page_title: Charles Sumner
section_title: Dominican Republic annexation treaty
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Sumner / Senate service / Dominican Republic annexation treaty
caption_attribution_description: English: Ulysses S. Grant, full-length portrait, seated at table with books and top hat, facing right
context_page_description: Charles Sumner was an American politician and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the freedmen. He fell into a dispute with President Ulysses Grant, a fellow Republican, over the control of Santo Domingo leading to the stripping of his power in the Senate and his subsequent effort to defeat Grant's re-election.
  Sumner changed his political party several times as anti-slavery coalitions rose and fell in the 1830s and 1840s before coalescing in the 1850s as the Republican Party, the affiliation with which he became best known. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the Slave Power, the influence over the federal government of Southern slave owners who sought the continuation and expansion of slavery.
context_section_description: In 1869, President Grant, in an expansionist plan, looked into the annexation of a Caribbean island country, the Dominican Republic, then known as Santo Domingo. Grant believed that the mineral resources on the island would be valuable to the United States, and that African Americans repressed in the South would have a safe haven to which to migrate. A labor shortage in the South would force Southerners to be tolerant towards African Americans. In July and November 1869, under authority of President Grant and permission by the State Department on the second trip, Orville Babcock, private secretary to President Grant, secretly negotiated a treaty with President Buenaventura Báez, President of the Dominican Republic. The initial treaty by Babcock had not been authorized by the State Department. The island nation, however, was on the verge of a civil war between President Báez and ex-President Marcos A. Cabral. President Grant sent in the U.S. Navy to keep the Dominican Republic free from invasion and civil war while the treaty negotiations took place. This military action was controversial since the naval protection was unauthorized by the U.S. Congress. The official treaty, drafted by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish in October 1869, annexed the Dominican Republic to the United States, gave eventual statehood, the lease of Samaná Bay for $150,000 yearly, and a $1,500,000 payment of the Dominican national debt. In January 1870, in order to gain support for the treaty, President Grant visited Sen. Sumner's Washington home and mistakenly believed that Sumner had given consent for the treaty. Sen. Sumner stated that he had only promised to give the treaty friendly consideration. This meeting would later lead to bitter contention between Sumner and Grant. The treaty was formally submitted to the United States Senate on January 10, 1870.
  Sumner, opposed to American imperialism in the Caribbean and fearful that annexation would lead to the conquest of the neighboring republic of Haiti, became convinced that corruption lay behind the treaty, and that men close to the president shared in the corruption. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sumner initially withheld his opinion on the treaty on January 18, 1870. Sumner had been leaked information from Assistant Secretary of State, Bancroft Davis, that U.S. Naval ships were being used to protect Báez. Sumner's committee voted against annexation and at Sumner's suggestion and quite possibly to save the party from an ugly fight or the president from embarrassment, the Senate held its debate of the treaty behind closed doors in executive session. Grant persisted and sent messages to Congress in favor of annexation on March 14, 1870, and May 31, 1870. In closed session, Sumner spoke out against the treaty; warning that there would be difficulty with the foreign nationals, noting the chronic rebellion that took place on the island, and the risk that the independence of Haiti, recognized by the United States in 1862, would be lost. Sumner stated that Grant's use of the U.S. Navy as a protectorate was a violation of International law and unconstitutional. Finally, on June 30, 1870 the treaty was voted on by the Senate and failed to gain the required 2/3 majority for treaty passage.
  The following day, Grant, feeling betrayed by Sumner, retaliated by ordering the dismissal of Sumner's close friend John Lothrop Motley, Ambassador to Britain. By autumn, Sumner's personal hostility to the president was public knowledge, and he blamed the Secretary of State for failing to have resigned, rather than let Grant have his way. The two men, friends until then, cooled into bitter enemies. In December 1870, still fearful that Grant meant to acquire Santo Domingo somehow, Sumner gave a fiercely critical speech accusing the president of usurpation and Babcock of unethical conduct. Already Grant, supported by Fish, had initiated a campaign to depose Sumner from the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although Sumner stated he was an "Administration man," in addition to
caption: President Ulysses S. Grant
  The Dominican Republic annexation treaty caused bitter contention between President Grant and Sen. Sumner. --Brady 1869
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