Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

a purely moral nature, such as that of the right or wrong of the measures proposed by the Administration, then was there never any period when it should have more force than at the present moment. The opinions and arguments of Clay, Gallatin, Webster, Calhoun, and others,-men of the first mark,--always valuable, is now of the utmost importance to the cause of right and of good policy; for this nation is now about resolving whether to adhere to the original grounds of the Constitution, or whether to commence a new epoch in its history, by subverting those grounds and reducing it to a mere temporary and politic formula, to be changed, wrested and distorted at pleasure, to serve the avarice or the ambition of a dominant party. The people of the Union are about to resolve whether they will admit into their fundamental law the fatal precedent of conquest, by which all the nations of antiquity were corrupted, ruined, and extinguished; a doctrine which includes and sanctions every form and degree of despotism, and which is of so evil a nature, it not only renders the peace of the world generally insecure, but insinuates itself into every part of life, produces a corrupt and tumultuous society, and is in turn produced by a dishonest and vicious life in the people themselves.

It is yet to be seen whether the public opinion of this nation is so far fallen as no longer to be called the voice of God; for we know well that then only is the voice of the people the voice of God, when it declares and enforces the laws of God; not as the executioner declares them, or as the villain who destroys another villain, or as the vicious who are strong become nstruments of vengeance on the vicious ho are weak; but as declaring their dherence to those broad and universal rinciples of humanity and equity, which, if mything human is divine, are the divinest fhuman things.

At separate times and with unlike arguBents, our most eminent citizens have arued against the scheme of conquest suported by the party in power. The argugents of Mr. Calhoun are directed against he policy of the design. He predicts fom its adoption the ruin of our present astitutions. He advocates the withdrawI of our troops and the occupation of a

defensive line upon a boundary to be determined by ourselves. He protests against the idea of extending the Union to include the wretched and barbarous Mexicans. He affirms that they are incapable of liberty, and cannot be organized like educated and disciplined white men. He contends farther against extending the power of the Executive, and predicts that the Union will not endure if the system of conquest is carried out. Mr. Calhoun does not indeed attempt to show, that a nation which violates first principles cannot endure, or be endured, o, that it follows of necessity that if a people disregards the rights and liberties of another people, it spurns down the sole barrier it has against internal oppression and anarchy; but looking at the question rather in a scientific and historical light, he predicts a disarrangement of the system of the Union, either by the introduction of uncongenial powers, should new States be erected in Mexico, or by the overbalance of the Executive power in the nation as it now stands, by the additions of conquered military dependencies and the patronage and power of a great army. To understand him better, let us for a moment contemplate our position.

Hurried on by a false enthusiasm, and the instigation of the contrivers of the war, who have turned every accident to their own advantage, to delude and excite the ignorant, and to astonish and dishearten the good, we have reached a point from which it is equally difficult to advance or to recede. Our forces occupy the forts and cities of Mexico. We have broken both the military and the civil arm of our neighbor, and annihilated the little that remained to her of a regular government. The poor and half savage inhabitants, a corrupt, feeble people, weak in intellect and weak in courage, cannot organize themselves for any effectual resistance.

The question now arises, what shall be done with Mexico? and to this, in answer, three distinct plans are offered.

The first is, to persevere in conquering and subduing, until the whole people are in our hands, and at our mercy; to reduce them to the condition of vassals, and then offer them the liberty of forming States to be finally taken into the Union.

The second proposition is, to fix upon a new boundary, to be determined by our

selves; to withdraw the troops from Mexico and to occupy that line, until such time as a peace can be established.

or subject to good advice and abiding by a just conduct. Israel, Egypt, Rome, Tyre, England, France-these names have an individual character, as of moral beings, capable of right and wrong. The nations are land-owners-possessors of the soil of the globe, each with its boundaries and rights; and whichever of them dares forget its character as a moral agent, becomes the enemy of the rest. The Law of Nations is the equity used in the fraternity of nations; it differs not from the fundamental equity of society. Its first principles are, liberty and equality; all the nations that enter into its League are free nations, holding, as such, equal rights before the law, and entitled to an equal representation in a court of International Law, were such a court to be established. This law arose from the contemplation of rights between individuals, in free States. Despotical States neither originated, nor do they abide by it. Witness the division of Poland, and the ravages committed by Alge

The third is, to retire behind the old boundary, giving up northern California and all the territory offered to be ceded to us by the Mexican commissioners, maintaining only such military posts as may defend us against marauders and guerilleros. Mr. Calhoun does not allude to this third proposition. It is entertained by those only who reason against the acquisition of new territory upon abstract principles, who do not believe in the ability of the Union to maintain itself over a territory much larger than that which it holds at present. And yet it is hard to perceive any reason why an hundred States such as Ohio, or Massachusetts, should not hold together as well as thirteen, or twentyfive. The solidity of the Union depends upon the unanimity of the States which compose it; and that unanimity is maintained by likeness of character. Likeness of character will make all alike and har-rine and Turkish despots: it was impossimonious; and were the whole continent occupied by the original race of the old Colonies, it could not but be one vast Union. We dare not, therefore, oppose the extension of the territory of this nation by every just means, for it is our desire to see it grow in numbers and in power to the utmost that the bounds of nature will allow. The nation may as lawfully desire to extend its limits as the citizen his private bounds; nor can any objection be urged against the one, not valid against the other. The nations of the world are a community of nations. They have their properties, as individuals have theirs. The boundaries of these properties may be extended by all lawful means; and if one nation is able to occupy more than anoth-ity and liberty. We have not yet set er, none need complain. What is theirs, is theirs. Nor was it ever doubted that one nation could purchase territory of another. Purchase implies property-all the conditions of "yours and mine "-just as in private bargains. If one nation attempts to wrest land from another, resistance is a matter of course, and justified in all histories. A nation is treated by all historians, but especially by the sacred chroniclers, as if it were an individual, with but one head and one heart, doing

t, or doing wrong, misled by passion, |

ble for these States to originate International Law, right and wrong with them being determined by the event, or rather. not inquired about. In this knowledge of right and wrong, of mine and thine, or in other words, of the conditions of liberty and equality, the basis of common and international law, the fathers wished to form the Constitution, and not in the vague idea that the Union would last so long as the territory of the States was kept within certain limits.

Even now, then, it is a consolation to know, that while a vestige of a government remains in Mexico, a peace may be concluded, such as shall not violate the laws of nations, or the principles of equal

the seal of the nation to any violation of the fundamental law of the nation. the grounds of the Constitution are ne yet destroyed by any deliberate act of the whole people; and if an unhapp necessity shall compel us to occupy the territory originally offered us by Mexic through her commissioners, we have st left the miserable pretext of indemnity and purchase, to save the honor of ou principles.

Our credit is not wholly lost. We have inflicted a dreadful wound upon our we

neighbor, but we have so far recovered a just temper of mind, as to refrain from trampling upon an injured and brokenspirited people, or from insulting them and the world with offers of liberty and the extension of free institutions. As we have been unjust and violent, even for that very reason we may be the more magnanimous. The most judicious have inclined, however, to think that we have no prospect of a present peace with Mexico; that a change of rulers will be necessary to secure one. They, therefore, occupy themselves with discussing the alternatives of the entire conquest and occupation of Mexico, or the occupation of a defensive line, to be assumed by us as a line of

division.

It is in favor of a defensive line, to be fixed by ourselves, that the distinguished Senator from South Carolina has taken his stand, in a speech not unworthy of himself, or of his reputation: as the occasion, so was the argument; grand, weighty, momentous, and developing the very heart and substance of that system which he has formed to himself, out of the public and private experience of his life. Versed equally in the real and the written history of nations, and observing in their rise and decline, the action of irresistible circumstances, he predicts boldly, that as States have hitherto fallen, so they must continue to fall, through a neglect of the policy to which they owed their rise. The Senator is no fatalist, no predestinarian; his faith in cause and effect is absolute. It is evident to him, that the moral diseases of states are no less real or fatal than those of the body; that a nation which deserts its original policy rushes to as certain decay and disorganization as a man who deserts his first principles.

"Mr. President, there are some propositions too clear for argument, and before such a body as the Senate, I should consider it a loss of time to undertake to prove that to incorporate Mexico would be hostile to, and in conflict with our free popular institutions, and in the end subversive of them.

"Sir, he who knows the American Constitation well-he who has daily studied its character-he who has looked at history, and knows what has been the effect of conquests on free states invariably, will require no proof at my hands to show that it would be entirely hostile to the institutions of the country, to

hold Mexico as a province. There is not an example on record of any free state even having attempted the conquest of any territory approaching the extent of Mexico without disastrous consequences. The free nations conquered have in time conquered the conquerors. That will be our case, sir. The conquest of Mexico would add so vast an amount to the patronage of this government, that it would absorb the whole power of the States of the and the States mere subordinate corporations. Union. This Union would become imperial,

"But the evil will not end there. The process will go on. The same process by which the power would be transferred from the States to the Union, will transfer the whole from this department of the government (I speak of the legislature) to the Executive. All the added power and added patronage which conquest will create, will pass to the Executive. In the end you put in the hands of the Executive the power of conquering you. You give to it, sir, such splendor, such means, that the principle of proscription which unfortunately prevails in our country will be greater at every presidential dure. The end of it will be, that that branch election than our institutions can possibly enof the government will become all-powerful, and the result is inevitable-anarchy and despotism. It is as certain as that I am this day addressing the Senate.

"Sir, let it not be said that Great Britain furnishes an example to the contrary. **** Let it be remembered that of all governments whatever to liberty, the English governthat ever existed affording any protection ment far transcends them all in that respect. She can bear more patronage in proportion to her population and wealth than any government of that form that ever existed; nay, to go farther, than can despotism in its lowest form. I will not go into the philosophy of this. That would take me farther from the track than I

desire.

"But I will say in a very few words, it results from the fact that her Executive and her conservative branch of the legislature are both hereditary. The Roman government may have exceeded and did exceed the British government in its power for conquest; but no people ever did exist, and probably never will exist, with such a capacity for conquest as that people. But the capacity of Rome to hold subjected provinces, was as nothing compared to that of Great Britain, and hence, as soon as the Roman power passed from Italy beyond the Adriatic on one side, and the Alps on the other, and the Mediterranean, their liberty fell prostrate-the Roman people became a rabble-corruption penetrated everywhere, and violence and anarchy ruled the day. Now, we see England with dependent provinces not less numerous, scarcely not less populous, I believe, though I have not examined the records; we see her going on

[ocr errors]

without any serious danger to the govern

ment.

"Yet the English have not wholly escaped. Although they have retained their liberty and have not fallen into anarchy and despotism, yet we behold the population of England crushed to the earth by the superincumbent weight of debt. Reflecting on that government, I have often thought that there was only one way in which it could come to an end-that the weight of the pediment would crush it. Look at the neighboring island of Ireland, and instead of finding in her identity, we find that England has to support her out of her laboring and vigorous population-out of her vast machinery and capital, and keep up a peace establishment almost beyond her means. Shall we, with these certain and inevitable consequences in a government better calculated to resist them than any other, adopt such a ruinous policy, and reject the lessons of experience? So much then, Mr. President, for holding Mexico as a province."

"There are some propositions," says the distinguished Senator, "too clear for argument, and before such a body as the Senate, I should consider it a loss of time to undertake to prove, that to incorporate Mexico would be hostile to, and in conflict with, our free popular institutions:" but he is here addressing the Senate of the United States, which is the representative body of all the States; can any man doubt the sincerity of the remark? Does not the veteran statesman know the sentiments of that august body? Let us then entertain no fears that Mexico will be seized upon and annexed, for we have his word for it, that the Senate know that such an act would be at variance with the spirit and genius of this nation.

The Senator speaks for the nation, in its past, its present and its future; he declares the law that governs the destiny of Republics, but the grandeur of his argument is somewhat diminished by a necessary distinction between the polity of the nation and the polity of individual States.

"The next reason which my resolutions assign, is, that it is without example or precedent, either to hold Mexico as a province, or to incorporate her into our Union. No example of such a line of policy can be found. We bave conquered many of the neighboring tribes of Indians, but we never thought of holding them in subjection-never of incorporating them into our Union. I know farther, sir, that we have never dreamt of incorporating into Union any but the Caucasian race-the

free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of incorpora ting an Indian race, for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is com- | posed chiefly of mixed tribes.

"I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the government of the white man. The greatest misfortunes of Spanish America are to be traced to the fatal error of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race. That error destroyed the social arrangement which formed the basis of society. The Portuguese and ourselves have escapedthe Portuguese at least to some extent and we are the only people on this continent which have made revolutions without anarchy. And yet it is professed and talked about to erect those Mexicans into a territorial government, and place them on an equality with the people of the United States. I protest utterly against such a project.

"Sir, it is a remarkable fact, that in the whole history of man, as far as my knowledge civilized colored races being found equal to the extends, there is no instance whatever of any establishment of popular rights, although by far the largest portion of the human family is composed of these races. And even in the savage state we scarcely find them anywhere with equal government, except it be our noble savages-for noble I will call them. They for the most part had free institutions, but they are easily sustained amongst a savage people. Are we to overlook this fact? Are we to associate with ourselves as equals, companions, and fellow-citizens, the Indians and half-breeds of Mexico? Sir, I should consider such a thing as fatal to our institutions."

It is the settled policy of a majority of this nation to recognize no political differences among men, excepting those which necessarily arise from age, sex, and mental sanity, and it is an equally established policy of a minority, to regard no race as capable of liberty but the Caucasian or white race. Because liberty did not originate with the nation as a whole, but was first recognized and established in the individual States, they were regarded-and must be regarded as the defenders and sources of private liberty; nor was the Constitution itself formed by slaves,-its authors were the freemen of the nation, and they could extend it to whom they pleased. And yet, the number of persons of other races to whom liberty has been granted by the States has been too small for a satisfactory proof that they are capable of liberty. It is not yet proved that Republican institutions can exist even

in all white nations of the Caucasian tribe; and of that tribe, which embraces a vast portion of the human race, only here and there a free nation, inconsiderable in numbers but powerful in character and intelligençe, has been able to establish liberty. But, leaving untouched the question of the capability of various races, we know that republican institutions are the most difficult of all others to be preserved, because they rest upon a certain moral superiority of the people, or rather of the majority of the people, which appears in their Constitutions, their Manners, and their Religion. It has never happened in any age that a stupid, cowardly, and faithless nation have attained to permanent freedom. Free institutions are not proper to the white man, therefore, but to the courageous, upright and moral man; and if a race of mongrels or negroes, educated so far as to organize a society, were found to have these qualities, it could not be denied that they were capable of free institutions. We, a nation derived from the Saxon, Norman and Celtic races, claim to be capable of liberty, because we and our ancestors have always discovered more or less of the republican virtues-and for no other reason-not inquiring whether those virtues were an immediate gift of Heaven, or a natural inheritance, or an effect of education. The framers of the Constitution did not extend liberty to the enslaved colored population of the States: the liberation of slaves was a right which all the States, whether of the North or South, reserved for their private exercise, to hasten, delay, or refuse, at their private pleasure. The slave must be freed before he could sustain a relation of freedom to the Nation itself, and his liberty lay in the gift of his master, and of the Individual State.

It is necessary, therefore, to protest against this doctrine of the Senator, that ours is the government" (solely) "of the white man," for by the admission of this doctrine he would deny to the Individual States that great power to confer liberty and free suffrage upon whom they pleased, be they Indian, African, or mongrel, according to the Sovereign Will of the people. This government is not merely a government of the white man, but of whomsoever the Individual State shall see fit to make free.

Amid these reflections suggested by the Senator, himself a great example of republican and native virtue, one is startled by the following remarks:

"It has been the work of fortunate circumstances or a combination of circumstances, a succession of fortunate incidents of some kind, which give to any people a free government. It is a very difficult task to make a Constitution to last, though it may be supposed by some that they can be made to order and furnished at the shortest notice. Sir, this admirable Constitution of our own was the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances. It was superi

or to the wisdom of the men who made it. It was the force of circumstances which induced

them to adopt many of its wise provisions. Well, sir, of the few nations who have had the good fortune to adopt self-government, few have had the good fortune long to preserve that government; for it is harder to preserve than to form it. Few people, after years of prosliberty is held; and I fear, Senators, that is our perity, remember the tenure by which their own condition; I fear that we shall continue to involve ourselves until our own system becomes

a ruin."

This observation of the Senator, that our admirable Constitution was the work of fortunate circumstances; that it stands, so to speak, in the palm of fortune, to be cast down as it was raised up, at her pleasure; agrees better with the rhetoric of a military adventurer, than of a grave and wise legislator. Nor does it add the least force to that prediction of the destiny of this Union, uttered in the same breath with it. Predictions, if they be not inspired, to gain respect, must rest upon a knowledge of history and of the laws that govern human events; if we believe that fortune presides over those events, it shows more vanity than discretion in us, to predict their issue, or even to raise a finger to control them. But it is not so: the agents in the affairs of men are themselves men, or rather the passions and the reason of men; and those who predict their course, predict from their estimate of the force of passion and reason in men themselves, be they a legislative body or a nation. Had not the Senator known this, he would not have ventured to predict the fall of this Union. Was it by a mighty and incommunicable logic, that he ventured in the same breath to predict the fall of our institutions, and declare them the work of happy accidents?

« AnteriorContinuar »