France to this country may return to plague its inventor, the usurper of France. I have never heard his hated name since the 2d of December, that I could repress the prayer, which now I pray with something of a Red Republican fervor, that France may have barricades on the Boulevards; the throne in flames, as that of Louis Philippe in the Place du Carrousel; the dynasty which he seeks to perpetuate cut off, or flying from the rage of a Red Republic; more citizens and fewer soldiers, and both fraternizing to the music of the Marseillaise; exiles returning from their homes in pestilential swamps, amidst gay and festive welcome; prisons breaking; the press free; the Palais de Justice open, and the tri-color of a new Republic flashing from every part of France, and topmost on the Hôtel de Ville, made sacred by the heroic eloquence of Lamartine. This would be a fit retribution from God for crimes and perjuries; and not at all unfit as the reward of an intermeddling policy with the republican interests of the New World!

Let us be decided! These European Powers cannot, and do not, have peace. The bugles of truce sounded at the conference of Paris. Heralds proclaimed peace in every capital. But the war harness is not off. It is burnished anew, and the weapons within reach! England, trembling at the one hundred thousand soldiers across the channel, and the naval wonders at Cherbourg, commences to build coast defences. Russia acquires Villa Franca, and stirs insurrection in Ionia against England. Mazzini issues his rescript to the secret societies and Republicans of Italy to be ready and one as the thought of Italy and God. The coin of "Emanuel, the King of Italy," is circulated through the peninsula. An actress moves the people of Venice to insurrection by a recitative which reminds them of their patriotism. Austria arms, and Piedmont proposes to repel. France sends more troops to Rome. Austria growls. France obtains from the Swiss a strong strategic post, and Austria growls again. Naples insults Napoleon to please Austria. England writes bitterly against Naples, and does not spare the prosecutor of Montalembert. England shakes with a new reform movement-John Bright striving to Americanize her by popular sovereignty. Turkey is unsettled in Europe and in Asia. Russia moves on, immense and great-the envy of all. A lighted match may flash this magazine into a terrific blaze, whose thunder will make all Europe quake. The alliances of to-day, in Europe, for her own balance of power, may be dissolved by a popular breath to-morrow. As a consequence, they cannot be relied on to pursue us to any fatal end.

Already England has pushed this alliance with France to its snapping point. The English people will not permit their aristocracy to carry it so far as to make it an offence to the people of this commercial nation. Not but that the English Government would like to aid France in checking our career; but trade is powerful for peace, and peace with us means cotton in England. Let England find cotton elsewhere, and our Southern friends may be assured that her intercourse with us will be no longer peaceful. Gentlemen need not flatter themselves either, that cotton is their peculiar staple. Why is England trying every appliance to reach central China? To clothe in her fabrics the four hundred millions of Chinese? No. They are thus clothed, and mark it, by nankeen, which is the stupendous growth of their own great central valley, estimated now to produce more than

double the cotton raised in all our southern States put together.* This valley being England's, Manchester and Stockport can snap their fingers at Charleston and Mobile, and English audacity will begin a new career of rapacity and insolence toward us. Her jealousy of us is intus et in cute. Our reliance must be on our own strength and growth. If we cannot enact the Monroe doctrine into international law, we can create and consecrate it as a national sentiment. Let it be the national genius. Let it be the power of Aladdin's lamp. You remember the story. The old lamp from its friction evoked from the cave a mighty spirit; awed by its terrors, the poor youth only ventured at first to employ its powers in familiar affairs; but gradually accustomed to its presence, he employed it to construct palaces, to amass treasures, to baffle armies, to triumph over foes, to wield the elements of air, light, and heat, until, at the close of the story, the poor youth becomes the sovereign of a peaceful empire assured to his remote posterity!

This story, Mr. Speaker, is the type of our political genius. By it we have fortified ourselves in our domestic interests. Our domestic and territorial policy is fixed under its guidance. It is the instrument of that progress which must keep pace with steam and telegraph, until we are assured of an empire with which kingcraft dare not meddle; or meddling, find it a power to baffle its force of arms, and its fraud of diplomacy. We have become a Colossus on this continent, with a strength and stride that will and must be heeded. With our domestic policy as to local governments established, we can go on and Americanize this continent, and make it what Providence intended it should become, by a perpetual growth and an unsevered Union-the paragon in history for order, harmony, happiness, and power!

MEXICO.

LAWS OF NATIONAL GROWTH-MEXICAN RECOGNITION-MONROE DOCTRINE-PROPHECIES AS TO FRENCH INTERVENTION-MANIFEST DESTINY-EUROPEAN AGGRANDIZEMENT.

On the 19th of March, 1860, Mr. Cox said: In speaking to the motion to refer the bill and amendment under consideration, I premise that, before that vote can be intelligently taken, our relations with Mexico must be considered. If it be objected that this discussion is inappropriate on this motion, I say that the late news from Vera Cruz, before which Miramon is now hovering with his army, and the projected armis

*When this remark was made, Hon. HUMPHREY MARSHALL, who was a member at the time, and who had been our Minister to China, called it in question; in fact, saying that cotton was rather imported into China. He had forgotten that, although along the coast England had traded her cotton off to the Chinese, the vast interior was not reached by trade at all. Since then, cotton has been struggling for his sceptre. His claims have been thoroughly investigated; and by none more exhaustively than by the Hon. F. A. CONKLING, from whose pamphlet I learn that China last year exported to England 399,074 bales, besides large quantities which went into the United States and France. This was in addition to the home consumption, as to which it is alleged that, "Every morning throughout the Chinese Empire, there are three hundred millions of blue cotton breeches drawn over human legs. Men, women, and children alike wear them."

tice tendered by England to the belligerents, make it important that at no other point of the Mexican boundary should these relations be complicated. Mexicans and Indians are devastating the Rio Grande country. The Governor of Texas asks Federal aid. If it be not granted, he threatens to conquer a peace on Mexican soil. A war with Mexico, as its result, would not only embarrass the relations of this country with respect to the late treaty, but it concerns the honor and interests of our citizens commorant in Mexico.

Europe has her continental politics; America has hers. England sends ambassadors, and France armies, to Italy; the one to foil Austria, the other to fight her; and both to rescue Italy, as well from her invaders as from her own immoderation. We have our Italy. Not alone is Mexico our Italy by her natural beauty, production, soil, sky, romance, and history, but Mexico is our political Italy. She is torn to shreds by those who are fighting over the parting of her garments. Such is the present condition of Mexico, and such is our interest in it, that we cannot be either idle or indifferent to its fate. It is one of those cases of great public distress which lie at our very doors. We cannot avoid seeing it. It is in our path, as an obstruction to our progress and a menace to our peace. Self-interest, if not republican sympathy, demands from us for Mexico our quickest heart throb and our most active intervention. Mr. BOYCE. Mexico is our 66 sick man."

Mr. Cox. Yes; she is to America what Turkey is to Europe. If she be not healed of her wounds and set upright on her progressive path, she will become not the "sick man" merely, but the dead man, whose very corpse will arrest our steps, taint the air, and poison our own political system. To save her, she must be inoculated with American energy. To save her!-alas! is she not already a wreck, whose disparted ribs and crashing timbers, tossed on the wild wave of anarchy, endanger the safety of her neighbors?

When the Spanish American provinces, forty years ago, revolted against their mother country, this nation inaugurated a continental policy. It bears the name of our most sagacious and calm statesman-the Monroe doctrine. It forbids European interference in the national affairs of this continent. That doctrine has, with the nations of this continent, a sanction equal to international law. It has done good service. Silent as the tides, yet as potent, it has swayed millions by its influences and effluences. That policy can be amended and enlarged. From its serene quietism, silent emphasis, folded arms, frowning face, and warning gesture, it should be aroused to earnest protest and armed interference. So far as Mexico is concerned, this must be done; if we do not do it, other nations will. As I have before said on this floor, if Mexico complete the suicide which she has begun, her estate will be left for administration. Shall it be administered by strangers? Shall it inure to the benefit of those who are neither akin to her by political sympathy, nor neighbors in interest or destiny? This is the problem which statesmanship is urged to solve.

My solution, sir, is not new to this House. I submitted it, with great deference, in a speech on "territorial expansion" on the 18th of January, 1859. I urged that our interest lay, first, in Mexico's erect and orderly independence; and secondly, if that were not possible, then that no Power

but our own should guard its weakness and administer its estate. Since then, by the inexorable logic of events, my position has been strengthened and my conclusions confirmed. In seconding the views of the President last year, I urged that we had abundant cause for hostility against the Miramon government, then and yet holding the capital. I was ready to vote for any system of reprisal to bring about a settlement of our claims. I was ready to give the Executive power to punish the atrocities upon our citizens domiciliated in Mexico.

I need not say how this programme has been carried out by our Executive. It is now history. The President has pursued the wisest policy possible. He is clear now, and for the future, of all blame for these complications. A year hence, and his policy no one will question. In three months afterwards he recognized the Juarez government. This was the government de jure and de facto. This recognition was followed by the appearance of Mr. McLane and a naval force at Vera Cruz. This was succeeded by the advantageous treaty now before the Senate. If that treaty be confirmed, not alone will our commerce grow from its present languishing condition of some eight millions to some twenty millions per annum, which it was in 1835; but the highways of the continent will be over Mexico. These highways will draw to them a by-trade of increased intercourse. They will inaugurate an enterprise in agriculture, commerce, and mining, which will make Mexico as much a useful dependency upon us as ever India was upon England.

What remains to be done to bring about a consummation so splendid on a theatre so magnificent? What remains to give us control from the Rio Grande to the gates of Panama? Already the Central American imbroglio is ended. Great Britain has restored the Bay Islands to Honduras. She has, informally at least, relinquished the Mosquito protectorate. Honduras and Nicaragua will then be independent of foreign intervention. New Granada opened her Congress on the last of February, 1860, and we may soon hear that the Cass-Herran treaty is confirmed. All that remains for us is to give practical annexation to Mexico, as we have to Canada, by our reciprocal free trade. Cuba gravitates every year nearer to this continent. With the Gulf ours, from Florida all around to Yucatan, the key must be ours. A practical solution by us of Mexican politics will not be unheeded by the people of Cuba, and will compel a mutuality in commerce and comity between them and our own country. Then we make the northern part of this whole continent ours by every tie of interest in the present, and ours in the fulness of time by closer bonds of political federation!

I propose to show that it is absolutely necessary for us to interfere in Mexico; demanded alike by national honor, by national interests, and self-protection. I will show that no interference can be effectual which does not look to the actual pedis possessio of the country by our troops. Either Mexico must roll back under the dark rule of brigandage, which creates anarchy for its own aggrandizement, or she must become Americanized with a recognized foreign ruling element in the country. It is either annihilation or resurrection under our auspices.

Take a glance at the condition of Mexico. If this glance does not suffice to arouse us from our apathy about Mexican affairs, we may as

well yield our predominance at once on this continent, confess that Europe is fitted to take care of this "New Atlantis," and that our schemes of commerce, progress, and empire are a failure and a delusion! In arriving at the condition of Mexico, it will be necessary to epitomize her eventful history. I propose to do this briefly under three epochs.

Mr. SHERMAN. I rise to a question of order. The only question before us, is the reference of the appropriation bill to one or the oter committee. It is not in order to discuss the condition of Mexico in general.

Mr. Cox. If the gentleman could know my speech from the beginning to the end, he would see that I intend to apply my remarks, in the end, to the question of reference. The peace of our frontier is essential to the treaty and our other relations with Mexico. I wish the matter referred to that committee which will give it the fullest examination.

Mr. BOYCE. I hope the gentleman will be allowed to go on with his most interesting and useful discussion.

Mr. MORRIS, of Pennsylvania. The condition of our frontier opens up all our interests in Mexico. I trust that the gentleman from Ohio may be permitted to proceed.

Mr. Cox. The first epoch is from the Spanish invasion to the revolution against Spain, in 1824. Much may be pardoned to Mexico, when we remember the heritage of misery which Spain left to her. Making every allowance for exaggeration, there is no doubt that the Spaniards found at the discovery a remarkable civilization. Whether it belonged to an ancient race or not, it was there, with its polity, its religion, its comforts, and its wealth. The highest avarice of Cortes, his followers, and viceroyal successors, was stimulated by its affluence. The same extraordinary efforts which were made to achieve its conquest, were employed in draining the country of its resources. In this all-absorbing avarice-an avarice which had no limit and knew no mercy, which was checked only by its glutted and bloated repletion—are to be found the seeds of that disease and disaster which now weaken, distract, and mutilate Mexico. The motto seems to have been: "Nada est mala que gana la plata"-nothing is evil which gives us the silver. Under its sway, the most unprincipled set of robbers, cutthroats, and intriguers were warmed into life. This heritage of avarice has been enjoyed, too, by strangers. The very ministers, as well as merchants, from abroad, were seized by it. Their aim has been to watch for the advent of each successive power, only the more readily to make profitable transactions with the gov ernment of the day, and to provide for another chance with the government of to-morrow. As a consequence, the people, whose production furnished the means for this avarice, finally lost their patience. The Spanish grandees, the Gapuchins-less than one-fifth of the population— were the beneficiaries of these schemes. The Indian and mixed population was the source whence this barbarity, blood, sweat, and treasure were extracted. In 1810, the first revolt, under Hidalgo, took place. The cry was, "Death to the Gapuchins!" A war of races began; and out of it came the war of independence. This raged until 1821, when Iturbide assumed the imperial robes, only to impurple them more deeply in his own blood. The axe which cut off the head of Augustin I.—as