Frederic Bancroft and William A. Dunning

“ At the first suggestion of the annexation of Santo Domingo, Schurz had felt instinctively that, apart from the question whether any increase of territory was desirable, the direction of this proposed increase should condemn the project. This thought was elaborated in a broad philosophical review of human history showing that the tropics are ill-adapted to the development of a high civilization—that they produce social and political systems in which the extremes of slavery and despotism are sure to prevail. ”

“ In a frank conference with the President while the treaty of annexation was before the Senate, Schurz had learned how tenacious Grant was of his purpose to acquire Santo Domingo. The ostentatious repudiation of the Missouri liberals during the State campaign of 1870 had been public notice that the presidential favor would be withdrawn from Senators who, like Schurz, refused to support the Dominican policy. In a number of States there was a promising opportunity to constrain senatorial votes by administration pressure through the party machine. ”

“ Schurz, while not less a philanthropist, was a philosophical public man, and since 1865 he had closely studied the Southern question, kept an open mind, and had become a resident of the South. His actual experience of negro suffrage in Missouri, and his clear insight into the purely partisan influences that so powerfully operated in promoting the administration's Ku Klux policy, compelled him to choose a course of action different from that of his dear friend Sumner. Practically all the other Republican Senators of the anti-administration group agreed with Schurz. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most important positive action that Congress should take was the removal of the disabilities that still excluded many of the ablest Southerners from political life.
There was discernible in Mr. Schurz's attitude on the Southern question a profound discontent with the practical working of negro suffrage and of Republican party machinery in general as well as in the reconstructed States. By the end of the year 1870 this feeling became a matter of national notoriety by the sensational course of politics in Missouri. ”

“ All these various conditions kept the spirit of watchfulness and intrigue active among public men during the recess of Congress in 1871. Schurz remained in close touch with those of a liberal trend of thought, and shaped the project of thwarting the re-election of Grant. When the houses reassembled in December the two factions in the Senate were eagerly and equally intent on opportunities for parliamentary attack and partisan advantage. ”

“ In taking up the advocacy of this project Schurz identified himself with a group of Senators—Trumbull, Thurman, Sumner, Bayard—that included some of the best minds in public life. However, many influences conspired to render comprehensive reform impossible at this time. To the majority of Congressmen patronage and spoils were indispensable instruments of party success, and party success was the sole practical method of promoting patriotic ends. ”

“ The proposition of the liberals to incorporate in the platform a plank favoring the immediate removal of disabilities was lost. Thereupon the liberals, headed by Schurz and Gratz Brown, organized a new convention, adopted a platform calling for the immediate removal of all disabilities, nominated Brown for Governor, and, with the aid of the Democrats, who coalesced with the bolters, triumphantly carried the State.
In this Missouri campaign, the radicals had the unqualified support of the administration. ”

“ The proper treatment of this condition must be like that of a fever: watchfulness and care in guiding its course, but no radical or drastic action till time should have done its work. The “inveterate habits, opinions and ways of thinking of Southern society” must be transformed, and such a change can be of but slow growth. ”

“ They dreaded less the peril of annexing Santo Domingo than that of dividing the Republican party from its official chief. Thus party considerations finally prevailed with most of the Republican Senators. Against such considerations Schurz was peculiarly unfitted to make headway; for his whole intellectual habit precluded him from properly estimating the idea of party per se. However, with the aid of the Democrats, he and Sumner were victorious: ratification was refused by the Senate, June 29, 1870, by a vote of 28 to 28, two-thirds being required to ratify. ”

“ Mr. Schurz has above described the President's appeal to him in behalf of the Santo Domingo enterprise. Grant called on Sumner at his house about New Year's day, 1870, and requested his support for the ratification of the treaty with Santo Domingo. The experienced Senator was thrown off his balance by this surprising and unprecedented method. Evading a direct answer, he proclaimed himself at the same time “an administration man.” Grant probably heard or remembered nothing of the reply save this phrase; for he always afterwards asserted that Sumner had promised his support. ”

“ 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 was very roughly handled by the friends of the President, especially Zachariah Chandler and Roscoe Conkling. ”

“ As a result, a treaty was signed just before Congress met in December, 1869. The President then undertook to insure ratification by the Senate. One unique feature of Babcock's diplomacy had been a pledge in the original protocol that the President would privately use all his influence to make the idea of annexation “popular” among the members of Congress and thus secure its accomplishment. ”