Chapter IV: Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not (1)

be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

And further, that it appears from official documents on file in this Department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the legislatures of the States of North Carolina, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Maine, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, New Hampshire, Nevada, Vermont, Virginia, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Nebraska, and Texas; in all, twenty-nine States;

And further, that the States whose legislatures have so ratified the said proposed amendment constitute three-fourths of the whole number of States in the United States;

And further, that it appears from an official document on file in this Department that the legislature of the State of New York has since passed resolutions claiming to withdraw the said ratification of the said amendment, which had been made by the legislature of that State, and of which official notice had been filed in this Department;

And further, that it appears from an official document on file in this Department that the legislature of Georgia has by resolution ratified the said proposed amendment:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress approved the 20th day of April, in the year 1818, entitled "An act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States, and for other purposes," do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution of the United States.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington this 30th day of March, A.D. 1870, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-fourth.

HAMILTON FISH.

WASHINGTON, _March 31, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit, for consideration with a view to its ratification, a treaty between the United States and the United States of Colombia for the construction of an interoceanic canal across the Isthmus of Panama or Darien, signed at Bogota on the 26th of January last.

A copy of a dispatch of the 1st ultimo to the Secretary of State from General Hurlbut, the United States minister at Bogota, relative to the treaty, is also transmitted for the information of the Senate.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _March 31, 1870_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives:_

I transmit to Congress a further communication from the Secretary of State, with the accompanying documents, relative to the claims of citizens of the United States on the Government of Venezuela which were adjusted by the commission provided for by the convention with that Republic of April 25, 1866.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _March 31, 1870_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th instant, relating to fisheries in British waters, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers which accompanied it, and I have to state that the commanding officer of the naval steamer ordered to the fishing grounds will be instructed to give his attention, should circumstances require it, to cases which may arise under any change which may be made in the British laws affecting fisheries within British jurisdiction, with a view to preventing, so far as it may be in his power, infractions by citizens of the United States of the first article of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain of 1818, the laws in force relating to fisheries within British jurisdiction, or any illegal interference with the pursuits of the fishermen of the United States.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _April 5, 1870_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 28th ultimo, I transmit a report[18] from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 18: Declining to communicate a copy of the list of privileges accompanying or relating to the San Domingo treaty while the subject is pending before the Senate in executive session.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 6, 1870_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

In answer to your resolution of the 7th ultimo, requesting to be furnished with a copy of orders, correspondence, reports of councils with Indians by military and civil officers of the Government, in possession of the Interior and War Departments, relating to difficulties with the Cheyenne, Comanche, Arapahoe, Apache, and Kiowa tribes of Indians during the year 1867, etc., I herewith transmit the reports received from those Departments.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _April 14, 1870_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives:_

I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, relative to results of the proceedings of the joint commission at Lima under the convention between the United States and Peru of 4th of December, 1868, and recommend that an appropriation be made to discharge the obligation of the United States in the case of the claim of Esteban G. Montano, to which the report refers.

U.S. GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 20, 1870_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

In answer to your resolution of the 21st ultimo, requesting to be informed "whether any portion of the military forces of the United States has been sent into the counties of Bourbon, Crawford, and Cherokee, in the State of Kansas, and, if so, when, what number, for what purpose, and on whose procurement; and also whether they have been required to erect there any winter quarters, forts, fortifications, or earth-works, and, if so, what, for what purpose, and at whose expense, and at what probable expense to the Government have all said acts been done," I transmit herewith a report, dated 18th instant, from the Secretary of War, to whom the resolution was referred.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _April 26, 1870_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the paper[19] which accompanied it.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 19: Supplemental report to the Department of State by Samuel B. Ruggles, United States delegate to the International Monetary Conference at Paris, 1867.]

WASHINGTON, _May 6, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 26th ultimo, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers[20] by which it was accompanied.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 20: Dispatches of J. Somers Smith, commercial agent of the United States at San Domingo, relative to the imprisonment of Davis Hatch by the Dominican Government.]

WASHINGTON, _May 21, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 18th instant, calling for information relative to the passage of any English or Canadian steamer through the canal of Sault Ste. Marie, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _May 23, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In response to your resolution of the 12th instant, requesting information "in relation to an organized band of persons at Cheyenne, in the Territory of Wyoming, or vicinity, the number and designs of such persons," I transmit herewith the reports of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Interior, to whom the resolution was referred.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _May 23, 1870_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolution of the 5th instant, a report from the Secretary of State and its accompanying papers.[21]

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 21: Relating to the claims of United States citizens against Venezuela.]

WASHINGTON, _May 26, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I have the satisfaction of transmitting to the Senate, for consideration with a view to its ratification, a convention between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty, relative to naturalization, signed in London on the 13th instant.

The convention is substantially the same as the protocol on the subject signed by Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Lord Stanley on the 9th of October, 1868, and approved by the Senate on the 13th April, 1869.

If the instrument should go into effect, it will relieve the parties from a grievance which has hitherto been a cause of frequent annoyance and sometimes of dangerous irritation.

A copy of Mr. Motley's dispatch on the subject and of the act of Parliament of May 12, 1870, are also transmitted.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _May 28, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 24th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the document[22] by which it was accompanied.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 22: Dispatch from Henry T. Blow, United States minister to Brazil, relative to the commercial interests of the United States with South America.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 31, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to its ratification, an additional article to the treaty of the 29th of November last, for the annexation of the Dominican Republic to the United States, stipulating for an extension of the time for exchanging the ratifications thereof, signed in this city on the 14th instant by the plenipotentiaries of the parties.

It was my intention to have also negotiated with the plenipotentiary of San Domingo amendments to the treaty of annexation to obviate objections which may be urged against the treaty as it is now worded; but on reflection I deem it better to submit to the Senate the propriety of their amending the treaty as follows: First, to specify that the obligations of this Government shall not exceed the $1,500,000 stipulated in the treaty; secondly, to determine the manner of appointing the agents to receive and disburse the same; thirdly, to determine the class of creditors who shall take precedence in the settlement of their claims; and, finally, to insert such amendments as may suggest themselves to the minds of Senators to carry out in good faith the conditions of the treaty submitted to the Senate of the United States in January last, according to the spirit and intent of that treaty. From the most reliable information I can obtain, the sum specified in the treaty will pay every just claim against the Republic of San Domingo and leave a balance sufficient to carry on a Territorial government until such time as new laws for providing a Territorial revenue can be enacted and put in force.

I feel an unusual anxiety for the ratification of this treaty, because I believe it will redound greatly to the glory of the two countries interested, to civilization, and to the extirpation of the institution of slavery.

The doctrine promulgated by President Monroe has been adhered to by all political parties, and I now deem it proper to assert the equally important principle that hereafter no territory on this continent shall be regarded as subject of transfer to a European power.

The Government of San Domingo has voluntarily sought this annexation. It is a weak power, numbering probably less than 120,000 souls, and yet possessing one of the richest territories under the sun, capable of supporting a population of 10,000,000 people in luxury. The people of San Domingo are not capable of maintaining themselves in their present condition, and must look for outside support.

They yearn for the protection of our free institutions and laws, our progress and civilization. Shall we refuse them?

I have information which I believe reliable that a European power stands ready now to offer $2,000,000 for the possession of Samana Bay alone. If refused by us, with what grace can we prevent a foreign power from attempting to secure the prize?

The acquisition of San Domingo is desirable because of its geographical position. It commands the entrance to the Caribbean Sea and the Isthmus transit of commerce. It possesses the richest soil, best and most capacious harbors, most salubrious climate, and the most valuable products of the forests, mine, and soil of any of the West India Islands. Its possession by us will in a few years build up a coastwise commerce of immense magnitude, which will go far toward restoring to us our lost merchant marine. It will give to us those articles which we consume so largely and do not produce, thus equalizing our exports and imports.

In case of foreign war it will give us command of all the islands referred to, and thus prevent an enemy from ever again possessing himself of rendezvous upon our very coast.

At present our coast trade between the States bordering on the Atlantic and those bordering on the Gulf of Mexico is cut into by the Bahamas and the Antilles. Twice we must, as it were, pass through foreign countries to get by sea from Georgia to the west coast of Florida.

San Domingo, with a stable government, under which her immense resources can be developed, will give remunerative wages to tens of thousands of laborers not now on the island.

This labor will take advantage of every available means of transportation to abandon the adjacent islands and seek the blessings of freedom and its sequence--each inhabitant receiving the reward of his own labor. Porto Rico and Cuba will have to abolish slavery, as a measure of self-preservation to retain their laborers.

San Domingo will become a large consumer of the products of Northern farms and manufactories. The cheap rate at which her citizens can be furnished with food, tools, and machinery will make it necessary that the contiguous islands should have the same advantages in order to compete in the production of sugar, coffee, tobacco, tropical fruits, etc. This will open to us a still wider market for our products.

The production of our own supply of these articles will cut off more than one hundred millions of our annual imports, besides largely increasing our exports. With such a picture it is easy to see how our large debt abroad is ultimately to be extinguished. With a balance of trade against us (including interest on bonds held by foreigners and money spent by our citizens traveling in foreign lands) equal to the entire yield of the precious metals in this country, it is not so easy to see how this result is to be otherwise accomplished.

The acquisition of San Domingo is an adherence to the "Monroe doctrine;" it is a measure of national protection; it is asserting our just claim to a controlling influence over the great commercial traffic soon to flow from east to west by the way of the Isthmus of Darien; it is to build up our merchant marine; it is to furnish new markets for the products of our farms, shops, and manufactories; it is to make slavery insupportable in Cuba and Porto Rico at once and ultimately so in Brazil; it is to settle the unhappy condition of Cuba, and end an exterminating conflict; it is to provide honest means of paying our honest debts, without overtaxing the people; it is to furnish our citizens with the necessaries of everyday life at cheaper rates than ever before; and it is, in fine, a rapid stride toward that greatness which the intelligence, industry, and enterprise of the citizens of the United States entitle this country to assume among nations.

U.S. GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, D.C. June 2, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In reply to your resolution of the 1st instant, requesting, "in confidence," any information in possession of the President "touching any proposition, offer, or design of any foreign power to purchase or obtain any part of the territory of San Domingo or any right to the Bay of Samana," I transmit herewith a copy of a letter, dated 27th of April, 1870. addressed to "Colonel J.W. Fabens, Dominican minister, Washington," by "E. Herzberg Hartmount, Dominican consul-general in London."

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _June 3, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 18th ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, with an accompanying paper.[23]

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 23: Communication from George Bancroft, United States minister at Berlin, relative to political questions in Germany.]

WASHINGTON, _June 3, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to its ratification, an additional convention to the treaty of the 7th of April, 1862, for the suppression of the African slave trade, which additional convention was signed on this day in the city of Washington by the plenipotentiaries of the high contracting parties.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _June 6, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 3d instant, the accompanying report[24] from the Secretary of State.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 24: Stating that he has received no official information relative to a reported persecution and massacre of Israelites in Roumania.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 13, 1870_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives:_

In my annual message to Congress at the beginning of its present session I referred to the contest which had then for more than a year existed in the island of Cuba between a portion of its inhabitants and the Government of Spain, and the feelings and sympathies of the people and Government of the United States for the people of Cuba, as for all peoples struggling for liberty and self-government, and said that "the contest has at no time assumed the conditions which amount to war in the sense of international law, or which would show the existence of a _de facto_ political organization of the insurgents sufficient to justify a recognition of belligerency."

During the six months which have passed since the date of that message the condition of the insurgents has not improved, and the insurrection itself, although not subdued, exhibits no signs of advance, but seems to be confined to an irregular system of hostilities, carried on by small and illy armed bands of men, roaming without concentration through the woods and the sparsely populated regions of the island, attacking from ambush convoys and small bands of troops, burning plantations and the estates of those not sympathizing with their cause.

But if the insurrection has not gained ground, it is equally true that Spain has not suppressed it. Climate, disease, and the occasional bullet have worked destruction among the soldiers of Spain; and although the Spanish authorities have possession of every seaport and every town on the island, they have not been able to subdue the hostile feeling which has driven a considerable number of the native inhabitants of the island to armed resistance against Spain, and still leads them to endure the dangers and the privations of a roaming life of guerrilla warfare.

On either side the contest has been conducted, and is still carried on, with a lamentable disregard of human life and of the rules and practices which modern civilization has prescribed in mitigation of the necessary horrors of war. The torch of Spaniard and of Cuban is alike busy in carrying devastation over fertile regions; murderous and revengeful decrees are issued and executed by both parties. Count Valmaseda and Colonel Boet, on the part of Spain, have each startled humanity and aroused the indignation of the civilized world by the execution, each, of a score of prisoners at a time, while General Quesada, the Cuban chief, coolly and with apparent unconsciousness of aught else than a proper act, has admitted the slaughter, by his own deliberate order, in one day, of upward of 650 prisoners of war.

A summary trial, with few, if any, escapes from conviction, followed by immediate execution, is the fate of those arrested on either side on suspicion of infidelity to the cause of the party making the arrest.

Whatever may be the sympathies of the people or of the Government of the United States for the cause or objects for which a part of the people of Cuba are understood to have put themselves in armed resistance to the Government of Spain, there can be no just sympathy in a conflict carried on by both parties alike in such barbarous violation of the rules of civilized nations and with such continued outrage upon the plainest principles of humanity.

We can not discriminate in our censure of their mode of conducting their contest between the Spaniards and the Cubans. Each commit the same atrocities and outrage alike the established rules of war.

The properties of many of our citizens have been destroyed or embargoed, the lives of several have been sacrificed, and the liberty of others has been restrained. In every case that has come to the knowledge of the Government an early and earnest demand for reparation and indemnity has been made, and most emphatic remonstrance has been presented against the manner in which the strife is conducted and against the reckless disregard of human life, the wanton destruction of material wealth, and the cruel disregard of the established rules of civilized warfare.

I have, since the beginning of the present session of Congress, communicated to the House of Representatives, upon their request, an account of the steps which I had taken in the hope of bringing this sad conflict to an end and of securing to the people of Cuba the blessings and the right of independent self-government. The efforts thus made failed, but not without an assurance from Spain that the good offices of this Government might still avail for the objects to which they had been addressed.

During the whole contest the remarkable exhibition has been made of large numbers of Cubans escaping from the island and avoiding the risks of war; congregating in this country, at a safe distance from the scene of danger, and endeavoring to make war from our shores, to urge our people into the fight which they avoid, and to embroil this Government in complications and possible hostilities with Spain. It can scarce be doubted that this last result is the real object of these parties, although carefully covered under the deceptive and apparently plausible demand for a mere recognition of belligerency.

It is stated on what I have reason to regard as good authority that Cuban bonds have been prepared to a large amount, whose payment is made dependent upon the recognition by the United States of either Cuban belligerency or independence. The object of making their value thus contingent upon the action of this Government is a subject for serious reflection.

In determining the course to be adopted on the demand thus made for a recognition of belligerency the liberal and peaceful principles adopted by the Father of his Country and the eminent statesmen of his day, and followed by succeeding Chief Magistrates and the men of their day, may furnish a safe guide to those of us now charged with the direction and control of the public safety.

From 1789 to 1815 the dominant thought of our statesmen was to keep the United States out of the wars which were devastating Europe. The discussion of measures of neutrality begins with the State papers of Mr. Jefferson when Secretary of State. He shows that they are measures of national right as well as of national duty; that misguided individual citizens can not be tolerated in making war according to their own caprice, passions, interests, or foreign sympathies; that the agents of foreign governments, recognized or unrecognized, can not be permitted to abuse our hospitality by usurping the functions of enlisting or equipping military or naval forces within our territory. Washington inaugurated the policy of neutrality and of absolute abstinence from all foreign entangling alliances, which resulted, in 1794, in the first municipal enactment for the observance of neutrality.

The duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted by every President. Washington encountered the efforts of Genèt and of the French revolutionists; John Adams, the projects of Miranda; Jefferson, the schemes of Aaron Burr. Madison and subsequent Presidents had to deal with the question of foreign enlistment or equipment in the United States, and since the days of John Quincy Adams it has been one of the constant cares of Government in the United States to prevent piratical expeditions against the feeble Spanish American Republics from leaving our shores. In no country are men wanting for any enterprise that holds out promise of adventure or of gain.

In the early days of our national existence the whole continent of America (outside of the limits of the United States) and all its islands were in colonial dependence upon European powers.

The revolutions which from 1810 spread almost simultaneously through all the Spanish American continental colonies resulted in the establishment of new States, like ourselves, of European origin, and interested in excluding European politics and the questions of dynasty and of balances of power from further influence in the New World.

The American policy of neutrality, important before, became doubly so from the fact that it became applicable to the new Republics as well as to the mother country.

It then devolved upon us to determine the great international question at what time and under what circumstances to recognize a new power as entitled to a place among the family of nations, as well as the preliminary question of the attitude to be observed by this Government toward the insurrectionary party pending the contest.

Mr. Monroe concisely expressed the rule which has controlled the action of this Government with reference to revolting colonies pending their struggle by saying:

As soon as the movement assumed such a steady and consistent form as
to make the success of the Provinces probable, the rights to which
they were entitled by the laws of nations as equal parties to a civil
war were extended to them.

The strict adherence to this rule of public policy has been one of the highest honors of American statesmanship, and has secured to this Government the confidence of the feeble powers on this continent, which induces them to rely upon its friendship and absence of designs of conquest and to look to the United States for example and moral protection. It has given to this Government a position of prominence and of influence which it should not abdicate, but which imposes upon it the most delicate duties of right and of honor regarding American questions, whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or colonies still subject to European dominion.

The question of belligerency is one of fact, not to be decided by sympathies for or prejudices against either party. The relations between the parent state and the insurgents must amount in fact to war in the sense of international law. Fighting, though fierce and protracted, does not alone constitute war. There must be military forces acting in accordance with the rules and customs of war, flags of truce, cartels, exchange of prisoners, etc.; and to justify a recognition of belligerency there must be, above all, a _de facto_ political organization of the insurgents sufficient in character and resources to constitute it, if left to itself, a state among nations capable of discharging the duties of a state and of meeting the just responsibilities it may incur as such toward other powers in the discharge of its national duties.

Applying the best information which I have been enabled to gather, whether from official or unofficial sources, including the very exaggerated statements which each party gives to all that may prejudice the opposite or give credit to its own side of the question, I am unable to see in the present condition of the contest in Cuba those elements which are requisite to constitute war in the sense of international law.

The insurgents hold no town or city; have no established seat of government; they have no prize courts; no organization for the receiving and collecting of revenue; no seaport to which a prize may be carried or through which access can be had by a foreign power to the limited interior territory and mountain fastnesses which they occupy. The existence of a legislature representing any popular constituency is more than doubtful.

In the uncertainty that hangs around the entire insurrection there is no palpable evidence of an election, of any delegated authority, or of any government outside the limits of the camps occupied from day to day by the roving companies of insurgent troops; there is no commerce, no trade, either internal or foreign, no manufactures.

The late commander in chief of the insurgents, having recently come to the United States, publicly declared that "all commercial intercourse or trade with the exterior world has been utterly cut off;" and he further added: "To-day we have not 10,000 arms in Cuba."

It is a well-established principle of public law that a recognition by a foreign state of belligerent rights to insurgents under circumstances such as now exist in Cuba, if not justified by necessity, is a gratuitous demonstration of moral support to the rebellion. Such necessity may yet hereafter arrive, but it has not yet arrived, nor is its probability clearly to be seen.

If it be war between Spain and Cuba, and be so recognized, it is our duty to provide for the consequences which may ensue in the embarrassment to our commerce and the interference with our revenue.

If belligerency be recognized, the commercial marine of the United States becomes liable to search and to seizure by the commissioned cruisers of both parties; they become subject to the adjudication of prize courts.

Our large coastwise trade between the Atlantic and the Gulf States and between both and the Isthmus of Panama and the States of South America (engaging the larger part of our commercial marine) passes of necessity almost in sight of the island of Cuba. Under the treaty with Spain of 1795, as well as by the law of nations, our vessels will be liable to visit on the high seas. In case of belligerency the carrying of contraband, which now is lawful, becomes liable to the risks of seizure and condemnation. The parent Government becomes relieved from responsibility for acts done in the insurgent territory, and acquires the right to exercise against neutral commerce all the powers of a party to a maritime war. To what consequences the exercise of those powers may lead is a question which I desire to commend to the serious consideration of Congress.

In view of the gravity of this question, I have deemed it my duty to invite the attention of the war-making power of the country to all the relations and bearings of the question in connection with the declaration of neutrality and granting of belligerent rights.

There is not a _de facto_ government in the island of Cuba sufficient to execute law and maintain just relations with other nations. Spain has not been able to suppress the opposition to Spanish rule on the island, nor to award speedy justice to other nations, or citizens of other nations, when their rights have been invaded.

There are serious complications growing out of the seizure of American vessels upon the high seas, executing American citizens without proper trial, and confiscating or embargoing the property of American citizens. Solemn protests have been made against every infraction of the rights either of individual citizens of the United States or the rights of our flag upon the high seas, and all proper steps have been taken and are being pressed for the proper reparation of every indignity complained of.

The question of belligerency, however, which is to be decided upon definite principles and according to ascertained facts, is entirely different from and unconnected with the other questions of the manner in which the strife is carried on on both sides and the treatment of our citizens entitled to our protection.

The questions concern our own dignity and responsibility, and they have been made, as I have said, the subjects of repeated communications with Spain and of protests and demands for redress on our part. It is hoped that these will not be disregarded, but should they be these questions will be made the subject of a further communication to Congress.

U.S. GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 17, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 8th instant, requesting the President "to communicate, in confidence, the instructions of the Navy Department to the navy officers in command on the coast of Dominica and Hayti, and the reports of such officers to the Navy Department, from the commencement of the negotiation of the treaty with Dominica," I herewith transmit the papers received from the Secretary of the Navy, to whom the resolution was referred.

U.S. GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 25, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In answer to the resolution of the 22d instant, requesting to be furnished with "proposals received from any company or citizens of the United States for constructing and placing iron steamships in transatlantic service," I transmit herewith the only proposal of that nature received by me.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _July 9, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In answer to the resolutions of the Senate of the 26th of May and of the 14th of June last, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State thereupon, and the papers[25] by which it was accompanied.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 25: Lists of American vessels seized by Spanish authorities in Cuba; of American citizens executed and imprisoned in Cuba; of American citizens whose property was confiscated or embargoed in Cuba, and of decrees under which the Spanish authorities acted, and correspondence showing steps taken by the United States Government in reference thereto.]

WASHINGTON, _July 12, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification, a convention between the United States and Austria, concerning the rights, privileges, and immunities of consuls in the two countries, signed at Washington on the 11th instant.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _July 13, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 8th instant, a report from the Secretary of State and the papers[26] which accompanied it.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 26: Instructions to the minister to Spain stating the basis on which the United States offered its good offices for the purpose of terminating the war in Cuba, correspondence relative thereto, etc.]

WASHINGTON, _July 13, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In answer to their resolution of the 8th instant, I transmit to the Senate a report from the Secretary of State and the papers[27] which accompanied it.

U.S. GRANT.

[Footnote 27: Correspondence between the United States and Great Britain concerning questions pending between the two countries.]

WASHINGTON, _July 14, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 7th instant, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents.

U.S. GRANT.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _Washington, July 14, 1870_.

The Secretary of State, to whom was referred the resolution of the Senate requesting the President "to institute an inquiry, by such means as in his judgment shall be deemed proper, into the present condition of the commercial relations between the United States and the Spanish American States on this continent, and between those countries and other nations, and to communicate to the Senate full and complete statements regarding the same, together with such recommendations as he may think necessary to promote the development and increase of our commerce with those regions and to secure to the United States that proportionate share of the trade of this continent to which their close relations of geographical contiguity and political friendship with all the States of America justly entitle them," has the honor to report:

The resolution justly regards the commercial and the political relations of the United States with the American States of Spanish origin as necessarily dependent upon each other. If the commerce of those countries has been diverted from its natural connection with the United States, the fact may probably be partly traced to political causes, which have been swept away by the great civil convulsion in this country.

For the just comprehension of the position of this Government in the American political system, and for the causes which have failed to give it hitherto the influence to which it is properly entitled by reason of its democratic system and of the moderation and sense of justice which have distinguished its foreign policy through successive Administrations from the birth of the nation until now, it is necessary to make a brief notice of such measures as affect our present relations to the other parts of this continent.

The United States were the first of the European colonies in America to arrive at maturity as a people and assume the position of an independent republic. Since then important changes have taken place in various nations and in every part of the world. Our own growth in power has been not the least remarkable of all the great events of modern history.

When, at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, having conquered by arms our right to exist as a sovereign state, that right was at length recognized by treaties, we occupied only a narrow belt of land along the Atlantic coast, hemmed in at the north, the west, and the south by the possessions of European Governments, or by uncultivated wastes beyond the Alleghanies, inhabited only by the aborigines. But in the very infancy of the United States far-sighted statesmen saw and predicted that, weak in population and apparently restricted in available territory as the new Republic then was, it had within it the germs of colossal grandeur, and would at no remote day occupy the continent of America with its institutions, its authority, and its peaceful influence.

That expectation has been thus far signally verified. The United States entered at once into the occupation of their rightful possessions westward to the banks of the Mississippi. Next, by the spontaneous proffer of France, they acquired Louisiana and its territorial extension, or right of extension, north to the line of the treaty demarcation between France and Great Britain, and west to the Pacific Ocean. Next, by amicable arrangement with Spain, they acquired the Floridas, and complete southern maritime frontiers upon the Gulf of Mexico. Then came the union with the independent State of Texas, followed by the acquisitions of California and New Mexico, and then of Arizona. Finally, Russia has ceded to us Alaska, and the continent of North America has become independent of Europe, except so much of it as continues to maintain political relations with Great Britain.

Meanwhile, partly by natural increase and partly by voluntary immigration from Europe, our population has risen from 3,000,000 to nearly 40,000,000; the number of States and Territories united under the Constitution has been augmented from thirteen to forty-seven; the development of internal wealth and power has kept pace with political expansion; we have occupied in part and peopled the vast interior of the continent; we have bound the Pacific to the Atlantic by a chain of intervening States and organized Territories; we have delivered the Republic from the anomaly and the ignominy of domestic servitude; we have constitutionally fixed the equality of all races and of all men before the law; and we have established, at the cost of a great civil war--a cost, however, not beyond the value of such a result--the indissoluble national unity of the United States.

In all these marked stages of national progress, from the Declaration of Independence to the recent amendments of the Constitution, it is impossible not to perceive a providential series and succession of events, intimately attached one to the other, and possessed of definite character as a whole, whatever incidental departures from such uniformity may have marked, or seemed to mark, our foreign policy under the influence of temporary causes or of the conflicting opinions of statesmen.

In the time of Washington, of the first Adams, of Jefferson, and of Madison the condition of Europe, engaged in the gigantic wars of the French Revolution and of the Empire, produced its series of public questions and gave tone and color to our foreign policy. In the time of Monroe, of the second Adams, and of Jackson, and subsequently thereto, the independence of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of America produced its series of questions and its apparent modification of our public policy. Domestic questions of territorial organization, of social emancipation, and of national unity have also largely occupied the minds and the attention of the later Administrations.

The treaties of alliance and guaranty with France, which contributed so much to our independence, were one source of solicitude to the early Administrations, which were endeavoring to protect our commerce from the depredations and wrongs to which the maritime policy of England and the reaction of that policy on France subjected it. For twenty years we struggled in vain to accomplish this, and at last drifted into war.

The avoidance of entangling alliances, the characteristic feature of the foreign policy of Washington, sprang from this condition of things. But the entangling alliances which then existed were engagements made with France as a part of the general contract under which aid was furnished to us for the achievement of our independence. France was willing to waive the letter of the obligation as to her West India possessions, but demanded in its stead privileges in our ports which the Administration was unwilling to concede. To make its refusal acceptable to a public which sympathized with France, the Cabinet of General Washington exaggerated the principle into a theory tending to national isolation.

The public measures designed to maintain unimpaired the domestic sovereignty and the international neutrality of the United States were independent of this policy, though apparently incidental to it. The municipal laws enacted by Congress then and since have been but declarations of the law of nations. They are essential to the preservation of our national dignity and honor; they have for their object to repress and punish all enterprises of private war, one of the last relics of mediaeval barbarism; and they have descended to us from the fathers of the Republic, supported and enforced by every succeeding President of the United States.

The foreign policy of these early days was not a narrow one. During this period we secured the evacuation by Great Britain of the country wrongfully occupied by her on the Lakes; we acquired Louisiana; we measured forces on the sea with France, and on the land and sea with England; we set the example of resisting and chastising the piracies of the Barbary States; we initiated in negotiations with Prussia the long line of treaties for the liberalization of war and the promotion of international intercourse; and we steadily demanded, and at length obtained, indemnification from various governments for the losses we had suffered by foreign spoliations in the wars of Europe.

To this point in our foreign policy we had arrived when the revolutionary movements in Spanish and Portuguese America compelled a modification of our relations with Europe, in consequence of the rise of new and independent states in America.

The revolution which commenced in 1810, and extended through all the Spanish American continental colonies, after vain efforts of repression on the part of Spain, protracted through twenty years, terminated in the establishment of the independent States of Mexico, Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Paraguay, to which the Empire of Brazil came in time to be added. These events necessarily enlarged the sphere of action of the United States, and essentially modified our relations with Europe and our attitude to the rest of this continent.

The new States were, like ourselves, revolted colonies. They continued the precedent we had set, of separating from Europe. Their assumption of independence was stimulated by our example. They professedly imitated us, and copied our National Constitution, sometimes even to their inconvenience.

The Spanish American colonies had not the same preparation for independence that we had. Each of the British colonies possessed complete local autonomy. Its formal transition from dependence to independence consisted chiefly in expelling the British governor of the colony and electing a governor of the State, from which to the organized Union was but a step. All these conditions of success were wanting in Spanish America, and hence many of the difficulties in their career as independent states; and, further, while the revolution in British America was the exclusive result of the march of opinion in the British colonies, the simultaneous action of the separate Spanish colonies, though showing a desire for independence, was principally produced by the accident of the invasion of Spain by France.

The formation of these new sovereignties in America was important to us, not only because of the cessation of colonial monopolies to that extent, but because of the geographical relations to us held by so many new nations, all, like ourselves, created from European stock and interested in excluding European politics, dynastic questions, and balances of power from further influence in the New World.

Thus the United States were forced into new lines of action, which, though apparently in some respects conflicting, were really in harmony with the line marked out by Washington. The avoidance of entangling political alliances and the maintenance of our own independent neutrality became doubly important from the fact that they became applicable to the new Republics as well as to the mother country. The duty of noninterference had been admitted by every President. The question came up in the time of the first Adams, on the occasion of the enlistment projects of Miranda. It appeared again under Jefferson (anterior to the revolt of the Spanish colonies) in the schemes of Aaron Burr. It was an ever-present question in the Administrations of Madison, Monroe, and the younger Adams, in reference to the questions of foreign enlistment or equipment in the United States, and when these new Republics entered the family of nations, many of them very feeble, and all too much subject to internal revolution and civil war, a strict adherence to our previous policy and a strict enforcement of our laws became essential to the preservation of friendly relations with them; for since that time it has been one of the principal cares of those intrusted with the administration of the Government to prevent piratical expeditions against these sister Republics from leaving our ports. And thus the changed condition of the New World made no change in the traditional and peaceful policy of the United States in this respect.

In one respect, however, the advent of these new States in America did compel an apparent change of foreign policy on our part. It devolved upon us the determination of the great international question at what time and under what circumstances to recognize a new power as entitled to a place among the family of nations. There was but little of precedent to guide us, except our own case. Something, indeed, could be inferred from the historical origin of the Netherlands and Switzerland. But our own case, carefully and conscientiously considered, was sufficient to guide us to right conclusions. We maintained our position of international friendship and of treaty obligations toward Spain, but we did not consider that we were bound to wait for its recognition of the new Republics before admitting them into treaty relations with us as sovereign states. We held that it was for us to judge whether or not they had attained to the condition of actual independence, and the consequent right of recognition by us. We considered this question of fact deliberately and coolly. We sent commissioners to Spanish America to ascertain and report for our information concerning their actual circumstances, and in the fullness of time we acknowledged their independence; we exchanged diplomatic ministers, and made treaties of amity with them, the earliest of which, negotiated by Mr. John Quincy Adams, served as the model for the subsequent treaties with the Spanish American Republics. We also, simultaneously therewith, exerted our good offices with Spain to induce her to submit to the inevitable result and herself to accept and acknowledge the independence of her late colonies. We endeavored to induce Russia to join us in these representations. In all this our action was positive, in the direction of promoting the complete political separation of America from Europe.

A vast field was thus opened to the statesmen of the United States for the peaceful introduction, the spread, and the permanent establishment of the American ideas of republican government, of modification of the laws of war, of liberalization of commerce, of religious freedom and toleration, and of the emancipation of the New World from the dynastic and balance of power controversies of Europe.

Mr. John Quincy Adams, beyond any other statesman of the time in this country, had the knowledge and experience, both European and American, the comprehension of thought and purpose, and the moral convictions which peculiarly fitted him to introduce our country into this new field and to lay the foundation of an American policy. The declaration known as the Monroe doctrine, and the objects and purposes of the congress of Panama, both supposed to have been largely inspired by Mr. Adams, have influenced public events from that day to this as a principle of government for this continent and its adjacent islands.

It was at the period of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle and of Laybach, when the "Holy Alliance" was combined to arrest all political changes in Europe in the sense of liberty, when they were intervening in southern Europe for the reestablishment of absolutism, and when they were meditating interference to check the progress of free government in America, that Mr. Monroe, in his annual message of December, 1823, declared that the United States would consider any attempt to extend the European system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. "With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power," he said, "we have not interfered and shall not interfere; but with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."

This declaration resolved the solution of the immediate question of the independence of the Spanish American colonies, and is supposed to have exercised some influence upon the course of the British cabinet in regard to the absolutist schemes in Europe as well as in America.

It has also exercised a permanent influence on this continent. It was at once invoked in consequence of the supposed peril of Cuba on the side of Europe; it was applied to a similar danger threatening Yucatan; it was embodied in the treaty of the United States and Great Britain as to Central America; it produced the successful opposition of the United States to the attempt of Great Britain to exercise dominion in Nicaragua under the cover of the Mosquito Indians; and it operated in like manner to prevent the establishment of a European dynasty in Mexico.

The United States stand solemnly committed by repeated declarations and repeated acts to this doctrine, and its application to the affairs of this continent. In his message to the two Houses of Congress at the commencement of the present session the President, following the teachings of all our history, said that the existing "dependencies are no longer regarded as subject to transfer from one European power to another. When the present relation of colonies ceases, they are to become independent powers, exercising the right of choice and of self-control in the determination of their future condition and relations with other powers."

This policy is not a policy of aggression; but it opposes the creation of European dominion on American soil, or its transfer to other European powers, and it looks hopefully to the time when, by the voluntary departure of European Governments from this continent and the adjacent islands, America shall be wholly American.

It does not contemplate forcible intervention in any legitimate contest, but it protests against permitting such a contest to result in the increase of European power or influence; and it ever impels this Government, as in the late contest between the South American Republics and Spain, to interpose its good offices to secure an honorable peace.