On other occasions it has been my solemn duty to expose the outrages
which attended this hateful business, where at each step we are brought
face to face with Presidential pretension: first, in the open seizure
of the war powers of the Government, as if he were already Cæsar,
forcibly intervening in Dominica and menacing war to Hayti, all of
which is proved by the official reports of the State Department and
Navy Department, being nothing less than war by kingly prerogative,
in defiance of that distinctive principle of Republican Government,
first embodied in our Constitution, which places the war powers under
the safeguard of the legislative branch, making any attempt by the
President “to declare war” an undoubted usurpation. But our President,
like Gallio, cares for none of these things. The open violation of the
Constitution was naturally followed by a barefaced disregard of that
equality of nations which is the first principle of International Law,
as the equality of men is the first principle of the Declaration of
Independence; and this sacred rule was set aside in order to insult and
menace Hayti, doing unto the Black Republic what we would not have that
Republic do unto us, nor what we would have done to any white power.
To these eminent and most painful Presidential pretensions, the first
adverse to the Constitution and the second adverse to International
Law, add the imprisonment of an American citizen in Dominica by the
Presidential confederate, Baez, for fear of his hostility to the
treaty, if he were allowed to reach New York,--all of which was
known to his subordinates, Babcock and Cazneau, and doubtless to
himself. What was the liberty of an American citizen compared with the
Presidential prerogative? To one who had defied the Constitution, on
which depends the liberty of all, and then defied International Law,
on which depends the peace of the world, a single citizen immured in a
distant dungeon was of small moment. But this is only an illustration.
Add now the lawless occupation of the Bay of Samana for many months
after the lapse of the treaty, keeping the national flag flying there,
and assuming a territorial sovereignty which did not exist. Then add
the protracted support of Baez in his usurped power, to the extent of
placing the national flag at his disposal, and girdling the island with
our ships of war, all at immense cost, and to the neglect of other
service where the Navy was needed.
This strange succession of acts, which, if established for a precedent,
would overturn Constitution and Law, was followed by another class of
Presidential manifestations: first, an unseemly importunity of Senators
during the pendency of the treaty, visiting the Capitol as a lobbyist,
and summoning them to his presence in squads, in obvious pursuance
of the stipulation made by his Aide-de-Camp and never disowned by
him,--being intervention in the Senate, reinforced by all the influence
of the appointing power, whether by reward or menace, all of which was
as unconstitutional in character as that warlike intervention on the
island; and then, after debate in the Senate, when the treaty was lost
on solemn vote, we were called to witness his self-willed effrontery
in prosecuting the fatal error, returning to the charge in his Annual
Message at the ensuing session, insisting upon his contrivance as
nothing less than the means by which “our large debt abroad is
ultimately to be extinguished,” and gravely charging the Senate with
“folly” in rejecting the treaty,--and yet, while making this astounding
charge against a coördinate branch of Government, and claiming such
astounding profits, he blundered geographically in describing the
prize.[153]
All this diversified performance, with its various eccentricity of
effort, failed. The report of able commissioners transported to the
island in an expensive war-ship ended in nothing. The American people
rose against the undertaking and insisted upon its abandonment. By a
message charged with Parthian shafts the President at length announced
that he would proceed no further in this business.[154] His senatorial
partisans, being a majority of the Chamber, after denouncing those
who had exposed the business, arrested the discussion. In obedience
to irrepressible sentiments, and according to the logic of my life, I
felt it my duty to speak; but the President would not forgive me, and
his peculiar representatives found me disloyal to the party which I had
served so long and helped to found. Then was devotion to the President
made the shibboleth of party.