Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-03-28
F0RTY-SEC0nD CONGRESS.
WAsHrNGToN, March 81.
SENATE.

SENATE.
Mr.. Sumner in his opening paragraph def
nitely asserts that it il. now on evidence before
TIE Senate, that the Navy of the United
States, acting under orders from Washing
ton. have been engaged in measures of vo-
lence and of hellgerent intervention being
war without authority OF Congress. The
whole business is an aggravated one when it
is considered that the declared object of this
question is the acquisition of foreign terri
tory; being half an island in the caribbean
sea, and still further that this violence has
been improved, first to protect and maintain
a weak ruler, and he himself an usurper, and
upholding him in power that he might sell
his country, and secondly has dared to men
ace the Black Republic of Hayt. Such Mr.
Sumner says to be grave foresiteness for the
sake of the administration and Republican
Institutions. and for the Republican party
which cannot afford to become responsible
for such conduct, The case must not pass
without inquiry, but beyond all these con-
sideratons is the commanding rule of justice.
The question is not whether the acquisition
of San Domingo is desirable, but whether
we are justified in the means employed to ac-
complish this acquisition, and the evidence
before the government shows clearly that
means have been employed which cannot be
justified.
Mr.. Sumner then enters into legal argu-
ments and cites precedents to show that the
contract for cession of territory must be
without presence of superior force, and al
ludes to the fact that recent returns of the
Navy Department shows the whole Island to
be beleagued by our navy, sailing from port
to port and hugging the land, and unless the
reports of the State and Navy Department
is to be discredited, it is obvious beyon doubt,
that our government has seized the war pow
err, carefully guarded by the Constitution,
and without the authority of Congress, en-
ployed it to trample on the independence
and equal rights of two nations equal with
our own.
Senator Sumner asserted that there may be
war without battle, and so our navy has thus
far conquered without a shot, by its presence in
IIayti and Dominica. He then infinitely re-
viewed the testimony to this effect furnished
by the State and Navy Departments, from
which it appears that every agent who signed
the documents officially, reported the usurper
maintained in power by our guns. After
completely reviewing the testimony establish
ing without question that Baez was maintain
ed in power by our navy to enable him to
carry out the sale of his country, and further
assume the sale ofthe neighboring government
of Hayti, being menanced. This being a breach
of public law, international and constitutional,
Mr.. Sumner proceeds to show that the con-
duct is gross violence of international laws
and the Constitution of the United States
| and cites the voluminous authority to prove
the promise made by the President not to en-
ploy the war powers without the authority of
Congress was void and every employment of
these war powers, in pursuance of this,
there was a ursupation, and that the assump
ton in the San Domingo treaty is abnorbal,
being absolutely without precedent; but, con-
tinues Sumner, even admitting some remote
semblance of excuse or apology during the
pending treaty, all of which | insist are alb
surd beyond question, though not entirely
impossible in quarter unused to the con-
| stitutional questions, and needing them little.
| Conceding that the 'assumpsit" inserted in
| the treaty by the Secretary of State, had de-
ceived the President into the idea that he
possessed Kingly preogative of declaring war
| at his own mere notion, and wishing to deal
most gently with the undoubted ursupation of
kingly prerogative, so long as a systate worn
by the President supplied the formula. You
will bear witness that l. have done nothing
but state the case; if it is to hold back when
the same ursupaton is openly prolonged after
the Senate had objected to the treaty on
which the exercise of Kingy preogative was
founded, and when the ''assumpsit," devised
by the Secretary of State had passed into the
limbo of things lost on earth, there is no re-
mote and infinite resemblance of excuse or
apology, nothing, absolutely nothing, ursupa-
ton, pivots on nonentity, always exciting the
Kingly will of the President, which is consti-
tutionally, nonentity.
Sumner here expressed the deep regret
with which he made the exposure, but he
plead now, as often before, for only justice
and peace. lie concluded in the evidence
| T a,,, nGrn f,,llx
to public documents, not travelling out OF
| tho record Of disnatches nnyal orders and