UNITED STATES. 



747 



immediately carried into effect the protection 

 clauses. This protection has never been re- 

 mitted. Hayti, either as a foreign nation, or 

 as the government dejure of the whole island, 

 as they claim, ostensibly remonstrated. 



In March, 18YO, the result was received of 

 an election held in Dominica, during a fort- 

 night, beginning under a decree of President 

 Baez and his Senate, dated 16th February, 

 1870. The returns indicated a general approval 

 of the treaty. About eighty days, however, 

 had intervened before an election was found 

 " possible." In appropriate localities an offi- 

 cial register was opened, in which citizens 

 were invited to inscribe their suffrages. On 

 the first day of opening the polls, a citizen 

 recorded himself in the negative. He was 

 seized on the spot and sent out of the city by 

 the military guard, present in strong force. 

 Several, afterward expelled from the country 

 by President Baez, found refuge from violence 

 in the house of the Italian consul. President 

 Baez, in presence of the commercial agent 

 of ^ the United States, threatened influential 

 citizens with banishment if they opposed the 

 treaty, and frequeatly expressed the like intol- 

 erance. The unanimity thus procured was so 

 suspicious as to require some negative votes by 

 invitation. The Dominican President habitu- 

 ally declared the dependence of his authority 

 upon that of the United States in force, and 

 that death or expulsion of himself and his 

 Cabinet could be averted only by this annex- 

 ation. 



The public property of Dominica, in the 

 main, was to be left to her, with the corre- 

 sponding burden of her own debts and liabilities, 

 necessarily, without prejudice to third parties. 

 Incumbrances, then, become matter of essential 

 consequence. Beyond the magnitude of them, 

 only the most obscure and meagre data 

 were before the United States Government 

 touching them, previous to the report of the 

 commissioners. A person named Fabens, 

 resident in Dominica, made, as agent of the 

 United States, a report, placing the aggregate 

 debt at $600,000. With some additions since, 

 it had been reckoned at some millions. It was 

 reported that mortgages of enormous scope ; 

 grants of public lands, of which a single one, 

 to Fabens, absorbed one-fifth of the whole; 

 perpetual navigation and commercial fran- 

 chises and other monopolies, mining rights, 

 banking privileges, rights to valuable woods, 

 guano, etc. ; land grants and charters for rail- 

 ways, for immigration societies, etc., existed, 

 and thus there was excited the belief that, by 

 way of grant or lien, all the appropriable re- 

 sources of the country have fallen under pri- 

 vate control. 



Subsequently to the signing of the treaty, 

 grants and concessions of every description 

 were solicited of the Dominican Government, 

 against zealous remonstrances of the regular 

 United States diplomatic agent, made without 

 encouragement from Washington. The Presi- 



dent on sending the report of the commission- 

 ers to Congress accompanied it with a mes- 

 sage, in which he said : 



And now my task is finished, and with it ends all 

 personal solicitude upon the subject. My duty being 

 done, yours begins, and I gladly hand over the whole 

 matter to the judgment of the American people and 

 of their representatives in Congress assembled. Thu 

 facts will now be spread before the country, and :i 

 decision rendered by that tribunal whose convictions 

 so seldom err, and against whose will I have no pol- 

 icy to enforce. My opinion remains unchanged 

 indeed, it is confirmed by the report that the in- 

 terests of our country and of San Domingo alike 

 invite the annexation of that republic. 



In view of the difference of opinion upon this sub- 

 ject ? I suggest that no action be taken at the present 

 session beyond the printing and general dissemina- 

 tion of the report. 



Among the numerous measures which were 

 acted upon by Congress, one, subsequently des- 

 ignated as the "Ku-klux Bill," was not tho 

 least important. Some of those who were 

 opposed to the measure, which was entitled 

 "An act to enforce the provisions of the four- 

 teenth amendment of the Constitution of the 

 United States, and for other purposes " (nee CON- 

 GRESS, UNITED STATES), charged that, " in the 

 political history of the country, there never 

 had been so direct a blow aimed, under color ot 

 legal authority, at the supremacy of the Con- 

 stitution, or a precedent been established so 

 dangerous to free institutions ; " " that for tho 

 first time, Congress had to take cognizance ol 

 and provide for the punishment of acts of vio- 

 lence to the persons and property of private 

 citizens." Others said: "Has Congress au- 

 thority to make such a change ? Can it, by a 

 single sweeping act like this, destroy our es- 

 tablished federative system, usurp to itself the 

 powers and rights of the people, throw down 

 the restraints and balances that are for the 

 protection of liberty, and set up centralization, 

 whether in the name of equal rights or any- 

 thing else ? " " The passage of this measure," 

 said Senator Schurz, " marks the enlargement 

 of the national jurisdiction at the expense of 

 local governments, and sets up a constructive 

 rebellion in order to invest the President with 

 discretionary power to suspend the Jiabeas- 

 corpus laws." 



Senator Trumbull called it a usurpation " of 

 the right to substitute the Federal for the State 

 courts," and added: " When the Federal Gov- 

 ernment takes to itself the entire protection of 

 the individual citizen of the State, in his person 

 and property, there will be an end to State 

 government, resulting in an unwise change in 

 our government system." 



On the 4th of May ensuing, the President 

 issued the following proclamation : 



The act of Congress entitled " An act to enforce 

 the provisions of "the fourteenth amendment to the 

 Constitution of the United States and for other pur- 

 poses," approved April 20th, A. D. 1871, being a law 

 of extraordinary public importance, I consider it to 

 be my duty to issue this my proclamation, calling 

 the attention of the people of tho United States 

 thereto ; enjoining upon all good citizens, and espe- 



