Again I return to the pending resolution, which I oppose as a new stage in the long-drawn machination. Am I wrong in holding up this negotiation, which has in it so much of violence,--violence toward Dominica, violence toward Hayti? Of course the proposed treaty assumes and adopts the civil war pending in the territory annexed. This is the terrible incumbrance. No prudent man buys a lawsuit; but we are called to buy a bloody lawsuit. I read now the recent testimony of Mr. Hatch, who, while in favor of annexion, writes as follows, under date of South Norwalk, Connecticut, December 12, 1870:-- “I have not, however, looked with favor upon the project as it has been attempted to be effected; and I firmly believe, if we should receive that territory from the hands of President Baez, while all the leading men of the Cabral party, the most numerous, the most intelligent, and the wealthiest, are in prison, in exile, or in arms against Baez, without their having a voice in the transfer, it would result in a terrible disaster.” Be taught by the experience of Spain, when in 1861 this power, on the invitation of a predecessor of Baez, undertook to play the part we are asked to play. Forts were built and troops were landed. By a document which I now hold in my hand it appears, that, when at last this power withdrew, she had expended forty millions of hard Spanish dollars and “sacrificed sixteen thousand of the flower of her army.” From another source I learn that ten thousand Spanish soldiers were buried there. Are we ready to enter upon this bloody dance? Are we ready to take up this bloody lawsuit? Vain to set forth, as the Message does, all manner of advantages, “commercially and materially.” What are these, if Right and Humanity are sacrificed? What are these without that priceless blessing, Peace? I am not insensible to the commercial and material prosperity of my country. But there is something above these. It is the honor and good name of the Republic, now darkened by an act of wrong. If this territory, so much coveted by the President, were infinitely more valuable than it is, I hope the Senate would not be tempted to obtain it by trampling on the weak and humble. Admit all that the advocates of the present scheme assert with regard to the resources of this territory, and then imagine its lofty mountains bursting with the precious metals, its streams flowing with amber over silver sands, where every field is a Garden of the Hesperides, blooming with vegetable gold, and all this is not worth the price we are called to pay. * * * * *