Charles Sumner.
Felix R. Brunot, Esq., Chairman.
VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND USURPATIONS OF WAR POWERS.
Speech in the Senate, on his San Domingo Resolutions, March 27, 1871.
The official returns to Mr. Sumner’s resolutions of December 9, 1870, and February 15, 1871, calling for the documents in the State and Navy Departments relative to the case of San Domingo,[11] gave occasion to the introduction by him, March 24, 1871, of a series of resolutions, subsequently amended to read as follows:—
Resolutions regarding the employment of the Navy of the United States on the coasts of San Domingo during the pendency of negotiations for the acquisition of part of that island.
Whereas any negotiation by one nation with a people inferior in population and power, having in view the acquisition of territory, should be above all suspicion of influence from superior force, and in testimony to this principle Spain boasted that the reïncorporation of Dominica with her monarchy in 1861 was accomplished without the presence of a single Spanish ship on the coast or a Spanish soldier on the land, all of which appears in official documents; and whereas the United States, being a Republic founded on the Rights of Man, cannot depart from such a principle and such a precedent without weakening the obligations of justice between nations and inflicting a blow upon Republican Institutions: Therefore,—