Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/199

Rh floor of the Senate on these very resolutions without having been struck by the sinister looseness of Constitutional notions which has been exhibited to us; by the continual confounding of the President's person with the Government of the United States, just as if the whole Government of the United States consisted of only one man. It is for the purpose of vindicating the Constitutional division of powers that I enter upon this debate; and to bring the discussion back to a legitimate basis it is well that we should once more have a rapid survey of the facts.

The President, of his own motion and accord, as he had a Constitutional right to do, made a treaty with Buenaventura Baez for the annexation of the Dominican republic to the United States. The Dominican republic was disturbed by revolutionary parties hostile to Baez. The Dominican republic was also said to be threatened by the neighboring republic of Hayti, whose people were unfavorably disposed with regard to the project of the annexation of a part of that island to this Union, in which they saw danger to their own independence. The President then ordered certain naval officers of the United States, in command of a heavy naval armament, to protect the Government of the Dominican republic against any interference on the part of Hayti by force of arms, and to capture and destroy the ships of the republic of Hayti, according to circumstances. In pursuance of such orders, a rear-admiral of the United States, in command of heavily armed vessels, sails into the port of Port-au-Prince and informs the Haytian Government that whatever their relations with the Dominican republic may be, he will use his guns to capture and destroy their ships as soon as they attempt to interfere in any way with the Dominican republic. More than that, the commanders of the naval armament of the United States in Dominican waters