In a private conference with President Grant, Fish agreed to support the Santo Domingo annexation if President Grant sent Congress a non-belligerency statement not to get involved with the Cuban rebellion against Spain. Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was against the treaty, believing that Santo Domingo needed to remain independent, and that racism against U.S. black citizens in the South needed to be dealt with in the continental United States. Sumner believed that blacks on Santo Domingo did not share Anglo-American values. On January 10, 1870, Grant submitted the Santo Domingo treaty to the United States Senate. Fish believed Senators would vote for annexation only if statehood was withdrawn; however, President Grant refused this option. The Senate took its time deliberating, and finally rejected the treaty on June 30, 1870. Eighteen Senators led by Charles Sumner defeated the treaty. Pres. Grant, angered at Sumner's refusal to support the treaty, fired Sumner's friend J. Lothrop Motley, Grant's ambassador to England, for disregarding Fish's instructions regarding the "Alabama" Claims. Grant believed that Sumner had in January 1870 stated his support for the Santo Domingo treaty. Sumner was then deprived of his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1871 by Grant's allies in the Senate.