe in the achievement of the manifest destiny of the Republic in its broadest sense." After the Republicans recaptured the White House in 1896 and for the next 16 years they held on to it, Manifest Destiny was cited to promote overseas expansion. The situation prior to the Spanish–American War was particularly tense. Several members of the media, such as William Randolph Hearst, and of the military were calling for intervention by the United States to help the revolutionaries in Cuba. American opinion was overwhelmingly swayed and hostility towards Spain began to build. American newspapers ran stories of a sensationalist nature depicting atrocities, both fabricated and real, committed by the Spanish. These stories often reflected true stories such as thousands of Cubans had been displaced to the country side in concentration camps, as well as entirely fictional accounts of Spaniards feeding Cuban children to sharks. Many stories used depictions of gruesome murders, rapes, and slaughter. During this time there was a riot in Havana by those sympathetic to the Spanish. The printing presses of newspapers that had criticized the actions of the Spanish Army were destroyed. Propaganda and the media Before the sinking of the USS Maine, one American media correspondent stationed in Cuba was quoted as saying that the American people were being greatly deceived by reporters sent to cover the revolution. According to him an overwhelming majority of the stories were obtained through third hand information often relayed by their Cuban interpreters and informants. These people were often sympathetic to the revolution and would distort