Senators murmur. There is a rule of morals and of honor above all other rules, and no officer of Army or Navy can consent to do an act of wrong. This was the voice of our fathers during the Revolution. How we praised and glorified those British officers who refused to serve against them, generously sacrificing their commissions rather than enforce a tyranny! Often have I honored in my heart of hearts that great man, one of the greatest in English history, Granville Sharp, foremost of all England’s Abolitionists, because, while an humble clerk, and poor, in one of the departments in London, he resigned his post rather than sustain that policy toward the Colonies which he regarded as wrong. No naval officer should have allowed himself to use such a menace toward this weak republic. By its very weakness was it entitled to kindness; and yet, Sir, its weakness was the occasion for the insult it received. Think you, Sir, that he would have used such language toward England or France? I think not. All this is aggravated, when we consider the relations between Dominica and Hayti, and bring this incredible transaction to the touchstone of International Law. Dominica and Hayti became one under President Boyer in 1822, and the whole island continued as a unit until 1844, when Dominica rose against Hayti, and, after a bloody conflict of four years, in 1848 succeeded in securing its independence. MR. MORTON. Mr. President,---- THE VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield to the Senator from Indiana? MR. SUMNER. Yes, Sir. MR. MORTON. Will the Senator allow me to suggest that it might help to a better understanding of the proposition he is about to state, if he will say that they became one by the conquest of Hayti,--not by consent, but by force of arms? MR. SUMNER. I said that they became one in 1822, and that they continued one till 1844. To what extent arms played a part I have not said. Suffice it to say that Dominica constituted part of the Government of Hayti, which was administered under the name of Hayti. In 1838, while the two constituted one Government, a treaty was made with France, which I have before me, by which the Haytian Government agreed to pay, in certain annual instalments, the sum of sixty million francs. Since the separation of the two, Hayti has proceeded with those payments, and I think the Senator over the way will not deny that there is at least ground of claim on the part of Hayti against Dominica for contribution to those payments. MR. MORTON. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question about that?--because I do not desire to take up the time of the Senate in answering him,--and that is this: Whether the debt for which Hayti agreed to pay France sixty million francs was not for spoliations upon the property of French citizens in Hayti, and not in Dominica, and with which Dominica never had anything to do? That is the fact about it.