On his return to Washington, the young officer, who had assumed to be “Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant,” and had bound the President to become a lobbyist for a wretched scheme, instead of being disowned and reprimanded, was sent back to the usurper with instructions to negotiate two treaties,--one for the annexion of the half-island of Dominica, and the other for the lease of the Bay of Samana.[151] By the Constitution of the United States “ambassadors and other public ministers” are appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; but our Aide-de-Camp had no such commission. Presidential prerogative empowered him. Nor was naval force wanting. With three war-ships at his disposal,[152] he concluded negotiations with Baez and obtained the two treaties. Naturally force was needed to keep the usurper in power while he sold his country, and naturally such a transaction required a Presidential Aide-de-Camp unknown to Constitution or Law, rather than a civilian duly appointed according to both.
PRESIDENTIAL VIOLATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.
On other occasions it has been my solemn duty to expose the outrages which attended this hateful business, where at each step we are brought face to face with Presidential pretension: first, in the open seizure of the war powers of the Government, as if he were already Cæsar, forcibly intervening in Dominica and menacing war to Hayti, all of which is proved by the official reports of the State Department and Navy Department, being nothing less than war by kingly prerogative, in defiance of that distinctive principle of Republican Government, first embodied in our Constitution, which places the war powers under the safeguard of the legislative branch, making any attempt by the President “to declare war” an undoubted usurpation. But our President, like Gallio, cares for none of these things. The open violation of the Constitution was naturally followed by a barefaced disregard of that equality of nations which is the first principle of International Law, as the equality of men is the first principle of the Declaration of Independence; and this sacred rule was set aside in order to insult and menace Hayti, doing unto the Black Republic what we would not have that Republic do unto us, nor what we would have done to any white power. To these eminent and most painful Presidential pretensions, the first adverse to the Constitution and the second adverse to International Law, add the imprisonment of an American citizen in Dominica by the Presidential confederate, Baez, for fear of his hostility to the treaty, if he were allowed to reach New York,--all of which was known to his subordinates, Babcock and Cazneau, and doubtless to himself. What was the liberty of an American citizen compared with the Presidential prerogative? To one who had defied the Constitution, on which depends the liberty of all, and then defied International Law, on which depends the peace of the world, a single citizen immured in a distant dungeon was of small moment. But this is only an illustration. Add now the lawless occupation of the Bay of Samana for many months after the lapse of the treaty, keeping the national flag flying there, and assuming a territorial sovereignty which did not exist. Then add the protracted support of Baez in his usurped power, to the extent of placing the national flag at his disposal, and girdling the island with our ships of war, all at immense cost, and to the neglect of other service where the Navy was needed.