158 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



mit Congress to the policy of annexation. 

 Otherwise, why is the resolution introduced? 

 The President does not need it. Under his 

 general powers he is authorized to appoint 

 agents, if he pleases, to visit foreign countries, 

 and he is supplied with a secret-service fund 

 by which their expenses may be defrayed. 

 The President does not need this resolution. 

 It is an act of supererogation so far as he is 

 concerned, and it is also contrary, so far as I 

 am informed, to the precedents of our history. 



"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 informa- 

 tion which I have received since our discus- 

 sions last year has confirmed me in the con- 

 clusions which I felt it my duty then to an- 

 nounce. In now presenting those conclusions 

 I beg to say that I shall forbear from consider- 

 ing whether the territory of Dominica is 

 desirable or not; I shall forbear from con- 

 sidering 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 is connected with the relations with Hayti. 

 At some other time these other topics will be 

 proper for consideration. For the present I 

 prefer to confine myself to grounds on which 

 there can be no debate. 



" 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, 

 propped by violence ever since. I use strong 

 language, but only what the occasion requires. 

 As a Senator, as a patriot, I cannot see my 

 country suffer in its good name without an 

 earnest effort to save it. 



" The negotiation for annexation 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 

 entitles himself 'aide-de-camp to the President 

 of the United States.' Together they got up 

 what was entitled a protocol, in which the 

 young officer entitling himself aide-de-camp to 

 the President proceeded to make certain prom- 

 ises for the President. Before I read what 

 I shall of this document, I desire to say that 

 there is not one word showing that at the 

 time this 'aide-de-camp,' as he called himself, 

 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 which 

 brought out the protocol did not bring out 

 any such authority. The document is called 

 1 a protocol,' which I need not remind yon, sir, 

 is in diplomatic terms the first draft of a 

 treaty, or the memorandum between two 

 powers in which are written down the bases 

 of so'me subsequent negotiation; but at the 



time it is hardly less binding than a treaty it- 

 self, except, as you are well aware, 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 Eepublic, 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 Eepublic, 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 

 Eepublic. 



"Here you see how this young officer, un- 

 dertaking to represent the United States of 

 America, entitles himself * aide-de-camp to his 

 Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant, Presi- 

 dent 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 Presi- 

 dent of the United States?' Does his name 

 appear in the Constitution, in any statute, in 

 the history of this republic anywhere ? If it 

 does, your information, sir, is much beyond 

 mine. I have never before met any such in- 

 stance. I believe this young officer stands 

 alone in using this lofty designation. I be- 

 lieve, 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 commissioned as a commissioner; and the 

 assumption of this exalted and exceptional 

 character by this young officer shows at least 

 his inexperience in diplomacy. However, he 

 assumed it; and it doubtless produced a great 

 effect with Baez, Cazneau, and Fabens, the 

 three confederates. They were doubtless 

 pleased with the distinction. It helped on 

 the plan they were engineering. 



"The young aide-de-camp then proceeds 

 pledge the President as follows : 



I. His Excellency general Grant, President of tho 

 United States, promises privately to use all his in- 

 fluence in order that the idea of annexing the Do- 

 minican Eepublic to the United States may acquire 

 such a degree of popularity among members of Con- 

 gress as will be necessary for its accomplishment. 



"Shall I read the rest of the document? It 

 is somewhat of 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 tlie month of September, 

 A. D. 1869. ORVTLLE E. BABCOCK, 



MANUEL MARIA GAUTIEE. 



