selves a republic, independent of Spain, and we were simply to enlist under their banner, and to aid them in achieving their independence. Annexation would, it was supposed, follow republicanism and independence, as a matter of course. This was the plan, and we can see nothing in it inconsistent with the doctrines advocated by the whole body of American demagogues, and by nearly the whole American newspaper press. Once lay it down, as nearly all our politicians of late have been in the habit of doing, that the people may rebel against the sovereign authority of the state when they judge proper, and that, irrespective of preexisting constitutions and laws, they are sovereign and the legitimate source of all political power, and it is impossible for you to point out any thing wrong or censurable in the attempt to get possession of Cuba in the way proposed, that is, by rebellion, murder, and robbery. According to these principles, the creoles of Cuba, however few in number, or insignificant in position, who were dissatisfied with the Spanish government, or uneasy and merely desirous of a change, had a right to assume to be the people of Cuba, in whom vests the national sovereignty, and to organize themselves into a provisional government, and speak and act in the name of the universal Cuban nation. If they had this right, on the same principles our citizens, as many of them as chose, had the right to treat them as the independent and sovereign people of Cuba, and as such to join with them, and assist them in effecting their independence, and consol-dating their authority over the whole island; for according to the popular political creed of this country, democracy is the native inherent right of every people, the only legitimate form of government, and therefore the national sover eignty must always vest in the party struggling to maintain or to establish democracy. Either, then, we must say that Lopez and his crew are not censurable, except for their imprudence and ill-success, or abandon our popular political creed. If we hold on, as the mass of our politicians do, and no doubt will for some time to come, to the principles of that creed, it is only by a logical inconsequence that we can condemn the Cuban or any expedition of the sort.

But our politicians would do well to reflect that a people cannot hold and act on principles which would justify such an expedition, without placing themselves out of the pale of civilized nations, and authorizing the civilized world to treat them as a nest of pirates, and to make war on them

as the common foe of mankind. Especially must this be so, when they avow and act on such principles against a power with which their government has treaties of peace and amity, as our government has with Spain. With such a people, having a popular form of government, which must in the long run, to a great extent at least, yield to the popular will, however expressed, no nation can live in peace; for they hold themselves bound neither by the laws of nations nor by the faith of treaties. No nation within reach of their influence can ever be safe from their machinations; and every one must be perpetually in danger of having them stir up its subjects to rebellion, and through them to strip it of its territories, and finally blot out its national existence. Friendly relations with such a people are out of the question, and the common interests of nations and of society must ultimately league the whole civilized world against them to exterminate them, or to be exterminated by them.

We are too sincere a patriot and too loyal a citizen to believe that the majority even of those who adhere to these false and detestable principles are aware of the horrible consequences which legitimately flow from them. It is but common candor to regard them as better than their principles, and to presume that, in general, they do not understand the real nature of the doctrines they profess, and indeed seem to glory in professing. They are no doubt greatly blinded by their passions, and misled by their insane thirst of gold and territorial acquisition, but much of their error originates in misapprehension of the true nature of their own political institutions. These institutions are republican, indeed, and repugnant to both monarchy and political aristocracy, but they are not democratic, either in the ancient or the modern sense of that term. Anciently, as in Athens, where the word originated, democracy meant a government possessed and administered by the common people, in distinction from the Eupatrids, or nobles; in modern times, it means the absolute and underived sovereignty of the people, or the native and inherent right of the multitude to do whatever they please, and is necessarily resolvable into anarchy or the despotism of the mob. Our institutions are democratic in neither of these senses not in the former, for they recognize no political distinction of common people and Eupatrids, lords and commons; not in the latter, for they recognize no political power in the people save as constitutionally defined and ex

ercised in virtue of and accordance with legal forms, and they make it high treason to rebel against the state, or to levy war against its sovereign authority. Under our political system, the people are the motive force, but not the governing power, and are, theoretically, neither the government nor the source of its rights. The constitution and laws are above them. Suffrage is not with us a natural right, an incident of one's manhood, but a public trust conferred by law, and capable of being extended or contracted by municipal regulation.

But American politicians generally, not of one party only, for in this respect Whigs and Democrats do not essentially differ, have of late years overlooked this important fact, and, corrupted by French Jacobins, and English and Scotch radicals, have sought to give to our institutions a democratic interpretation in the modern sense of the word. They cease to hold the laws sacred, and the constitution inviolable, and nothing is for them sacred or obligatory, but the arbitrary and irresponsible will of the multitude. cording to them, the will of the people overrides constitu tions and laws, and is the only authority to be consulted by the statesman, and they are well-nigh prepared to say, by the moralist and the divine. He must be an obtuse dialectician indeed, who fails to perceive, when his attention is called to the point, that it is a necessary corollary from a democracy of this sort, that the people, or any number of persons calling themselves the people, have the right to rebel against the state when they choose, and change its constitution as they please. This doctrine, of course, strikes at all legality, all legitimacy, abrogates all law, municipal or international, renders loyalty an unmeaning word, and leaves the people, theoretically at least, in a state of pure anarchy and lawlessness. It denies all government by denying to government all sacredness and inviolability, and leaves us free to follow our own instincts, passions, lusts, and supposed interests, without regard to municipal law, the laws of nations, or the obligations of treaties. Our error lies in our adhesion to the fundamental principles of this false democracy, a democracy of foreign, not of native growth, and as anti-American as it is anti-national and anti-social. It is the prevalence of this false democracy amongst us that has in some measure blinded us, and rendered the mass of our people apathetic to the reprehensible character of the recent conduct of a portion of our citizens towards Spain, Mexico, and even Great Britain.

It, of course, will be easy for our demagogues and our radical press to call us hard names for these remarks, to denounce us as the enemy of free institutions and the friend of tyrants and aristocrats, and to drown the voice of truth and justice by senseless shouts of "Popular Sovereignty," "The Rights of Man," "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," or other popular watchwords which have convulsed the nations of the Old World, consecrated rebellion, and instituted the worship of the dagger; but it will nevertheless remain still true, that a large portion of the American people have lost sight of the principles of their own institutions, and embraced principles which they cannot avow and act on without deserving to be placed outside of the pale of civilized nations, and which, if continued to be held and acted on, must in the end sink us to the level of the Asiatic Malays. There is no use in seeking to deceive ourselves. There is a spirit abroad among us, working in the very heart of our population, that, unless speedily exorcised, must ultimately, if our power continues to increase at its present ratio, make us the deadliest foe of Christian civilization that has arisen since Attila the Hun, and the early Saracenic and Turkish successors of the Arabian impostor.

It cannot be denied, and should not be disguised, that we are fast adopting the principles, and following in the footsteps, of the old French Jacobins. We are preparing to enter, and would that we could say we had not entered, upon a career of Jacobinical propagandism and territorial acquisition. Other nations see this, and therefore see in us the future disturbers of the peace of the world. Hence, while they admire our industrial activity, our enterprise and energy in the material order, they detest our principles, and hold our national character in low esteem. It is idle for us to cherish the delusion, that the estimation in which the nations of the Old World hold us is owing to our republicanism and free institutions. It is no such thing. It is because they see in us, as a nation, no loyalty, no high moral aims, no lofty principles of religion and virtue, but a low, grovelling attachment to the world, the deification of material interests, and the worship of the "almighty dollar." It is because they see us becoming democratic propagandists, and sympathizers with the rebels against legitimate authority, the peace and order of society, wherever we find them, and ready to decree an ovation to every popular miscreant, who, after having lighted the flames of rebellion and civil

war in his own country, flies hither to save his neck from the halter it so richly merits. It is because we respect not the rights of sovereignty, the independence of nations, or the faith of treaties, and have proved ourselves capable of stirring up the citizens of a state with which we are at peace to a rebellion against its sovereign authority, for the sake of stripping it, through them, of a portion of its territory, and incorporating it into the Union.

Unhappily for our reputation, the recent military expedition against Cuba is not an isolated fact or an anomaly in our brief national history. It stands connected with our act of robbing Mexico of Texas, and annexing it to the Union. Texas was a Mexican province chiefly settled by American emigrants, who by settling it became Mexican citizens and subjects. These Americo-Mexicans, in concert with our citizens, and, it is said, with persons in high official station under our government, rebelled against the Mexican authorities, and by means of volunteers, money, arms, and munitions of war from the states, succeeded in achieving independence. As soon as this was achieved, or assumed to be achieved, the republic of Texas applied to our government for admission. into the American confederacy. Her application was indeed rejected by Mr. Van Buren, who was then president of the United States, and whose management of our foreign relations, little as we esteem that gentleman, we are bound to say, was creditable to himself and to his country; but it was renewed and accepted under his successor, and in 1845 Texas became one of the United States, and sent, as one of her representatives in the American senate, the very man who is said to have concerted with President Jackson and others the robbery, and who certainly was the chief to whom its execution was intrusted. Here was a great national crime, not yet expiated; and here was set a precedent not a little hostile to the nations that have territory contiguous to ours.

We acknowledge personally, with shame and regret, that, though opposed to the revolt of Texas from Mexico, and to the aid which she received from this country by the connivance of the government, we were, after her independence was an acknowledged fact, among those who, for certain political reasons, of less weight than we were led to believe, advocated her annexation to the Union. It is true, we repudiated the principles on which she and our countrymen defended her conduct, and we sought to make out a case of legality in her favor; but, nevertheless we were wrong, and