Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/228

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208
The Writings of
[1871

republic. And now, sir, here are the reports of the naval officers, showing under what instructions they acted and how they even went so far as to carry the troops of Baez in their warfare against the revolutionary attempts of his own fellow-citizens, from one place to another, long after the treaty of annexation had been rejected by the Senate.

Why, sir, it is a fact, probably unknown to most Senators on this floor, that even while the commission we sent there, recently, were at their work, a scientific party was carried to a certain place in the steamer Nantasket, Commander McCook, and that the same war vessel of the United States which carried that scientific expedition, carried arms, munitions and stores of war for Baez from one division of his troops to another.

Mr. Sumner. To be used against Cabral.

Mr. Schurz. To be used against Cabral, Baez's own fellow-citizens in insurrection.

Now, sir, is there even the merest pretense of a treaty between the Government of the United States and San Domingo in existence at the present moment? Here is the President's message, laid before Congress in December last, proving that no new treaty was in existence then, and asking Congress to authorize him to send a commission to San Domingo, so that then a new treaty might there after be framed. Does the Senator from Indiana still fail to see the difference?

But even this is not all. President Tyler sent a military and naval force to the Texan frontier and coast for the purpose of observation as to the apprehended invasion of Texas by a foreign Power; but here we see our naval officers ordered not only to observe events, but to interfere by force of arms, and not only to interfere in case of invasion by a foreign Power, but in case of a rising of the citizens of the Dominican republic against their present