Political Portraits with Pen and Pencil. Charles H. Haswell. Phaedon; Or, The Immortality of the Soul. 59, 124, 225 398 Translated from the Ger- man of Moses Mendelssohn. River and Harbor Improvements. The Mexican War-Its Origin, its Justice and its Consequences. 1st. The Post-Office. Annual Report to Congress of the Postmaster-General. The Broken Heart. By Mrs. Anna Lewis.-(Concluded.) 483 1, 106 18 33 45 48 The Rhode Island Question-Sovereignty of the People. The Present Reforms of Pope Pius IX., and their Effect upon the Roman 301 The Children of France. From the French of Beranger. The East and West. By the Editor of the "Herald of Truth," Cincinnati. 401 The Vine and the Oak. By Ellis Lewis, of Pennsylvania. THE MEXICAN WAR-ITS ORIGIN, ITS JUSTICE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.* THE capture of the Mexican capital by the forces of the United States, after an uninterrupted succession of a dozen splendid victories, having failed to produce a treaty of peace, the attention, not only of the people of the United States, but of the whole civilized world, has been turned to the origin, justice, and probable consequences of the sanguinary war now pending between the two leading republics of the world. The nations of Europe behold with astonishment the flag of the United States waving in triumph over every considerable city, from the Rio Grande to California, and from the supposed impregnable Castle of San Juan de Ulloa to the halls of the Montezumas. The Mexican statesmen and generals with equal surprise, discover that all hope of European intervention in their behalf has vanished, and that all the foreign aid they get consists in the advocacy of the justice of their pretensions by the leading public journals of England, and some of those on the continent. In the United States a Presidential election is approaching, and there are strong indications that one of the great political parties of the country are disposed to risk the issue of the contest upon the question of the propriety of the conduct of the present administration in the controversy which led to the war, and the terms upon which a peace should be offered to a country already subdued, in all but its pride and its obstinacy. Already three distinguished statesmen, whose talents have done honor to their country, Messrs. Webster, Clay, and Gallatin, have publicly denounced the war as unjust, adopted the leading arguments of the Mexicans in the whole controversy, and appealed to the people at large to sustain them in their views. Other statesmen of distinction, without admitting their country in the wrong, appear satisfied with the chastisement administered to the enemy, and are proposing to drop the war and withdraw our forces, as though vindictiveness had been the only motive for its prosecution. At such a crisis, we feel constrained by the impulses of national patriotism, and a proper regard to the impartial truth of history, to devote a portion of our columns to the subject, not for the purpose of eulogising the President and his cabinet, but to place before the world the true merits of the controversy not between Mr. Polk and his political adversaries, but the United States and Mexico. We are no advocates of war, nor indifferent spectators of human blood and carnage; but on the contrary, look upon all wars as the greatest of ca 1st. Annual Message of the President of the United States. 2d. Speech of Hon. Daniel Webster, Oct. 2, 1847. 3d. Speech of Hon. Henry Clay, at Lexington, in 1847. 4th. Address of Hon. Albert Gallatin to the people of the United States. lamities with which nations are liable to be visited, not excepting "pestilence and famine." We would therefore be the last to palliate, much less to excuse or justify, the conduct of those charged with the administration of any government, who should wilfully or needlessly involve their country in hostilities, with or without just cause of war, as against their antagonist. But while we would hold the rulers of nations to the strictest moral accountability in this respect, we are free to confess that as long as human nature remains unchanged, wars must sometimes be inevitable, and that those charged with their commencement, prosecution, and termination, are placed in the most awfully responsible situation that can be conceived; and one entitled to the most deliberate, careful, and charitable consideration of their countrymen and the world at large, before a judgment of condemnation shall be pronounced against them. The individuals administering the government for the time being, are entitled to such dispassionate consideration, in forming a judgment upon their conduct, the propriety of which, however, does not always depend upon the issue in dispute between the nation and its antagonist. The latter should be examined as a strict matter of right between the two nations; and it may often be found that one is altogether wrong in the controversy, and still, that the other has inconsiderately or rashly commenced hostilities without using sufficient efforts to conciliate and preserve peace, thereby subjecting the government to the censure of its own countrymen, but not at all to the imputation of injustice to its adversary. We are not politicians by trade, and do not care about the personal success of mere party leaders, whether Whigs or Democrats; but we are American citizens, and do feel a deep and lasting interest in whatever affects the character of our nation, in the judgment and estimation of foreign countries, and we cannot and we will not remain silent, while leading statesmen of high character are openly putting forth arguments in favor of our enemy's pretensions, and giving color to their position by pointing to those acts of our government, which, if not justifiable, were committed, not against the Mexicans, but their own country. If our President has violated his duty in commencing hostilities, without a declaration of war by Congress, it was nothing to the Mexicans, who have nothing to do with the division of powers amongst the different departments of our government. Whatever has been done, has been ratified and adopted by the nation. The question is, has the nation been right or wrong, as regards Mexico, in the acts which led to the war? It may be material, but certainly is not very important, which party may be said to have began the war. The great question which the nations of the world and posterity are to decide, is, which nation was right in its pretensions? To this question we wish to call the attention of our readers, and we ask from them a candid consideration of it, before they determine to enlist their political zeal in the matter, and make an important question between two great nations the turning point in a party controversy at home. Mexico, with all its degeneracy and anarchy, has not found a statesman or public man of any character, to argue in favor of the positions of its enemy in this controversy; but we have been found to argue for them. Is it because our people are more magnanimous than they, or that the justice of their side of the question is so clear that a whole nation can see it, and even many of our own people, in spite of their interest, their pride, and their patriotism? It is natural enough that the masses of the people of both countries should think their own rulers more right, upon a question involving so much doubt, that, with all the keenness and sagacity of statesmen and politicians, each believed they could justify themselves to the world. and posterity, for the positions they respectively assumed; but it is passing strange, that the talented and distinguished men of either country, should be willing, much less anxious, whatever might be their doubts in the matter, to exert their powers and enlist their zeal in attempting to convince the world of the soundness of their enemies' arguments. In a free country, however, where those in power can be displaced whenever the public are satisfied they are going wrong, it will often happen that politicians, in the heat of their zeal, will be induced to view the arguments of their country's enemies with more favor than those of their political opponents in office at the time, which are in the way of their own ambitious aspirations, forgetting that their country, and their whole country, and not merely the administration and its party, must suffer the odium, whenever the nation is placed in the wrong upon a national question. The great masses, however, of all parties, have no interest in the mere success of any individual, and on a national question are disposed to say with Scylla of old, "let us first conquer the enemies of Rome, and settle our own differences amongst ourselves afterwards." But to the question. Has this war been produced by the wrongful acts, claims, and pretensions of Mexico, or those of the United States? It has been said, that "the primary cause of the war was the annexation of Texas, the immediate cause, the advance of the army of the United States to the Rio Grande;" and, as both these were the acts of the United States, and not of Mexico, if the proposition be correct, it follows that the United States have caused the war; and the natural inference would seem to be, that they were wholly wrong in the matter. It might, perhaps, with as much justice be said, that the primary cause of the war was the obstinacy of Mexico in mulishly refusing to acknowledge the independence of Texas for ten years after she achieved it, during which, with a single exception in 1842, no blow was struck nor shot fired by Mexico in the fierce war she waged against her little revolted province, by proclamations, manifestoes, and pronunciamentos, solely, while the actual independence of the little rebel existed, and was acknowledged by the other principal nations of the world; and the immediate cause was the murder of Col. Cross, and the attack on Capt. Thornton and his party by the Mexicans. If neither of these causes had existed, surely there would have been no war. Neither of these propositions, however, appears very satisfactorily to answer the question-what was the true cause of the war? Mexico has all along insisted she had cause of complaint against us, prior to the annexation of Texas, and the substratum of all her arguments is, that citizens of the United States intruded themselves as settlers into Texas, and thereby created and diffused an American feeling, which led to insubordination, rebellion, and finally to annexation of a Mexican province to their former country. It was never pretended, however, that the government of the United States ever did anything to encourage emigration to Texas; and as every citizen possessed the right of emigration, it was not within the power, much less the duty of the government, to have prevented it. Mexico might, if she had ever had any jurisdiction or control of Texas, have prevented a single citizen of the United States or son of the Anglo Saxon race from settling in Texas; but so far from doing do so, she expressly invited and encouraged the emigration in question. When she attempted to resistit in 1833, the states of Coahuila, and Texas and Tamaulipas adhered to their constitutional rights, openly refused to regard the decrees of the dictatorial government of Central Mexico, and no such desires had any force in those states. When the treaty between the United States and Mexico, settling the Sabine as the boundary, was ratified in 1832, the central government had no possession or jurisdiction whatever on the east of the Bravo; but in any part of the states above mentioned, and from that time to the declaration of Texan independence, it never had any such possession, unless the invasions of Coss and Santa Anna, both of which were repelled, can be called possession. This cause of complaint was then a mere pretence. Texas being settled by those who, wherever they came from, brought with them the rights of men, finding their lawful federal and state governments annihilated by the usurped military power of Santa Anna, formed themselves into a state, and declared their independence. The United States government stood entirely a neutral spectator of the deadly war waged by the superior power of the Mexican dictator against the infant state, which dared to erect the standard of independence, till they conquered the Mexican army, captured its President, and drove every armed Mexican from their borders. After once having declined to acknowledge the independence of Texas, on account of the short period since its first declaration, at a later day, finding it an independent state de facto, the United States and other nations acknowledged it to be This also Mexico complained of, and had more reason to consider offensive to her than the subsequent annexation of the acknowledged country to the United States, which was only acting upon the idea of its actual independence. so. If there had not been just ground for this acknowledgment, that of itself would have been good cause of war by Mexico against all nations making it. If the United States had acknowledged the independence of the Canadian Patriots, (as they were called,) when they were in possession of Navy Island, under the standard of independence, Great Britain would not have hesitated long to have pronounced it good cause of war. It was not a people, but a few scattered fragments of a people who had set up their standard; and the acknowledgment would have been contrary to the truth of the case. In the case of Texas, the fact was otherwise; and Mexican pretension did not dare to pronounce it a cause of war. For the satisfaction of those who think this acknowledgment wrong, we refer to the speech of Henry Clay, in the House of Representatives in 1818, on a motion to insert an appropriation for a Minister to Buenos Ayres, in which he urged the acknowledgment of the independence of every one of the Spanish provinces as fast as independent governments should be set up, and insisted that Spain could not justly complain of the same. From the time of our acknowledgment of Texas as independent, Mexico has been alternately complaining to our government and threatening war, on the ground that many of our citizens availed themselves of their constitutional right of emigration and removed to Texas, and that some of them openly procured arms and munitions of war in this country, to be used against Mexico after they should arrive in Texas. This was the substance of the complaint to our government, by the letter of Senor Bocanegra, to which our then Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, replied, on the 8th of July, 1842. with a statesman-like dignity and fearlessness, which did him great credit, fully vindicating the United States from every charge preferred against it, and annihilating all the arguments of Bocanegra. He showed Mexico in the wrong in the whole Texas controversy, demonstrated that the United States were not bound to interfere with the trade of its citizens with Texas, by prohibiting the sending thither of arms or munitions of war, any more than to prohibit trade in the contraband articles with Mexico or any other nation; that the government were not responsible for the sympathies of our citizens with a kindred people, struggling to maintain their independence against fearful odds, and had no right to prevent individuals from giving pecuniary aid to Texas or Mexico; that our citizens had done the same for Mexico in the time of her revolution, without giving offence to Spain. |