There is one other consideration, vast in importance and conclusive in character, to which I allude only. The island of San Domingo, situated in tropical waters, and occupied by another race, of another color, never can become a permanent possession of the United States. You may seize it by force of arms or by diplomacy, where a naval squadron does more than the minister; but the enforced jurisdiction cannot endure. Already by a higher statute is that island set apart to the colored race. It is theirs by right of possession, by their sweat and blood mingling with the soil, by tropical position, by its burning sun, and by unalterable laws of climate. Such is the ordinance of Nature, which I am not the first to recognize. San Domingo is the earliest of that independent group destined to occupy the Caribbean Sea, toward which our duty is plain as the Ten Commandments. Kindness, beneficence, assistance, aid, help, protection, all that is implied in good neighborhood,--these we must give, freely, bountifully; but their independence is as precious to them as is ours to us, and it is placed under the safeguard of natural laws which we cannot violate with impunity. Long ago it was evident that the Great Republic might fitly extend the shelter of its protection to the governments formed in these tropical islands, dealing with them graciously, generously, and in a Christian spirit,--helping them in their weakness, encouraging them in their trials, and being to them always a friend; but we take counsel of our supposed interests rather than theirs, when we seek to remove them from the sphere in which they have been placed by Providence. * * * * * I conclude as I began. I protest against this legislation as another stage in a drama of blood. I protest against it in the name of Justice outraged by violence, in the name of Humanity insulted, in the name of the weak trodden down, in the name of Peace imperilled, and in the name of the African race, whose first effort at Independence is rudely assailed. Later in debate Mr. Sumner spoke in reply as follows:-- MR. PRESIDENT,--So far as the Senator from Michigan [Mr. CHANDLER] arraigns me as a member of the Republican party I have no reply. He knows that I am as good a Republican as himself; he knows that I have had as much to do with the making and support of the party as himself; and when CHARLES SUMNER finds the Senators over the way ranging under his banner, as the Senator predicts, this country will be regenerated,--for the Democratic party will be Republican.