The following text, extracted from a debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 13, 1869, illustrates in embryo political and constitutional issues that a century and a half later have brought the American Republic to its present, precarious state.[1]  --  It illustrates the pressures of U.S. business interests in favor of transferring authority from Congress to the executive for the purposes of using American power to advance their interests in ways that inevitably lead to war.  --  The best lines belong to a now forgotten figure, Samuel Shellabarger (1817-1896) of Ohio, whose grandson because a bestselling novelist.  --  Shellabarger, a prominent political figure, was a theoretician of Reconstruction and was Rutherford B. Hayes’s personal attorney in the disputed election of 1876.  --  The villain of the piece is also now mostly forgotten, though he was one of the most famous figures of his time.  --  Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818-1893) was a willful, shrewd, flamboyant, and unscrupulous presidential aspirant.  --  Commercial interests had long sought to induce the U.S. government to acquire Caribbean territory.  --  They prevailed only in the generation following the Civil War, when the curtain rose on Act I of the drama of American imperialism.  --  But in this fascinating early skirmish, the imperialists go down to defeat....

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[From The Annals of America, Vol. 10: 1866-1883: Reconstruction and Industrialization (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968), pp. 143-55.]

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE ON HAITI AND SANTO DOMINGO

--The Civil War brought to the attention of the navy the need for island bases in the Caribbean. Secretary of State Seward took it upon himself to press the matter both during and after the war. The most likely spot seemed to be Santo Domingo, where continued political instability offered hope of annexation. Seward persuaded President Johnson to suggest to Congress, in December 1868, "the acquisition and incorporation into our federal Union of the several adjacent continental and insular communities." Congress would have none of it and, in January 1869, turned down a resolution proposing a protectorate over the island of Santo Domingo and Haiti. Following are portions of the debates on the resolution in the House of Representatives January 13, 1869. Source: Globe, 40 Cong., 3 Sess., pp. 333-340.

Mr. Butler [Massachusetts]. I offer the following as a substitute for the joint resolution:

"Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized to extend the protection of the United States over either of the islands of the Antilles to such extent as he may deem expedient and not inconsistent with the laws of nations whenever the government established in either of them or the people thereof shall desire such protection of the United States: Provided, that any action in this behalf on the part of the executive shall be forthwith reported to Congress: And provided further, that no payment or expenditure of money in carrying this resolution into effect shall be made or contracted for without previous authority of Congress."

Mr. Spalding [Ohio]. I desire to offer an amendment to the substitute.

Mr. Banks [Massachusetts]. I yield for that purpose.

Mr. Spalding. I move to insert after the word "Antilles" the words "or any other islands in the Atlantic or Pacific oceans which lie nearer to the coast of the United States than to that of any foreign government."

Mr. Banks. I will yield to my colleague who introduced the substitute to debate it if he pleases. I only desire to say that it stands on a different principle from that of the original resolution. While I do not object to it if the House chooses to extend it, I do not wish to be understood as approving the substitute.

Mr. Butler. Mr. Speaker, I desire the attention of the House for one moment to the amendment which I have proposed. The original proposition is that whenever the government of Haiti or Santo Domingo desire the protection of the United States, the President of the United States shall be in a condition, by the authorization of Congress, to extend it, provided that it shall not involve the United States in any breach of treaty obligations or expenses. The amendment which I have offered extends this right of protection to all the islands of the Antilles; and the honorable member from Ohio proposes to extend the principle to every island adjacent to our territory on either shore, looking, I suppose, to the Sandwich Islands, if the time shall come or is ripe for most of these islands coming under our protection.

The amendment that I have offered proposes that wherever in the islands of the American seas any body of men associated together under the forms of government desire the protection of the United States, the President shall have a right, in his discretion, to extend that protection. I cannot help looking forward to the immediate future, when the whole system of government in the islands of the Antilles -- whether the governments of Denmark or of Spain, or the republican governments there -- will crumble to pieces, and the islands will go out, by natural process, from under their former governments. And they belong to us so far by position and by the laws of nature that it is required for us to interpose our good offices to aid them to come to us and under our laws.

Let me say here that no question of feeling against the present executive of what the executive may do should influence any gentleman on this question, for this power is needed to meet a case that may arise when we are not in session. When we are in session we can at once advise or restrain movements in this direction as we choose. There is now a revolution going on in Cuba in which we can take no part until the people of that government have put themselves in a position to receive our protection by conquering their own independence, and then we should be in condition to assert our traditional doctrine, known as the Monroe Doctrine, that there must be no unwilling dependencies of a European government on the American continent. I call the attention of the gentlemen who represent states that are interested in having the Mississippi River open to the navigation of the world to the fact that it is necessary to the full enjoyment of that navigation that we should have a right to extend our protection to our commerce in all the islands of the West Indies.

Let me say further that we have by our action put ourselves in a very anomalous position in regard to some of these islands. Our executive called upon Denmark and asked to have the people of St. Thomas vote whether they would belong to Denmark or to this country. That people voted that they preferred to belong to this country, and thereupon they seem to have shut themselves off from Denmark; while we are not yet ready or willing to ratify the treaty by which we agreed to pay money for that island. And let me say to this House that, by my proposition, I do not look in any degree toward paying any money for any island or other land on the American continent. As I opposed the purchase of Alaska, so I should oppose hereafter the purchase of any foot of soil.

But the question now is as to extending the protection of a republican government. Gentlemen may ask, "Do you propose armed intervention?" To that I answer that the resolution carefully and expressly itself by providing that the intervention or protection shall not be inconsistent with the laws of nations, violating no treaty stipulation and no national right. How such protection can be extended within the laws of nations is perfectly well settled by almost every textwriter that treats upon that subject. Therefore the simple question is this, to put in plain, homely language: Shall we have our mouths open, ready to catch the plum which is now ripe and ready to fall, or shall we keep them shut and permit it to fall into the mouths of others?

And a word further; that, for one, I think the time has come for action upon this subject. This project cannot be met successfully by the assertion that there is no precedent for it. Sir, there is no precedent for our position in the history of the world. There is no precedent for our power. There is no precedent for our influence on this continent. But there is a precedent for us in every act of this government toward the young republics of South America; in every act extending a helping hand to every people desiring either a republican government or a stable government under republican forms. And I trust that we shall not throw cold water upon the effort for the emancipation of slavery in Cuba, whether white or black, upon the efforts toward good government in Dominica and Haiti, and upon the disposition of those islands, so valuable in a commercial point of view, to put themselves under our protections.

I have listened to the amendment of my very conservative friend from Ohio. I know that he only desires to add to this resolution so that possibly the Sandwich Islands, and perhaps some others in the Pacific Ocean, may be brought within its scope. Now, while I do not mean to antagonized the propositions submitted by the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which I shall support if I cannot get my own adopted, still I desire that we shall make this a general provision, putting in the hands of the executive the power to act, provided he shall pay no money for purchase, shall incur no expenditure, and do no act unless he immediately reports to Congress, and especially that he shall do no act contravening the law of nations. . . .

Mr. Spalding. As I have offered an amendment to the substitute moved by the gentleman from Massachusetts, I desire to say a few words. I think I have oftentimes said upon the floor of the House that I was impressed with a belief that it was the destiny of the American government to spread itself, not only over the whole continent of America; but over all the islands adjacent thereto. And I believe this: If there be anything decreed in the councils of infinite wisdom it is this very fact. It is merely a question of time.

Now, sir, I do not say that it is sound national policy at this time to adopt any resolution on the subject. But if we adopt any resolution to any extent, then, I say, let us open it wide enough to embrace acquisitions from either ocean, the Atlantic or the Pacific. And the gentleman from Massachusetts does me no more than justice when he says I have reference to a cluster of islands in the Pacific Ocean in which the work of disintegration is now rapidly going on. The pear is nearly ripe enough to fall, and when it does fall it must fall into the American lap.

I ask, therefore, that the members of this House, and especially those who are interested in the prosperity of the Pacific Coast, vote for my proposition which is in accordance with the spirit engraved upon the substitute offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts. It strikes me, sir, that the proposition is insufficiently guarded. We incur no risk of expense; we incur no risk of a breach of a treaty of peace or of any neutrality laws. We guard against that by the provision inserted by the astute gentleman from Massachusetts in his substitute. The President can only extend this protectorate when the application comes voluntarily from the people interested and without infringing any law of nations, any treaty, or any neutrality law. No money can be expended except upon application to Congress. No armed force can be employed but by the authority of Congress. The resolution being thus guarded, I, as a conservative man (the gentleman emphatically says I am "conservative," but upon this subject -- perhaps it is the only one -- he will find me more radical, I trust, than himself), will go "as far as he goes the furthest." I shall vote for the amendment to the substitute; I shall then vote for the substitute as amended and for the original resolution. . . .

Mr. Shellabarger [Ohio]. Mr. Speaker, I have not sought the floor upon this extraordinary proposition because of any supposition that the view I may submit to the House will be either new or useful but simply to indicate why I cannot support either the original proposition of the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs or any of the amendments that have been submitted to the House. It is conceded both by the chairman and by other gentlemen who have spoken that this proposition is extraordinary -- not only extraordinary in the common sense of the term but so extraordinary that it is unprecedented in the history of this government. That a proposition should be brought into the House at this time, unapproved as it is by any committee in the House, and sought to be disposed of as this one is sought to be, is to me rather a subject of surprise.

Let us for a moment or two examine what this proposition is. In its substance and effects I understand it to be a proposition by which the power, the force, the authority of the government of the United States shall be transferred by Congress to the executive of the United States, to be exercised under his unrestrained discretion in "protecting" -- that is the operative and significant word of the resolution -- in protecting the governments or the people of those islands indicated in the resolution. If it does not mean this, it means just nothing at all. The executive is to be authorized to protect these governments or these people.

Now, in the first place, I ask my fellow members to consider what that word "protect" involves and means. If there is to be protection extended, it must be a protection to be found in something, or else, as I have said, the resolution is meaningless. I shall assume, for the purpose of what I have to say, that it does mean something. The protection, Mr. Speaker, can be given by the exercise of the authority of this government in the only way in which that authority of the government can be exercised; that is, by the force which is found in the protection of the military and naval authority of your government. You have no other way of "protecting" them than this. That moral protection which is to be found in the mere adoption of resolutions, in declarations of sympathy, or of approval or disapproval, or which is to be found in the ordinary instrumentalities of diplomacy -- such moral protection is clearly not the protection meant. Then, sir, it comes to this: a proposition that we shall now protect by the military and the naval authority of this government the peoples of these islands or their governments.

I know there are "salvos" in the latter part of the resolution requiring that the President shall submit to Congress his action in the matter, and also a proviso that it shall cost us nothing. But I submit that these provisions and salvos in the resolution of the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, if it were not introduced by a gentleman so honorable, so ingenuous, so frank and outspoken, might be denominated a "springe to catch woodcocks"; and it would, I think, be a very young woodcock in legislation that would be caught by that which is appended to this resolution. It is to cost us nothing, is it? We, by the resolution, solemnly decided that these governments and their people shall be protected, and then there is an authorization to the President to extend that protection. It is to be effectual; it is not to be meaningless, but it is to be protection, and the President is demanded by the high command of the two houses of Congress, speaking in the imperial voice of the law, to attain that high end -- the protection of these peoples and governments. And then we admonish him that this execution of our high command shall cost us nothing!

First, the action is to go forward; the protection is to proceed; the befriended government is to be, by our commanding guardianship, made perpetual. This is the thing authorized by the resolution. When the protection of this republic goes to these new wards of the nation, it goes out under the sanction of Congress given in a joint resolution of the two houses of Congress. We command the President, in all the emphasis and meaning of that word "protect," but protect so that it shall not cost. That is what the resolution, it is averred, comes to. But, sir, the resolution means that there shall be an effective thing done under it, and that thing cannot be less than that this government shall protect; and by the resolution we agree that all the costs and consequences involved in giving that protection and in making it good and perpetual against all who may come to forbid come either from the people there or other nations.

Suppose the President has done this thing -- has protected; that our navy has been used for the purpose of that protection; that it has been sent there and done what amounts to protection, and it has involved expenditure -- who would vote that that protection thus authorized, thus expensive, shall not be compensated? Bring it back to its original elements and I submit to the gentleman who introduced the proposition that it comes to this: That it is a declaration of war on the part of the government of the United States against somebody -- nay sir, against everybody who may come to forbid our protection.

I admit I do not know who we declare war against. The resolution does not inform us whom it is we are to protect against. What that belligerent is that we are to fight is not indicated. But if it means something, as it does, it means that this government shall embark now, here, today, in that protection that can only be given by war in favor of somebody and against somebody, in favor of everybody whom the President -- mark it -- whom the President may deem it fit to make this government the ally of, and a war against everybody who may be the enemy of our, or rather the President's, ally and ward.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I know that it may be old-fashioned, perhaps "stale and unprofitable," so here to do; still I will venture to bring my own mind, and so far as my feeble effort may enable me to do so, to bring the minds of my fellow members back to those rules of national obligation, of wisdom, and of duty touching upon our foreign policies and affairs upon which your government was founded and upon which it has every since so sublimely endured. Not long ago, within the memory of all of us, an old man fell stricken with death within the sound of my voice. That old man was young once, and when a boy he indicated and in letters gave to his country and mankind that which passed afterward into immortality in the "Farewell Address of the Father of his Country."

The great intellect of John Quincy Adams originated, matured, gathered into the forms and force of irresistible argument and precept the doctrines of that most approved, most cherished, and most loved part of the "Farewell Address of the Father of his Country" which admonished his countrymen against the intervention of this nation in the affairs of others and against all entangling alliances -- that policy which was first announced by your government on the 25th of April, 1793, in the proclamation of George Washington, declaring the neutrality of this government as between the French government and the people of Europe. To the intervention in these affairs our people were then impelled by all the promptings of sympathy and of gratitude toward our recent ally, the people of France. The policy then and there inaugurated, I say, is one which I earnestly pray may be in our country perpetual and for which I feebly beg.

This government, sir, may be strong in itself, may be irresistible in itself, may, God grant, be perpetual. But, sir, that immortality is to be found in our being to ourselves and for ourselves a government of ourselves; not involving or embroiling ourselves in or interfering with the affairs of other governments. That policy thus inaugurated has continued from that day to this. We have by our moral forces, which are growing into omnipotence, given our cheer to the struggling everywhere. Let us give it today to these people, to any people, to all peoples struggling for their rights, for the right. It is in that sublime moral power of your government that you have found your controlling forces for good.

I beg, then, that the House shall pause. It is a feeble power, perhaps, against which our guns are now to be by this resolution pointed, or whom we may now challenge to the determinations of war. But, sir, it is not the feebleness of the power but the potency of the precedent that I now comment upon. To that I point; against that I implore my fellow members to be on their guard. Be warned! The first step is here -- is today. The last is -- where? In departing from the inculcations of the fathers of the republic, when they told us to let foreign wars alone, we embark on new seas -- seas you and I have not explored. I pause; I fear; I refuse to go. . . .

Mr. Mullins [Tennessee]. I do not know that it is within my power to enlighten this House touching this question that is under consideration. I may be permitted to say that it is, of all the question that have come up here since the assembling of this Congress for its last session, the most important that has addressed itself to my consideration. In the five minutes allowed me I cannot, of course, dwell upon the subject in detail. I must come up to the main features that present themselves to my mind.

We are not a city that is to be buried. We are a city set upon a hill, whose light should not shine forth that the nations of the earth that are living in darkness and bondage may see the light and look to us as their great lighthouse. And were do we hail from? We hail from an ancestry that God, in my opinion, has destined should spread its light over the whole earth and break the chains and fetters of empires, kingdoms, and dominions. And we will not only break those chains and fetters but we will ride in grandeur and triumph. We spread out our arms like seas to those who are in fetters and bondage, and say "Come to us, and we will give you protection."

We do not propose to fight their battles. That, I believe, is contrary to the fundamental principles, as has indicated by the gentleman who has just preceded me. As was wisely declared by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Butler], we put a stopper on this thing of buying territory. We define this position to this people adjacent to our land, to the great people here in the United States; and I declare, as I have a right to do, that in my opinion this is the new Jerusalem that has come down to us, and it will be the gathering in of all the nations, showing its light to all. It is a harbor for all the ships that are not only to crowd around the Old World but to come from there here.

Let us say to these little islands and to these people, "We sympathize with your republican governments as the fundamental principle of life that God has ordained when He established the Garden and covenanted with man, that man was a moral free agent, and no monarch, king, or despot is decreed of God to domineer over the world." Let man in his own consciousness of right speak to these islands in darkness and let them know that they have a friend here who sympathizes with them. And when the people, the fundamental strata upon which stands the republic of the United States, shall respond to the will of the people of these islands, then they come to us as ripe fruit, and I would not let them lay there after they are rip and become sour and spoil.

I for one will say this: that rather than go into war with these lands and this people, I would let them alone; they will come to us of themselves. Let us under the auspices of this resolution, that covenants nothing but friendship -- no blood to be spilled, no gold to be paid -- it is a mere expression of the will of the American people that we sympathize with them. They will feel it; they will get the knowledge almost as a spiritual thing; it will be received by them as a sympathetic cord that reaches across from them to us and will draw them here naturally when they are ripe. If there was a destiny of God in the formation of this government -- and I declare that the governments and the nations of the Old World are held in check by it -- then it is that we shall inhabit this land and all adjacent to it. This Saxon people are a burning meteor rushing on in space, and their empire is land and dominion upon earth. Five hundred years have given them empire over a portion, and 5,000 more will give them the whole world. . . .

Mr. Judd [Illinois]. Mr. Speaker, I recognize and subscribe to this doctrine of manifest destiny as connected with our surroundings as strongly perhaps as any gentleman upon this floor. I think the influence of our institutions is not to be limited simply to the territory that now belongs to us, but that in the process of time, if our government remains stable and perpetuated, it is to extent to other lands; and I have no doubt but that influence will, by its own momentum, peaceably and consistently with all our engagements with other nations, bring these lands as well as the territory adjoining us within the embrace of our institutions. But it is with me a question of what is the proper manner in which to make our influence felt and to spread that influence to these islands and to other portions of the earth.

I freely confess that I listened to the able remarks of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs [Mr. Banks] on yesterday for the purpose of getting, if possible, at some reason for immediate action and of obtaining information and facts, if there are any, that are in the possession of any department of this government showing the necessity for any action at the present time. The chairman of the committee replied that there was no information that could be given to the public. His mode of reply certainly left in my mind the impression that there were some negotiations that for some reason could not be submitted to this House. It is due to that legislative branch of the government that it should be fully advised as to what is going on in the Executive Department when called upon to invest it with these extraordinary powers. With annexation, vast expenditures may follow in the train of the proposed action, and this House is called upon to invest all these in the Executive Department in advance.

It is not a year since these halls resounded with denunciation, in which, I think my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Butler] took part, taking exception to the secret diplomacy of the executive branch of the government, under which and without the knowledge and assent of Congress, territory was acquired, large liabilities incurred, which Congress must meet, and new populations introduced into our system. And all this by the executive branch of the government. I may add, Mr. Speaker, that the people of this country were struck with amazement at the pretense and claims of this branch of the government. Having apparently involved the honor of the nation, Congress was compelled under this cry to ratify such doings.

In objecting to these propositions I do not lose sight of the fact that such propositions, when properly presented to the Congress of the United States, who hold the purse of the nation and the power of war, by responsible parties who have an interest in a stable government, and ask for protection, will deserve the consideration and action of Congress. I freely confess, Mr. Speaker, that I have no such confidence in executive power as to be willing, under this resolution or any other, to delegate to it powers that properly and rightfully belong to the legislative branch of government.

It has been truly said by the honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Shellabarger] that we do not know where this thing may lead. We do not know what interests may operate with the chief of the State Department to involve this government, if not in a war, in an acquisition of territory which, if submitted to Congress before the making of this proposition, would not have been tolerated for one moment. My objection to this proposition at this time is that it contemplates the delegation to the Executive Department of a power which we cannot control and which, by and by, under action which may be taken either carelessly or by design, may involve Congress and this nation in consequences such as have been described by the honorable gentleman from Ohio.

We ought not to delegate to the executive the power of recognizing governments in foreign countries, and especially in cases where there may be a dispute as to which is the rightful government, and the additional power after such recognition to bring the power of this country to settle such contest. Such discretion ought not to be delegated to any one man in the nation. I am not so fond of extending executive power, and we have no information that any exigency exists calling for such action even by the legislative branch of the government. As the gentleman from Massachusetts said yesterday, we are to give our moral support to the government in the island of San Domingo. Who is to select the authority that is to be sustained when there is internal dissensions and revolution? According to the propositions in these resolutions, it is the Executive Department only that is to determine the question which is the rightful government.

Where there are two conflicting interests, where there is a government (established under revolution, if you please) based upon republican principles, who is to determine whether the whole power of the government shall be thrown into the one scale or the other. It is the Executive Department. I say, Mr. Speaker, that I dare not trust this power to the executive; I prefer that it should be retained in the hands of the legislative branch of the government. Let such questions be determined by Congress; and the executive, in carrying out the determination of Congress, will reflect the will of the people. . . .

Mr. Robinson [New York]. Mr. Speaker I intend before the vote is taken to offer an amendment to the amendment of the gentleman from Massachusetts. I propose to insert before the word "Haiti" the word "Ireland." . . .

The resolution with the amendment of the gentleman from Massachusetts and other amendments proposed will refer, in its phraseology, to "islands lying adjacent to the coast of the United States"; and as steam power and the telegraph, particularly the telegraph, have made Ireland the most adjacent country to us in that part of the world, I desire that Ireland shall be protected. Her claims to our protection are higher than those of any other country. The blood and the heart of Ireland are in this country. Her people are brothers of ours and aliens to the government which has usurped control over that country during seven centuries of oppression.

I have no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that the time will come when Ireland will be attached to this country. I have no more doubt of that than I have that Cuba will be annexed to this country. Both of them will come to us by the natural laws of affinity, by their sympathy with us upon questions of politics and statesmanship. In the natural course of things, Ireland will become a part of the United States and will be represented upon this floor according to her population, and in the other end of the Capitol according to the number of the states of which she may be composed.

I have intended to take the floor upon some proper occasion to make a lengthy statement of my views on this subject. We want no war with England. We shall have no war with England. We shall obtain possession of Ireland peaceably. Her heart, as I have said, is here. She is a burden upon England -- always has been and always will be. The heavings of revolutionary feeling under British rule will continue. England, so long as she attempts to hold Ireland in subjection, will have no peace; she ought to have no peace. The people of Ireland and the people of the world will give England no peace. God Almighty, who rules the universe, will give her no peace until she lets the people of Ireland go; and the natural affinity of Ireland is with the United States. . . .

Mr. Butler. Mr. Speaker, I desire to add but a word or two in answer to what has fallen from the gentleman from Ohio who so eloquently and urgently asked our attention to the words of the father of the country. I believe they are in the manuscript writing of Alexander Hamilton, and I have not been so loyally his follower all the days of my life as to think that all intelligence and all progress in national affairs died when he did. I am inclined to think that we must adapt our legislation to the power and to the position and to the influence which we, as a nation, have now and not to the power, not to the position, not to the influence that as a nation among the nations of the world we had in 1798.

Sir, I have no fear of war. The 1,400,000 veteran soldiers that we disbanded when we ended the rebellion, on one side alone -- and I doubt not that even the Confederate soldiers would rally around the old flag now against any foreign foe -- I say that 1,400,000 settled the question of war between us and any other nation, so long as we are true to ourselves and our own honor; and this nation will never do anything not consistent with its that honor. We are strong enough to do right; we can appreciate the right; and no nation will go to war with us unless we are ourselves in the wrong.

Again, sir, I desire gentlemen to think whether or not we shall wait in our action because we may not have special confidence in this man or that man who may be at the head of the Executive Department or of the State Department. I want gentlemen to arise above all as legislators and as man having the guardianship of the great interests of this country, looking forward to what is to come in the future, knowing that we are able to restrain any action that is wrong on the part of the executive. Rising above all considerations, except that of statesmanship, I want gentlemen to see what is best for this country and what is best for republican institutions throughout the world.

And can any man say here in his heart that he doubts that within a short time, ay, a very short time in the history of nations, these islands must belong to us? Then, if this House answers that question in the affirmative, must we not further say that we ought to be ready to extend protection over them; and I do not by any means intend to belittle that word "protection." It is the protection which the strong can give to the weak without the former being involved in the affairs of the latter. It is the protection which the powerful always gives; the protection which only a united, prosperous country can give to a weak and divided one. And in answer to the gentleman from Illinois, allow me here to say that it is to give to the executive of this government some right to determine between these factions now destroying themselves and destroying American interests in these islands that I desire this protection. I say I fear not that we shall be involved in war thereby.

One word further. I had hoped that we might have been spared by the learned gentleman from New York a dissertation on Ireland at this time. No man can more deeply feel than I do the wrongs of Ireland and the necessity that something should be done to right those wrongs. But let me say to him, respectfully, that the way to get Ireland to have protection from this government is not to drag before us in season and out of season, at any and every turn, an amendment as a rider to everybody's proposition. It simply trails her in the dust.

Mr. Robinson. I ask the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Delano] to allow me a single word, simply to say that I have never dragged Ireland in as a rider on any measure. The gentleman, I know, does not mean to be unjust, but he is extremely so in saying what he does. Ireland is suffering, and our citizens want protection there, and I ought to drag her in oftener, but I have refrained, because I do not want to obtrude myself too frequently upon the attention of the House.

Mr. Delano [Ohio]. Mr. Speaker, the proposition now before the House in the resolution submitted by the honorable chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs is in itself so grave and so extraordinary that I desire as a part of my remarks the reading of the resolution, for the purposes of having the House distinctly to understand and duly comprehend its import, its magnitude, its importance, its novelty. Will the clerk to me the favor to read the resolution?

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: "Be it resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized to extend to the governments and people of the republics of Haiti and San Domingo the protection of the United States, for the purpose of assisting them to establish permanent republican institutions whenever those governments, or either of them, shall apply to the United States for its protection, or whenever the President shall be satisfied that the government and people of those republics desire or voluntarily consent to the protection of this government: Provided, that the President shall communicated to the two houses of Congress immediate information of any action which the government of the United States may take upon this subject: And provided also that no action which may call or require any appropriation of money from the Treasury of the United States shall be authorized or commenced under the authority of this resolution without the previous consent of Congress. . . ."

Mr. Bingham [Ohio]. Mr. Speaker, believing as I do that the people of the United States have the power and the right to intervene, under the authority of their own law and with their army and navy, in the affairs of any other people on this continent or adjacent thereto whenever it may be essential to their own safety so to do, and of the necessity of which intervention they are themselves the judges, responsible always for the exercise of that judgment to the nations of the world -- because of this conviction, Mr. Speaker, I felt it my duty to listen to the proposition for the protection of the people and governments of the Antilles as it came from the Committee on Foreign Affairs. I was desirous to know what the condition of things was that so affected the interests of the people of the United States as to require our intervention. I have listened, Mr. Speaker, but have listened in vain for any suggestion from any quarter intimating any condition of things in any of the islands of the Antilles that involves, to any considerable extent at least, the interests of the people of this country, much less their interest to such an extent as to require the intervention of the people of the United States, through the lawmaking authority, of the whole power of this nation in the internal affairs of that people.

Mr. Speaker, what I desire to say to the House here, and what I attempted to suggest to the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday, when he was kind enough to allow me a moment to interrupt him, is that whatever the relations of things may be between the people of the United States and any other people upon this continent or adjacent thereto requiring intervention, it is all-important that the intervention be made in accordance with the requirement of the Constitution of this country.

I listened with much interest to what was said by my honorable colleague [Mr. Shellabarger] founded upon the early legislation of this government touching our neutrality laws, and upon the suggestion of that very profound and wonderful state paper, known as the “Farewell Address of the Father of our Country”; and I must say that I heard with something of surprise the remark of the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Butler] in reply thereto, almost partaking of the language of sneer, when he intimated that he was not willing to consent that political wisdom had died with the author of the Farewell Address of Washington. Sir, nobody claims that; but intelligent men in this land and in all lands know right well that the accredited author of that paper, Mr. Hamilton, and the great man who accepted it and made it his own are entitled not only to the respectful consideration but to the profoundest gratitude of the living generations of men.

Passing, however, out of the text of the Farewell Address and into the text of the Constitution of the country, I come to the discussion of this measure. I say here, for myself, that in my judgment, it is not within the compass of human wisdom to frame any bill of any kind or on any subject more directly in conflict with the express limitation of the Constitution of the country than this. That instrument is not to disposed of by a sneer here or anywhere else. Through it and by it we came to be a people; through it and by it we must continue to be one people if we continue to be one people at all. The warmaking power of this country, which is involved in this resolution, is in my judgment, by the express terms of the Constitution, not by mere construction but by its express, solemn words, restricted to the Legislative Department of this government. Congress alone, by the terms of this instrument, is authorized “to declare war,” and Congress cannot delegate that authority.

It is an old-time principle of the common law, known and accepted among intelligent men everywhere, all over the glove, that a delegated power never can be transferred by the agent without the consent of the principal. The people are the principal in this matter, and they delegated this great power, which involves the issue of life and death to all the people of this country, to the Legislative Department of this government, and to that Legislative Department alone. Congress cannot authorize the President of the United States, therefore, at his pleasure, and, in the language of the substitute offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts, when he may “deem it expedient,” to make war either among the people of the Antilles or among the peoples allied to them upon continental Europe. . . .

Mr. Maynard [Tennessee]. Mr. Speaker, I cannot quite agree with the declaration of the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, made in reply to the question proposed to him, that we had no precedent for a proceeding like this. With deference, certainly, to his superior information, I think we have had more than one precedent, and that of no small importance. The Monroe Doctrine is the protectorate by this government over all the governments upon the American continent; and when my friend from Ohio stands upon the outposts of the Constitution and challenges the production of any authority which has authorized us to assert the Monroe Doctrine in every possible form except by force of arms and the expenditure of money to enforce it -- by executive receipts, by the action of our legislature, by the action of our national conventions, and, more than all, by the imperial authority of the ballot box more than once announced.

One example, sir, is Mexico, menaced as she was during our late War of the Rebellion. We established a protectorate over her which found its way into our legislation in the form of “the Republic of Mexico,” and in the adoption of a resolution by this body, offered by my deceased friend, then a representative from Maryland, in which we declared that the empire of Maximilian should not be established in Mexico, such being the sense of this body, reflecting the judgment of the people. That was a protectorate of a higher kind than that of arms. It showed the high moral purpose which was in force in this world at the close of the nineteenth century, more powerful than the prowess of your arms. . . .

I am satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that the people of the United States have a mission upon this continent higher and broader and loftier than to sit down and make money to put into our pockets. God Almighty did not plant this nation here to live for itself and itself alone. Our mission is coextensive with the continent upon which we are placed. It has been our instinctive feeling, and our perhaps not always conscious action since our beginning; and in adopting this resolution we are doing nothing different in kind or character from what we have been doing in numberless instances in this House by acts of legislation and every other form of expression of our opinion.

Mr. Woodward. Mr. Speaker, ever since Christopher Columbus discovered this continent, these islands have been for some purposes considered as a part of it. Geographically, they ought, perhaps, to be considered as a part of this continent. I am told by those who know more about such subjects than I do that the commerce of this country needs one or more West India ports. I know that the relations existing between these islands and ourselves are from time to time subject to disturbance, I know that more than once in the history of this nation there have been propositions to purchases Cuba, and perhaps other islands in the West Indies.

Now, sir, speaking only for myself and according to the information I now possess, I regard these islands as a part of the American continent. I believe they naturally belong to us, and if I am in public position when any reasonable measure is brought forward for the acquisition and annexation of those islands I shall support it according to the best of my ability. I believe that we need them, and that we shall need them more in the future than we have in the past. I believe that the fathers of our country, who have been fortunately alluded to in this debate, considered them as part of our continent; and when they spoke of a Continental Congress and a Continental Army, and called their money Continental money, and when everything they said or thought of seemed to be Continental, I suppose they embraced these islands in their thoughts as possibly belonging in the future to our political system.

I have spent my life in endeavoring to carry out the ideas and principles of the fathers of this republic, and what remains of it, Mr. Speaker, shall be devoted to the same end. I believe they included these islands in their thoughts of a Continental government. I include them in my thought of a Continental government. But, sir, I would acquire them in a manner worthy of ourselves. I would either buy them by open and fair negotiations or I would conquer them by our military power. I would not steal them, sir, as this resolution proposes; and by just so much as I approve of the ultimate acquisition of these islands in a fair, honorable, manly mode I am opposed to the proposition reported by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Butler], from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, of acquiring them by indirection, which his resolution certainly contemplates. . . .

This proposition, sir, to engage the government in a military protectorate which is most likely to involve us in a general European war, seems to me to be ill-timed in all of its aspects, and especially while we have a national debt like that which is oppressing us at this moment. Why, sir, we have a war debt now which is far from being provided for. Gentlemen are not well agreed as to what should be done with it. Do they propose to increase it by bringing on another war, and that for the purpose of adjusting our relations with islands which will ultimately gravitate to us and become a part of this country? This is no time for such a policy, and the gentleman’s resolution if otherwise unobjectionable would be exceedingly objectionable in point of time.

I think the entire energies of this country ought to be directed to the paying of our national debt. I say the paying of it and not the funding of it. You may change the form of our public debt as much as you please, but still it will exist as a burden and incubus upon us until it is paid. I am not, therefore, for any measure which will withdraw the country from that great central point and destroy those energies and abilities which should be directed to the extinguishment of that debt.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that unless we get rid of the debt we will have no republic of our own in the future to maintain. I believe that every monarchy in the world has been built upon a national debt, and that a great debt hanging over any people is inconsistent with republican institutions. If we would maintain our republican institutions, therefore, we must put ourselves back upon the principles of the fathers of the country, avoid all entangling alliances with all foreign governments and concentrate all our energies toward a redemption of our own country from the great burden of a national debt. If there was any one principle of George Washington and the other founders of the republic better defined in their minds than another, it was that this should be a nation out of debt -- a free and independent people, untaxed; and such a people we cannot be with such a debt as that which oppresses us at this time.

Now, Mr. Speaker, without going further into this debate, I will move that the resolution and the pending amendments be laid upon the table.

The question was taken; and it was decided in the affirmative -- yeas 126, nays 36, not voting 60.