Russia, in order to prevent her from hindering the opening of the canal across the Isthmus of Suez. It would be worth to France, who of course means to hold Constantinople, and annex southern and central Italy, far more than the cost of the Russian war. England may yet see cause to regret the French alliance of which she seems so fond, but which must gall severely her proud heart. But be all this as it may, Central America is the commercial pivot of this continent, and it is idle to think that England will help us open a ship canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Such a canal, if practicable, will have to be opened by American capital, American skill, and American enterprise, not to our own commerce only, but to the commerce of all nations. We want no exclusive advantages; the natural advantages of our position are sufficient for us. It was a great blunder on the part of General Taylor's cabinet to reject the excellent treaty concluded with Nicaragua by Mr. Squiers. Had that treaty been submitted to the senate and ratified, it would have secured to us all we ask, and greatly abridged our controversies with Great Britain. Now the matter will not be settled without difficulty; yet settled it will be, and in our favor, and without war, if our government only maintains its attitude of firmness and determination. England, important as the question is to her, cannot afford to go to war with us for its settlement. We should be the last person in the world to urge the government to take advantage of England's embarrassments to obtain any thing from her not strictly just; but we certainly would urge it to take advantage of them to obtain a just settlement of all our difficul ties with her, and to gain that security for our trade which is necessary.

There are some other things which we might complain of. We are not much pleased with the treaty which France and England have entered into with Spain, guarantying to her the possession of Cuba against us. A portion of the residents, not always natives, of this country have, we grant, certain filibustering proclivities, and pay little respect to that precept of the Decalogue, which forbids us to covet our neighbor's property. We do not defend these, and we offer no apology for them. But the charge brought against us by the British press of being an aggressive people, except in the legitimate way of trade and industry, happens totally unfounded. Our government has never admitted conquest to be a valid title, and certain it is, that we hold

to be

not one foot of territory by that title. We may have made good or bad bargains, but we hold not an inch of territory that we have not purchased either from the aborigines, or from foreign governments who held the right of domain. We can show the title-deeds of every inch of territory over which we claim the right to extend our laws, which is what no other nation on earth can do. We have greatly extended our territory, we grant, but in no instance by conquest. We obtained the Louisiana territory from France, but by purchase from her sovereign; we have obtained Florida from Spain, but by purchase; we have obtained California, New Mexico, and the Mesilla Valley from the Mexican republic, but also by purchase; we have annexed Texas, but Texas was an independent republic, acknowledged to be such by both France and England, and we annexed her by her free consent, and indeed at her own request, not by conquest. We enter not into the merits of the controversy between Texas and Mexico, or into the conduct of individuals from the United States and other countries who took an active part in asserting Texan independence, for at the time of the annexation Texas was an independent state, and we had the right to treat with her as such. It is well known that she was admitted into the Union by treaty, by the joint act of the two governments, not by the act of ours alone. We committed no aggression on Mexico, for Texas was no part of Mexico; we committed none on Texas, for we only complied with her request, and in admitting her into the Union we admitted her on terms of perfect equality with the other states. We did not subjugate her, or force her into an unequal union, as England in 1800 did Ireland.

The territorial aggression we are charged with does not exist, has never existed, for we acquire and have acquired no territory by force. We govern not a single inch of territory, or a single individual by right of conquest, and no portion of our people is in the position of a conquered or subjugated people. The population acquired with our acquisitions of territory from France, Spain, Mexico, Texas, are American citizens, and possess equal rights with the rest. The French or Spanish creole is an American as much as the descendant of the pilgrim fathers of Massachusetts or Maryland, and stands on a footing of perfect equality with him. Where, then, is our territorial aggression? Where, then, is our disposition to dismember or oppress our weaker

VOL. XVI-31

neighbors? We may have committed faults, we may have connived at transactions which we could not in strict justice defend; but there is no state in the history of the world that, in its relations with foreign powers, and the populations of other states, can compare with us either in the justice or the generosity of our dealings. If we have annexed by treaty or purchase foreign territory, we have extended over it the protection of our laws; if we have acquired a foreign population, we have given them equal rights with ourselves. What other nation can say as much? Can England say as much of Ireland, or of India? Can France say as much. with regard to Lorraine, Brittany, French Flanders, and Algiers? We have treated all our neighbors liberally, and we have opened our bosom to the cordial reception of exiles, refugees, and emigrants from all nations, and placed them, after a brief probation, on the same footing with ourselves. What other state ever did as much? What other people ever showed equal justice and liberality in their treatment of their neighbors and of strangers?

It will not do for foreign powers to form their estimate of us from what some of us now and then say to our own countrymen, for the purpose of elevating the standard of our morality, and provoking efforts for a higher perfection. More is exacted of us than of other nations, and an ardent patriotism often assumes the tone of rebuke with us, where in other nations it would assume that of applause. We tell our European friends that they do not know us, and that they form a very wrong estimate of us. We are not all that we should be. We have many vices, many false notions, and many dangerous tendencies; we admit it, and deplore it but these things are chiefly dangerous to ourselves, and no foreign state has the right to rebuke us. In the face of foreigners, and in comparison with any other people on the globe, we are immaculate. We demand respect for this assertion, for we have amply proved that we are not blind to the faults of our countrymen, nor backward in pointing them out. When we compare our countrymen with what they might be and should be, we hang our head; but when we compare our government and its conduct with the government and conduct of other nations, we thrill with honest pride in feeling that we are an American citizen,—the most honorable title, after that of Catholic, we know on earth. We assure our friends abroad, and we are happy to think they are many, and such as it is an honor to have, that those

Americans who are most ready to tell their countrymen of their faults, are precisely those who will be the most ready to defend them when assailed by the foreigner. It is their sensitiveness to the honor and glory of their country that leads them to find fault with their countrymen, and the same sensitiveness must make them equally quick and brave to resent any insult from abroad.

Whatever filibustering proclivities a portion of our people may have had, or may still have, we have not yet fallen so low in the scale of nations as to justify the treaty of France and England with Spain to prevent their development, or to prevent us from regarding such a treaty as a national insult, very likely to defeat its own aim. We are not fallen so low as to listen to lectures on morality or international law from the English press, especially from the London Times, which is independent only in its recklessness and inconsistency; which advocates and opposes by turns all sides of the same question, and which is as remarkable for its moral obliquity as for its pompous arrogance. We are not among the enemies of Great Britain, nor among those who would like to see her reduced to a second or third rate power. Our personal feelings towards her, as is natural, are kindly rather than otherwise. We wish her great and prosperous. The world is wide enough for her and us too. We do not like her government of Ireland, but we see not how Ireland would gain by becoming independent of her; we do not like her rule in India, but we see no public advantage that would result to the people of India by the substitution of some other power for hers. We see nothing that the world, as things now go, would gain by a dismemberment of her empire. Her downfall would pull down with it more than we care to contemplate. She has yet a mission among the nations to fulfil, and we are not among those who think she has passed into her decline, although we think she has reached the zenith of her power. But we

place our own country in our affections far before her, and must defend it, whatever be the consequences to her. If she is wise, she will resign herself to the growth of our republic and the expansion of our trade and industry. In attempting to head us off, or to interpose obstacles to our natural extension, she will not materially check us, but will hasten the day when she must share the fate of Tyre and Carthage. That day will come, unless she returns to the bosom of Catholic unity; but a wise and just policy with

regard to this country may delay it for a long time. Now she and we are rivals but not enemies, and it depends on her whether we continue so or not. There was a day when we were extremely sensitive to the judgment entertained of us by England and Englishmen, when the old feeling of colonial dependence was not yet worn off. We, in fact, looked up to her as our superior, and in many respects as our model. We were wounded by her sarcasms, and disturbed by her frown. But that day has gone by. We laugh now at things. which used to vex us, and the arrogant tone, in which John Bull indulges a little too much, now amuses instead of irritating us. The reason of this is, that we feel that we have grown to man's estate, and are really a powerful nation. We are conscious of our strength. We no longer regard England as our superior. We have no impatience to try our strength with her, for we feel that we are able to defend ourselves. Peace is therefore easily maintained between the two states, and will be interrupted only by the attempt of England to grasp advantages which it does not comport with our interest to yield her. Her wisest way is quietly to withdraw from Central America, and to forbear to intervene between us and Spain. She must do it sooner or later, and the sooner and with the better grace she does it, the more will it be to her honor and to her interest. We speak not thus because we think lightly of the English military and naval power, for we do not so think; nor because we think very highly, in its actual state, of our own; for we have no army or navy that is really worth counting, save as the nucleus of an army and navy to be formed. But Great Britain is essentially a manufacturing and commercial nation, and commerce makes at once her strength and her weakness. She is weaker in a war with us than with any other nation, because we are the largest consumers of her manufactures, and the largest producer of the raw material that supplies them, and which she cannot obtain from any other source. Here is what constitutes her weakness towards us, and our strength towards her. A war between the two nations would interrupt the trade between them, and this interruption we could endure, but she could not for any great length of time.

This trade is, no doubt, of mutual advantage. It is profitable to us, and it is profitable to Great Britain. It has built up New York and Liverpool. But it is of less vital consequence to us than to her. With our ingenious