Relations, or to vote with you on San Domingo? If such are your designs, you have chosen your means wisely. Well, I will do it. In the meantime accept, with my thanks for the bribe, the sincerest wishes of my whole family, for a happy new year.
ANNEXATION OF SAN DOMINGO[1]
Mr. President:—The Congress of the United States is at the present moment presenting a curious spectacle to the American people. We are discussing the question whether a commission of inquiry shall be sent to San Domingo for the purpose of investigating the condition of that country; and we are deliberating under the whip and spur of extraordinary urgency, being told that it must be done now, and must be done quickly. That commission is to furnish us certain information. Who needs that information? Not the President of the United States, for he has told us in his message that it was an act of folly to reject the annexation of San Domingo, and that it would be a great calamity to this country if that act should be repeated. It must therefore necessarily be presumed that he had in his possession already all that information which led him to such peremptory conclusions.
Who else may want it? Probably not the Senators around me who are in favor of annexation, for they have made up their minds. It may be presumed that they know all they desire to know to lead them to the formation of the convictions upon which they are ready to act.
Who then does need it? If anybody, the Senators and
- ↑ Speech in the United States Senate, Jan. 11, 1871. The Senate had under consideration the amendment of the House of Representatives to the joint resolution (S. R. No. 262) authorizing the appointment of commissioners in relation to the republic of Dominica.
