On the 17th of June, 1867, the examiner of claims submitted a report adverse to the claim for damages against the Dominican government. On the 22d of July, 1867, Mr. Black addressed a letter to the President, (page 10) and another on the 7th of August, 1867. On page 13 it is said that Patterson and Marguiendo acquiesce in the decision. On page 13 it is shown that other parties are in averse possession. On page 15 it is asserted that the contest is between citizens of the United States, and can be settled in the courts of the United States. The contest now seems to be between Patterson and Marguiendo and Thomas B. Webster &Co.
On the 14th of December, 1859, Judge Black, as Attorney General, rejected the claim of W. J. Kendall to an island in the Carribean Sea, called Cayo Verde, and Mr. Seward seems to regard the two cases as resting on the same principle in his report of 17th of January, 1867.
On the 22d of July, 1867, Judge Black addressed a letter to the President enclosing a brief. On the 7th of August, 1867, he addressed another communication to the President. On the 7th of February, 1868, an elaborate an able communication was sent to the President, signed by W. J. Shaffer, attorney for Patterson and Marguiendo, and Black, Lamon &, Co., counsel, in which they criticised with severity the report of Mr. Seward and asked the President to review his decision.
According to the best information I can obtain, I state that ONTHE 9TH OF MARCH, 1868, General Benjamin F. Butler addressed a letter to J. W. Shaffer, in which he stated that he was "clearly of the opinion that, under the claim of the United States its citizens have the exclusive right to take guano there," and that he had never been able to understand why the executive did not long since assert the rights of the government, and sustain the rightful claims of its citizens to the possession of the island IN THE MOST FORCIBLE MANNER consistent with the dignity and honor of the Nation.
The letter was concurred in and approved of by John A. Logan, J.
A. Garfield, W. H. Koontz, J. K. Moorhead and John A. Bingham, on the same day, 9th of March, 1868.
This letter expressing the opinion of Generals Butler, Logan and Garfield was placed in the hands of the President by Chauncey F.
Black, who, on the 16th of March, 1868, addressed a letter to him in which he enclosed a copy of the same with the concurrence of Thaddeus Stevens, John A. Bingham, J. G. Blaine, J. K. Moorhead and William H. Koontz.
After the date of this letter, and while Judge Black was the counsel of the respondent in this cause, he had an interview with the President, in which he urged immediate action on his part and the sending an armed vessel to take possession of the island; and because the President refused to do so, Judge Black, on the 19th of March, 1868, declined to appear further as his counsel in this case.
Such are the facts in regard to the withdrawal of Judge Black, according to the. best information I can obtain.
The island of Alta Vela, or the claim for damages, is said to amount in value to more than a million dollars, and it is quite likely that an extensive speculation is on foot. I have no reason to charge that any of the managers are engaged in it, and presume that the letters were signed, as such communications are often signed, by members of Congress, through the importunity of friends.
Judge Black no doubt thought it was his duty to other clients to press this claims but how did the President view it?
Senators, I ask you for a moment to put yourself in the place of the President of the United States, and as this is made a matter of railing accusation against him, to consider how the President of the United States felt it.
There are two or three facts to which I desire to call the attention of the Senate and the country in connection with these recommendations. They are, first, that they were all gotten up after this impeachment proceeding was commenced against the President of the United States.
Another strong and powerful fact to be noticed in vindication of the President of the United States, in reference to this case which has been so strongly preferred against him, is that these recommendations were signed by four of the honorable, gentlemen to whom the House of Representatives have intrusted the duty of managing this great impeachment against him.
Of course exception was taken to this statement, and to the revisal inferences therefrom, and the authenticity of the signatures mentioned at first denied, and then an effort made to explain them away, but it is unsuccessful.
The incident left a fixed impression, at least in the minds of many of the Senators, that an effort had been made to coerce the President, in fear of successful impeachment, into the perpetration of a cowardly and disgraceful international act, not only by his then Chief of Counsel, but also by a number of his active prosecutors on the part of the House.
It would be difficult to fittingly characterize this scandalous effort to pervert a great State trial into an instrumentality for the successful exploitation of a commercial venture which was by no means free from the elements of international robbery.
Yet to Mr. Johnson's lasting credit, he proved that he possessed the honesty and courage to dare his enemies to do their worst--he would not smirch his own name and disgrace his country and his great office, by using its power for the-promotion of an enterprise not far removed from a scheme of personal plunder, let it cost him what it might. It was a heroic act, and bravely, unselfishly, modestly performed.
