“It would be more exact to say, ‘from the time at which the treaty is concluded.’ If the political constitution of a party to the treaty requires ratification by a body in the State, the treaty is conditional until so ratified.”
The treaty, therefore, had no effect until ratified by the Senate; and I repeat, every attempt at jurisdiction in those waters was a usurpation and an act of violence; I think I should not go too far, if I said it was an act of war. If a commodore leaves his quarter-deck, pulls ashore, and, with his guns commanding a town, threatens to blow it down, is not this an act of war?
In Great Britain the exclusive prerogative of making treaties is in the Crown, and so in most other countries it is in the Executive; but I need not remind you that in our country it is otherwise. The exclusive prerogative here is not in the Executive; it is in the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; and until that advice and consent have been given he can exercise no power under that treaty. Those waters were as sacred as the waters about France or about England. He might as well have penetrated the ports of either of those countries and launched his menace there as have penetrated the waters of this weak power and launched his menace.
I have called it an act of war,—war, Sir, made by the Executive without the consent of Congress. If Congress had declared war against this feeble republic, then it would have been the part of the Executive to carry that declaration into effect; but until then what right had our Executive to do this thing? None which can be vindicated by the laws of our country, none except what is found in the law of force.
This outrage by our Navy upon a sister republic is aggravated by the issue which the President of the United States in his Annual Message has directly made with the President of Hayti. Of course, Sir, the President of the United States, when he prepared his Message, was familiar with a document like that which I now hold in my hands, entitled “The Monitor, Official Journal of the Republic of Hayti,” under date of Saturday, the 24th of September, 1870, containing the message of the President of Hayti addressed to the National Assembly. This message is divided into sections or chapters, with headings, not unlike a message or document in our own country. And now, Sir, listen to what the President of Hayti in this annual message says of the project of annexion, and then in one moment listen to the issue which the President of the United States has joined with this President: I translate it literally:—
“The project of annexion of the Dominican part has been rejected by the American Senate. The anxieties which this annexion caused to spring up have been dissipated before the good sense and the wisdom of the Senate at Washington.”
Of course the President of the United States was intimate with this document. He could not have undertaken to hurl his bolt against this feeble republic without knowing at least what its President had said. I will not do him the wrong to suppose him ignorant. His Secretary of State must have informed him. He must have known the precise words that President Saget had employed, when he said that the anxieties caused by this annexion were dissipated before the good sense and wisdom of the Senate at Washington. Our President joins issue with President Saget; he says that the rejection of the treaty was a “folly.” There you have it. The President of the Black Republic calls the rejection an act of “good sense” and “wisdom”; the President of the United States calls it an act of “folly.” Am I wrong? Let me read from the Message of our President:—
“A large commercial city will spring up, to which we will be tributary without receiving corresponding benefits, and then will be seen the folly of our rejecting so great a prize.”
So the two stand, President Saget and President Grant,—President Grant speaking with the voice of forty millions, and this other President, who has less than six hundred thousand people, all black.