Sir, others may do as they please; others may accept this policy; I will not. I have already set myself against it, and I continue now as firm against it as ever. The information which I have received since our discussions last year has confirmed me in the conclusions which I felt it my duty then to announce. In now presenting those conclusions I beg to say that I shall forbear considering whether the territory of Dominica is desirable or not; I shall forbear considering its resources, even its finances, even its debt,—menacing as I know it is to the Treasury of our country,—except so far as that debt brings Hayti into this debate. Some other time these other topics will be proper for consideration; for the present I shall confine myself to grounds on which there can be no just difference.
I object to this proposition because it is a new stage in a measure of violence, which, so far as it has been maintained, has been upheld by violence. I use strong language, but only what the occasion requires. As Senator, as patriot, I cannot see my country suffer in its good name without an earnest effort to save it.
The negotiation for annexion began with a person known as Buenaventura Baez. All the evidence, official and unofficial, shows him to be a political jockey. But he could do little alone; he had about him two other political jockeys, Cazneau and Fabens; and these three together, a precious copartnership, seduced into their firm a young officer of ours, who entitled himself “Aide-de-Camp to the President of the United States.” Together they got up what was called a protocol, in which the young officer entitling himself “Aide-de-Camp to the President” proceeds to make certain promises for the President. Before I read from this document, I desire to say that there is not one word showing that at the time this “Aide-de-Camp” had any title or any instruction to take this step. If he had, that title and that instruction have been withheld; no inquiry has been able to penetrate it. At least the committee[260] which brought out the protocol did not bring out any such authority. The document is called “a protocol,” which I need not remind you, Sir, is in diplomatic terms the first draught of a treaty, or the memorandum between two powers in which are written down the heads of some subsequent convention; but at the time it is hardly less binding than a treaty itself, except, as you are well aware, that under the Constitution of the United States it can receive no final obligation without the consent of the Senate. This document begins as follows:—
“The following bases, which shall serve for framing a definitive treaty between the United States and the Dominican Republic, have been reduced to writing and agreed upon by General Orville E. Babcock, Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency, General Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, and his special agent to the Dominican Republic, and Mr. Manuel Maria Gautier, Secretary of State of the Departments of the Interior and of Police, charged with the foreign relations of the said Dominican Republic.”[261]
Here you see how this young officer, undertaking to represent the United States of America, entitles himself “Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency, General Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, and his special agent to the Dominican Republic.” Sir, you have experience in the Government of this country; your post is high, and I ask you, Do you know any such officer in our Government as “Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency, the President of the United States”? Does such designation appear in the Constitution, in any statute, or in the history of this Republic anywhere? If it does, your information, Sir, is much beyond mine. I have never before met any such instance. This young officer stands alone in using the lofty title. I believe, still further, that he stands alone in the history of free governments. I doubt whether you can find a diplomatic paper anywhere in which any person undertaking to represent his Government has entitled himself Aide-de-Camp of the chief of the State. The two duties are incompatible, according to all the experience of history. No aide-de-camp would be appointed commissioner; and the assumption of this exalted and exceptional character by this young officer shows at least his inexperience in diplomacy, if not his ambition to play a great part. Doubtless it had an effect with Baez, Cazneau, and Fabens, the three confederates. They were pleased with the eminence of the agent. It helped on the plan they were engineering.
The young aide-de-camp then proceeds to pledge the President as follows:—
“I. His Excellency, General Grant, President of the United States, promises, privately, to use all his influence, in order that the idea of annexing the Dominican Republic to the United States may acquire such a degree of popularity among members of Congress as will be necessary for its accomplishment.”
Shall I read the rest of the document? It is of somewhat the same tenor. There are questions of money in it, cash down, all of which must have been particularly agreeable to the three confederates. It finally winds up as follows:—
“Done in duplicate, in good faith, in the City of San Domingo, the 4th day of the month of September, A. D. 1869.