Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/420

 Congress, in December, 1870, his annual message contained an elaborate plea for annexation and suggested the method of joint resolution, as in the case of Texas, or of a commission to negotiate a new treaty. During the summer the President had in various ways strengthened his hold on those who had supported him, and at the same time had manifested an intense personal bitterness toward Sumner, whom he held chiefly responsible for the failure of the treaty. Sumner had conceived pari passu a cordial contempt for Grant, which, though not publicly proclaimed, was none the less a matter of general knowledge. When, therefore, the question of annexation was again brought forward by the annual message of 1870, a resounding clash between the Senator and the administration was expected, and it duly came.

Morton, one of the leaders of the President's supporters, introduced in the Senate a resolution providing for a commission to visit Santo Domingo and report upon conditions there. This was intended, so Morton assured Sumner, merely as a means of dropping the whole matter in a manner that would show some respect for the President. Sumner, however, spurned the suggestion that it be allowed to pass unopposed, and by a tirade beginning, “The resolution before the Senate commits Congress to a dance of blood,” made public and irreparable the breach with the President. This speech, crammed as it was with the most offensive imputations upon Grant and his advisers, grieved the more judicious of Sumner's friends. It diverted attention from the issue of annexation, on which public opinion favored the opposition, to that of the personal animosity between Grant and Sumner, on which no arts of malignant rhetoric could win the sympathy of the people from their silent military hero. The debate on the resolution turned largely upon Sumner's personal motives and methods, and he