Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[318] series of resolutions expressing warm and judicious sympathy with the Cubans, then suffering outrages from the collision between the insurgents and the Spanish government; but his most remarkable effort was in opposition to the president's Dominican treaty. Mr. Sumner no doubt honestly believed that the scheme of annexing the Republic of San Domingo to the United States was advocated by the administration and its supporters, not for the benefit of the people of that island, but for the enrichment of certain speculators; and he most frankly, perhaps too sharply, avowed his opinions on the subject. During the discussion of this measure, the severity of his criticism on the course of the president, whom he believed to act as an imperialist, bestowing undue favors on his special friends, led, in combination with other causes, to a rupture between him and the chief-executive. The tempers and habits of these distinguished men were totally unlike. There was no great love between them in the beginning; and, if I may change an expression of Shakspeare, it decreased on better acquaintance. The effects of the cruel blow received by Mr. Sumner in 1856 were still remaining; and, as they disturbed the functions of his physical frame, so they had, undoubtedly, some influence on his intellectual temper. On account of the opposition to his annexation scheme, and perhaps