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During the presidency of Ulysses S Grant, there was a serious push from Grant's supporters in the Senate to annex the former French colony of Santo Domingo (present day Dominican Republic), which was at the time in severe debt from the then ongoing Six Years War.

Among other reasons, Grant wanted to reinforce the US Navy's position in the Caribbean, encourage African-Americans to emigrate from the mainland USA with the promise of jobs and encourage Cuba and Brazil to give up slavery. A treaty was signed with the Dominican government in 1869. The US would purchase the Dominican Republic for $1.5 million and would lease the Samaná Peninsula for $147,229.91 for 99 years. The idea was that Santo Domingo was eventually going to become a state in the Union.

In 1870, though there was a low voter turnout of 30%, a referendum called by the Republic's president supposedly revealed that 99.3% of the population supported annexation.

However, the treaty was rejected by the US Senate with a tie of 28-28. The anti-annexation faction fo the Senate was concerned about the Republic's political instability and the fact that the Republic's mixed race population would become US citizens if the Republic became a US territory.

But what if the treaty passed the US Senate successfully and the Dominican Republic eventually became a state in the Union? Would it be as prosperous as other states or would it be like Puerto Rico?
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