Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/209

Rh the first time in the history of this country that such a doctrine has been imported upon the floor of the American Senate.

The Constitution tells you that, as to the power to initiate war, that sovereignty is vested in Congress, and not in the President alone. If, then, an inchoate right assumed to have been created by the President's own act is to be enforced by acts of war, the United States can certainly do it, but Congress, and not the President alone, is, according to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, the branch of this Government to decide the question whether such protection involving a question of war shall be enforced or not. If the President desired to protect an inchoate right in the republic of San Domingo after he had initiated the treaty with the Baez Government, he had a very plain way to do that. Congress was at that very moment in session. When the orders were given to the naval commanders to enforce that inchoate right by sinking or capturing the ships of a Government with whom the United States were at peace Congress was assembled in these halls. You, Senators, occupied these seats when the President, unmindful of the Constitutional prerogatives of the National Legislature, over your very heads issued that order to the naval commanders.

It cannot, therefore, be claimed that the President had not an opportunity to consult Congress and to do so without loss of time. But he did not. If the President alone, as he did in this instance, presumes to decide for the Government the question whether the inchoate right shall be enforced by force of arms, and to act upon his decision in that case without being authorized by Congress, then, I repeat, he commits a palpable act of usurpation; he violates the Constitution of this Republic.

Thus it turns out that the President in this case simply made the mistake of taking himself to be the United