San Domingo : Speech of Hon. Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin, in the Senate of the United States, March 27 and 28, 1871: Speech in the Senate opposing Grant's San Domingo Naval Actions

Timothy O Howe; (February 24, 1816 – March 25, 1883); "San Domingo : Speech of Hon. Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin, in the Senate of the United States, March 27 and 28, 1871."

OCLC Number: 191227084

Notes: Printed in two columns.

Description: 14 pages ; 23 cm

Publisher: Washington [D.C.] : F. & J. Rives & Geo. A. Bailey, reporters, and printers of the debates of Congress, 1871.

Only 6 institutions hold this document in print form.

1. New-York Historical Society Library

New York, NY 10024 United States

2. New York Public Library System

NYPL

New York, NY 10018 United States

3. Duke University Libraries

Duke University Library; Perkins Library

Durham, NC 27708 United States

4. Library of Michigan

Lansing, MI 48915 United States

5. University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System

Madison, WI 53706 United States

6. Stanford University Libraries

Stanford, CA 94305 United States

The annexation of Santo Domingo was an attempted treaty during the later Reconstruction Era, initiated by United States President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869, to annex "Santo Domingo" (as the Dominican Republic was commonly known) as a United States territory, with the promise of eventual statehood. President Grant feared some European power would take the island country in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. He privately thought annexation would be a safety valve for African Americans who were suffering persecution in the US, but he did not include this in his official messages. Grant speculated that the acquisition of Santo Domingo would help bring about the end of slavery in Cuba and elsewhere.

In 1869, Grant commissioned his private secretary Orville E. Babcock and Rufus Ingalls to negotiate the treaty of annexation with Dominican president Buenaventura Báez. The annexation process drew controversy: opponents Senator Charles Sumner and Senator Carl Schurz denounced the treaty vehemently, alleging it was made only to enrich private American and island interests and to politically protect Báez. Grant had authorized the US Navy to protect the Dominican Republic from invasion by neighboring Haiti while the treaty annexation process took place in the US Senate. A plebiscite ordered by Báez, who believed the Dominican Republic had better odds of survival as a US protectorate and could sell a much wider range of goods to the US than could be sold in European markets, registered an improbably low 11 votes against annexation, compared to over ten thousand for annexation . The country's unstable history was one of invasion, colonization, and civil strife.

A treaty was drafted by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish that included the annexation of the country itself and the purchase of Samaná Bay for two million American dollars. Also included and supported by Grant was the provision that the Dominican Republic could apply for statehood. When debated in the Senate, Sumner staunchly opposed the treaty, believing the annexation process was corrupt and that the Dominican Republic was politically unstable, having a history of revolution. Sumner believed that Báez was a corrupt despot and that the use of the US Navy by Grant during the treaty negotiation to protect Santo Domingo was illegal. Sumner said that the annexationists wanted the whole island and would also absorb the independent black nation of Haiti. Schurz opposed acquisition because he did not favor mixed race people becoming US citizens. The treaty ultimately failed to reach the two-thirds vote needed (the vote was a tie). To vindicate the failed treaty annexation, Grant sent a committee, authorized by Congress and including African American Frederick Douglass, that investigated and produced a report favorable to annexation of the Dominican Republic into the United States.

The annexation treaty failed because there was little support for it outside Grant's circle. The defeat of the treaty in the Senate directly contributed to the division of the Republican party into two opposing factions during the presidential election of 1872: the Radical Republicans (composed of Grant and his loyalists) and the Liberal Republicans (composed of Schurz, Sumner, Horace Greeley as presidential candidate, and other opponents of Grant).

Timothy Otis Howe (February 24, 1816 – March 25, 1883) was a member of the United States Senate for three terms, representing the state of Wisconsin from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1879. He also served as U.S. Postmaster General under President Chester A. Arthur from 1881 until his death in 1883. Earlier in his career, he was a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Howe was born in Livermore, Maine (then, part of the commonwealth of Massachusetts), to Timothy Howe and Betsey Howard, attended Readfield Seminary now Kents Hill School, in Readfield, Maine, and studied law with local judges. In 1839, Howe was admitted to the Maine Bar and began practicing law in Readfield. In 1845, he was elected to the Maine House of Representatives.[3] Shortly thereafter, Howe moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and opened a law office. He was an ardent Whig and ran an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Congress in 1848.

Howe married Linda Ann Haines and together the couple had 2 children, Mary E. Howe, and Frank K. Howe.

Howe was elected circuit judge in Wisconsin and served in that position from 1851 to 1855. As a circuit judge, he also served as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court until a separate Supreme Court was organized in 1853.

In 1857, Howe ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. In 1861, Howe ran again and won election to the Senate,[4] serving during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. During his time in the Senate, he was an abolitionist and supporter of the Fifteenth Amendment. Howe argued against the claims of contemporary Democrats that blacks were inherently racially inferior and remarked that their claim that abolition would cause a war of racial extermination was "a libel upon humanity, black or white." During this time, he was considered one of the "Radical Republicans" due to his support for racial equality and his opposition to discrimination.

While in the Senate, President Ulysses S. Grant offered Howe the position of Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, Howe declined the offer because he feared his successor to the Senate would be a Democrat. Howe lost his senate seat in 1879 to fellow Republican Matthew H. Carpenter. In 1881, he was appointed United States Postmaster General by President Chester A. Arthur, a position he held until his death in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on March 25, 1883.