Sir, others may do as they please; others may accept this policy; I will not. I have already set myself against it, and I continue now as firm against it as ever. The information which I have received since our discussions last year has confirmed me in the conclusions which I felt it my duty then to announce. In now presenting those conclusions I beg to say that I shall forbear considering whether the territory of Dominica is desirable or not; I shall forbear considering its resources, even its finances, even its debt,--menacing as I know it is to the Treasury of our country,--except so far as that debt brings Hayti into this debate. Some other time these other topics will be proper for consideration; for the present I shall confine myself to grounds on which there can be no just difference. I object to this proposition because it is a new stage in a measure of violence, which, so far as it has been maintained, has been upheld by violence. I use strong language, but only what the occasion requires. As Senator, as patriot, I cannot see my country suffer in its good name without an earnest effort to save it. * * * * * The negotiation for annexion began with a person known as Buenaventura Baez. All the evidence, official and unofficial, shows him to be a political jockey. But he could do little alone; he had about him two other political jockeys, Cazneau and Fabens; and these three together, a precious copartnership, seduced into their firm a young officer of ours, who entitled himself “Aide-de-Camp to the President of the United States.” Together they got up what was called a protocol, in which the young officer entitling himself “Aide-de-Camp to the President” proceeds to make certain promises for the President. Before I read from this document, I desire to say that there is not one word showing that at the time this “Aide-de-Camp” had any title or any instruction to take this step. If he had, that title and that instruction have been withheld; no inquiry has been able to penetrate it. At least the committee[260] which brought out the protocol did not bring out any such authority. The document is called “a protocol,” which I need not remind you, Sir, is in diplomatic terms the first draught of a treaty, or the memorandum between two powers in which are written down the heads of some subsequent convention; but at the time it is hardly less binding than a treaty itself, except, as you are well aware, that under the Constitution of the United States it can receive no final obligation without the consent of the Senate. This document begins as follows:--