As one consequence of the leading part taken by Mr. Sumner in opposition to the scheme for the annexation of San Domingo to the United States, the friends of that scheme formed the determination to depose him from the influential position long held by him as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. In pursuance of this determination, at the opening of the Session of 1871, on a vote, March 10th, to proceed to the election of the Standing Committees, Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, as the organ of a Senatorial Caucus on the subject, sent to the Chair a list which had been agreed upon, with the name of Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania, substituted for that of Mr. Sumner, at the head of the Committee in question,—alleging, as the reason for this change, “that the personal relations existing between the Senator from Massachusetts and the President of the United States and the head of the State Department were such as precluded all social intercourse between them.” Thereupon ensued the debate referred to in the prefatory note to the following paper, and characterized in the text as Mr. Sumner’s “trial before the Senate on articles of impeachment.”[94]
STATEMENT.
While I was under trial before the Senate, on articles of impeachment presented by the Senator from Wisconsin, [Mr. Howe,] I forbore taking any part in the debate, even in reply to allegations, asserted to be of decisive importance, touching my relations with the President and Secretary of State. All this was trivial enough; but numerous appeals to me from opposite parts of the country show that good people have been diverted by these allegations from the question of principle involved. Without intending in any way to revive the heats of that debate, I am induced to make a plain statement of facts, so that the precise character of those relations shall be known. I do this with unspeakable reluctance, but in the discharge of a public duty where the claims of patriotism are above even those of self-defence. The Senate and the country have an interest in knowing the truth of this matter, and so also has the Republican party, which cannot be indifferent to pretensions in its name; nor will anything but the completest frankness be proper for the occasion.
In overcoming this reluctance I am aided by Senators who are determined to make me speak. The Senator from Wisconsin, [Mr. Howe,] who appears as prosecuting officer, after alleging these personal relations as the gravamen of accusation against me,—making the issue pointedly on this floor, and actually challenging reply,—not content with the opportunity of this Chamber, hurried to the public press, where he repeated the accusation, and now circulates it, as I am told, under his frank, crediting it in formal terms to the liberal paper in which it appeared, but without allusion to the editorial refutation which accompanied it. On still another occasion, appearing still as prosecuting officer, the same Senator volunteered, out of his own invention, to denounce me as leaving the Republican party,—and this he did, with infinite personality of language and manner, in the very face of my speech to which he was replying, where, in positive words, I declare that I speak “for the sake of the Republican party,” which I hope to save from responsibility for wrongful acts, and then, in other words making the whole assumption of the Senator an impossibility, I announce, that in speaking for the Republican party it is “because from the beginning I have been the faithful servant of that party and aspire to see it strong and triumphant.”[95] In the face of this declared aspiration, in harmony with my whole life, the Senator delivered his attack, and, assuming to be nothing less than Pope, launched against me his bull of excommunication. Then, again playing Pope, he took back his thunder, with the apology that others thought so, and this alleged understanding of others he did not hesitate to set above my positive and contemporaneous language that I aspired to see the Republican party strong and triumphant. Then came the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Sherman,] who, taking up his vacation pen, added to the articles of impeachment by a supplementary allegation, adopted by the Senator under a misapprehension of facts. Here was another challenge. During all this time I have been silent. Senators have spoken, and then rushed into print; but I have said nothing. They have had their own way with regard to me. It is they who leave me no alternative.
It is alleged that I have no personal relations with the President. Here the answer is easy. I have precisely the relations which he has chosen. On reaching Washington in December last, I was assured from various quarters that the White House was angry with me; and soon afterward the public journals reported the President as saying to a Senator, that, if he were not President, he “would call me to account.” What he meant I never understood, nor would I attribute to him more than he meant; but that he used the language reported I have no doubt, from information independent of the newspapers. I repeat that on this point I have no doubt. The same newspapers reported, also, that a member of the President’s household, enjoying his peculiar confidence, taking great part in the San Domingo scheme, had menaced me with personal violence. I could not believe the story, except on positive, unequivocal testimony. That the menace was made on the condition of his not being an Army officer I do not doubt. The member of the household, when interrogated by my excellent colleague, [Mr. Wilson,] positively denied the menace; but I am assured, on authority above question, that he has since acknowledged it, while the President still retains him in service, and sends him to this Chamber.
During this last session, I have opposed the Presidential policy on an important question,—but always without one word touching motives, or one suggestion of corruption on his part, although I never doubted that there were actors in the business who could claim no such immunity. It now appears that Fabens, who came here as plenipotentiary to press the scheme, has concessions to such amount that the diplomatist is lost in the speculator. I always insisted that the President was no party to any such transaction. I should do injustice to my own feelings, if I did not here declare my regret that I could not agree with the President. I tried to think as he did, but I could not. I listened to the arguments on his side, but in vain. The adverse considerations multiplied with time and reflection. To those who know the motives of my life it is superfluous for me to add that I sought simply the good of my country and Humanity, including especially the good of the African race, to which our country owes so much.
Already there was anger at the White House when the scheme to buy and annex half an island in the Caribbean Sea was pressed upon the Senate in legislative session under the guise of appointing a Commission, and it became my duty to expose it. Here I was constrained to show how, at very large expense, the usurper Baez was maintained in power by the Navy of the United States to enable him to sell his country, while at the same time the independence of the Black Republic was menaced,—all of which was in violation of International Law, and of the Constitution of the United States, which reserves to Congress the power “to declare war.” What I said was in open debate, where the record will speak for me. I hand it over to the most careful scrutiny, knowing that the President can take no just exception to it, unless he insists upon limiting proper debate, and boldly denies the right of a Senator to express himself freely on great acts of wrong. Nor will any Republican Senator admit that the President can impose his own sole will upon the Republican party. Our party is in itself a Republic with universal suffrage, and until a measure is adopted by the party no Republican President can make it a party test.