On the 5th of April, 1871, the President submitted this report to Congress, accompanied by a message which contained a justification of his own conduct in the whole matter, and an attack upon those who opposed his policy of annexation, especially upon Senator Sumner. It was a very undignified, not to say puerile, document, and ought never to have been written, much less sent. It revealed, however, the fact that the President understood at last that he must abandon his pet scheme. He did it, however, with a very bad grace, and in his last annual message he repeated for the third time his old arguments in favor of his miserable project, "not," he said, "as a recommendation for a renewal of the subject of annexation," but in vindication of his conduct in regard to it. It is needless to add that none of his fearful predictions about European occupation of Santo Domingo, in case the United States should fail to seize it, and the destruction of the Monroe Doctrine, have come to pass. On the other hand, the Monroe Doctrine has attained an almost monstrous growth which at times appears as likely to threaten as to preserve the peace of the two {327} Americas, and the poor little Dominican Republic, which was incapable of self-government, still exists and seems to be bettering its condition by its own efforts, while the great European city in the Bay of Samana, to which the United States was to become tributary, has not even the substance of a mirage in the waters upon which the vast marines of the world were to ride in approaching its docks and landings. Such has been the fulfilment of the prophecy upon which was based the supposed necessity of expansion beyond the seas! {328} {329} INDEX Abbott, Josiah G., on electoral commission, 286 Adams, Charles Francis, joins liberal republicans, 264; candidate for presidential nomination, 265; returns from England, 303; at Geneva arbitration, 311, 316 Adams, John Q., nominated for vice-presidency, 267 Alabama, in Lincoln's proclamation, 11; electoral vote of 1864 rejected, 22; reconstruction in, 37; convention and election in, 38; vote on thirteenth amendment, 55; in the reconstruction bill, 112; registration in, 146; election in, 149; disfranchisements in, 150; voting on constitution, 151, 153, 197; act on admission of members from, 198; reconstruction declared complete, 202; ratifies fourteenth amendment, 203, 204; republicans get control in, 268, 269; change in character of government, 273 _Alabama_, the, case of, 316, 317 _Alabama_ claims, 307, 308, 316, 317 Alaska, purchase of, 299-302 Alexandria, Va., Pierpont government at, 13, 224 Alta Vela, matter of claim to, 177, 178 Ames, Adelbert, resigns as governor of Mississippi, 275 Anderson, T. C., in Louisiana politics, 269