As among us every State and also every citizen has an interest in upholding the National Constitution, so has every nation and also every citizen an interest in upholding International Law.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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International Law is to nations what the National Constitution is to our coëqual States: it is the rule by which they are governed.
In considering how far this conduct is a violation of International Law and of the Constitution of the United States, I begin with the former.
Who will not say that in this transaction the Black Republic appears better than the Rear-Admiral?
Shame and indignation rise as we read the record.
War-ships of the United States dance attendance on the usurper, and save him from the outbreak of the people.
What is this but war, at the call of the usurper Baez, against the enemies of his Government, whether domestic or foreign?
Not only the whole Navy of the United States, but all the power of our Republic is promised to the usurper.
Armed negotiation was changed to armed intervention, being an act of war,--all of which is placed beyond question.
We have heard of an “armed neutrality,” and of an “armed peace”; but here is an armed negotiation.
Here, Sir, permit me to say, is the first sign of war, being an undoubted usurpation, whether by President or Secretary.
To be sure, it was their “moral support” he was to have; but they were nevertheless “guns.” Thus in all times has lawless force sought to disguise itself.
If the Report of the State Department is a confession, that of the Navy Department is an authentic record of acts flagrant and indefensible,--unless we are ready to set aside the Law of Nations and the Constitution of the United States…
Who can doubt that as such this Black Republic has a value beyond all the products of its teeming tropical soil?
To all its paramount titles of Independence and Equality, sacred and unimpeachable, must be added its special character as an example of self-government, being the first in the history of the African race, and a promise of the future.
In other days it was said that the best government is where an injury to a single citizen is resented as an injury to the whole State.
Hatch was detained in prison by the authority of the usurper, at the special instance of Cazneau and with the connivance of Babcock, in order to prevent his influence against the treaty of annexion.
This drama of a usurper sustained by foreign power is illustrated by an episode, where the liberty of an American citizen was sacrificed to the consummation of the plot.
So that we have the confession of the Secretary of State, also the confession of his agent at San Domingo, and the confession of Baez himself, that the usurper depended for support on our Navy.
How the President did not at once abandon, unfinished, treaties maintained by violence, how the Secretary of State did not at once resign rather than be a party to this transaction, is beyond comprehension.
Desiring annexion, he confesses the means employed to accomplish it.
In other words, the usurper was maintained in power by our guns.
If the truth were told, the usurper felt that it was almost impossible to prevent the people from pronouncing for his overthrow, and therefore he wanted war-ships.
Perry, as communicated to the Senate, shows more plainly than the confession of the Secretary how completely the usurper was maintained in power by the strong arm of the United States.
The Secretary alludes also to the probability of “another revolution,” of course against Baez, in the event of the failure of the annexion plot; and here is another confession of the dependence of the usurper upon our Navy.
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