MEXICO.

Had the question been asked, forty years ago, what country, beside our

own, possesses the greatest natural advantages, and gives the best

promise of future growth and prosperity, very likely the answer would

have been, Mexico, which had then just thrown off the Spanish yoke and

achieved national independence. Cast aside for a moment all modern

ideas, derived from her known weakness and anarchy, and see how great

and manifold those apparent advantages and prospects were.

Situated where the continent of North America is narrowing from the

immense breadths of the United States and British America to that thread

of communication between continents, the Isthmus of Panama, on the one

side its shores are washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico for more

than sixteen hundred miles, and on the other by the tranquil Pacific for

four thousand more. Yet the distance from her great eastern port, Vera

Cruz, to the old Spanish treasure-depot, Acapulco, on the western coast,

was not, as the bird flies, more than three hundred miles: a distance

scarcely greater than that from Boston to New York, and which, with

modern means of transit, might be traversed between sunrise and sunset.

Thus with one hand she seemed ready to grasp the wealth of the Indies,

while with the other she welcomed all the products of European skill.

This wonderful geographical advantage had, indeed, been rendered futile

in the past by the jealous spirit and the exclusive enactments of her

oppressor. But what might not be hoped in the future from a free people,

quickened into fresh life by the breath of liberty?

Then the marvellous resources of every description which Nature had

crowded into her soil. Perhaps there is not on the whole earth another

strip of country, extending north and south only a thousand miles and

varying in width from one to five hundred miles, where side by side are

all climates and all their products. On the coasts the land is low, hot,

vaporous, and luxuriant,--the native home of the richest tropical

growths. Travel inland but a few leagues, and you rise to a greater

elevation, and find yourself beneath almost Italian skies and inhaling

Italian airs; while all around is a new vegetation,--the vine, the

olive, the tobacco, the banana, itself perhaps the most prolific and

nourishing of all plants, and which, on the space where Indian corn

would sustain but three human lives, will nourish with its free bounty

more than fifty. A few miles more, and you stand on that great plateau,

elevated with but little variation six or seven thousand feet above the

level of the sea, and stretching on every side we know not over how many

hundred thousands of square miles. There, under the tropics and beneath

a tropical sun, is a temperate atmosphere, cool, salubrious, and

bracing. There, almost within sight of the deadly miasma of the coast,

is a new climate, which deals kindly even with a European constitution.

There all the great cereals of the North, the wheat, the barley, the

corn, come to their most luxuriant perfection. And so it is literally

true, that, travelling a few hundred miles from Gulf to Ocean, you pass

through more climates and see a wider variety of vegetation than if you

traversed our whole country from the great lakes in the North to the

southernmost cape of Florida. Nay, so striking is this contact of the

zones, that in that table-land itself are, it is said, deep valleys,

where with one glance the eye may behold far up the deep shades of the

pine, while below waves the feathery grace of the palm,--or where one

may walk amid familiar waving grain, and see beneath him, descending in

beautiful gradation, the corn, the olive, the sugar-cane, down to depths

where a torrid clime lavishes its full wealth of verdure.

Here, too, is the true Ophir; here, the rivers that roll down their

yellow sands. For here are the veins of gold that attracted the Spaniard

with his fatal greed, and the mines of silver that for three hundred

years have been yielding untold treasures, and to-day are as ready as

ever to yield untold treasures more. With such germs of wealth hidden in

her soil, what was needed to make Mexico one of the master-nations but

men? What, to crowd her ports with ships, to make her borders pleasant

with the hum of industry, and to fill her storehouses with its products,

but the same sagacity and energy which have made the sterile hills of

New England populous, and which are now transforming the prairies of the

West into one broad cornfield? Was it surprising, then, that fifty years

ago men were dreaming great things of Mexico?

And it will not be denied that into men's estimate of her future some

elements of romance entered, to blind their eyes and to distort their

judgment. This was the land of Cortes and Montezuma. Here it was that

the Spaniard, fresh from the conquest of fair Granada, found in the

depths of the New World a barbarian civilization which mocked the pomp

and luxury of the Moor. Here, on these plains, beneath these mountains,

on the bosom of these tranquil lakes, was transacted that marvellous

episode in history, which, on the pages of Prescott, looks like the

creations of the fabled Genii. Here an aboriginal race rose to more than

aboriginal splendor; and here, beneath the conqueror's heel, they sank

to unsounded depths of misery and servitude. He must have a prosaic

nature to whom the memories and associations of such a land do not come

glowing with the warm flush of sentiment and romance.

There was much, too, in the long and bitter struggle by which this

people were winning their independence, which appealed to the sympathy

of men who had just achieved their own freedom. Very likely, as we read

now the history of that struggle,--as we see how little of any broad and

generous patriotism entered into it,--as we mark how every step was

stained with blood and darkened by cruel passions,--as we behold on

every field the selfish ambition of petty men taking the place of the

self-devotion of great souls, it will not look heroic. But it did once.

Men saw it from afar off. They beheld in it the ancient conflict between

liberty and oppression. It was the time-worn story, of men in poverty,

of men in exile, of men dying for freedom.

Thus, from one cause or another, from reasons of utility or from reasons

of sentiment and imagination, it is certain that many cherished the

highest hopes for Mexico, and saw before her a long future of rare

prosperity and honor. "It is to Mexico," writes a glowing admirer, "that

we turn and turn again with fond delight. We invoke the reader to ponder

her present position, her capacity for future greatness, the career she

has yet to commence and run. We look toward her, and we see the

day-spring of a glorious national existence arising within her bounds."

When we look at this picture, drawn by hope and fancy, and then turn to

the reality,--when we see Mexico as she is, the blankest failure of the

century,--when we run over her forty years of anarchy, with its four

constitutions and twenty-seven plans of government, with its bewildering

array of presidents and dictators that come and go until the eye is

wearied and the memory fails to preserve even their names,--when we

behold her the helpless victim of any power that chooses to assail

her,--when, in short, we compare the Mexico that is with the Mexico that

was to be,--we ask ourselves, What are the causes which have made so

many advantages worse than futile?--what fate has ordained that so much

sacrifice and so much blood should be lavished, and in vain? That is the

very question we seek to answer.

* * * * *

We begin with what is the true foundation of all national fortunes, the

character and social relations of the people. It is the profound remark

of a profound man, that "you can create no national spirit where no

nation is." That is at the root of Mexico's troubles. She is not in any

proper sense a nation. All her sufferings have not as yet moulded her

diverse elements into any real and efficient unity. Modern Mexico,

dating from the Conquest, was founded, not upon social unity, but upon

the widest social divergence. At one end of the scale, high up in luxury

and pride, was the Spanish Conqueror and oppressor. At the other, deep

down as degradation could go, the crushed and cowering descendant of the

native races. Between them the half-bloods, with the vices of both and

the virtues of neither. The Spaniard did all that he could to dig deep

and broad this gulf of separation between the classes, and to make it

perpetual. As if to stamp inequality in biting phrase upon men's speech,

he called the whites people with reason, the Indians people without

reason.

Look, then, first at the condition of the native races under this

Colonial authority. In the beginning, they were literally slaves, bound

to the withering toil of the mines. Then they became serfs, mere

appendages to estates. And when the progress of light swept away this

institution, and gave them a nominal freedom, still they were in the eye

of the law in a state of perpetual minority. They were simply grown-up

children. They were confined in villages, out of which they could not

go, and into which the white could not come. They were held to be

incapable of making contracts above a sum equal to five of our dollars.

The very men who were set to watch over their interests, by enticing

them into debts which they would not pay, changed their legal freedom

into a peonage, which was actual, and too often life-long, slavery. Says

Chevalier,--"These functionaries acquired for themselves troops of

slaves. They constituted themselves arbitrarily creditors of the Indians

by forcing them to buy, at unreasonable prices, horses, mules, and

clothing. The Indians, never being able to pay, were forced to work for

them, and this obligation to work, or, to speak more clearly, this

servitude, once contracted, was easily made perpetual." Here, then, we

have in Colonial Mexico, at the foundation of the State, the Indian,

whom oppression had made but half a man.

Just above them were the half-bloods. These were not slaves. They were

not serfs. They were not considered to be children of a larger growth.

It was expressly said of them that they were "rational people." But they

had burdens of their own. Having little social position and less

education, incapable by nature of that sullen patience which kept the

Indian from chafing under his yoke, they were both more unhappy and more

demoralized. The crimes against property, the robberies on the highway,

could for the most part be traced to the half-breeds. "Are there any

robbers on this route?" asked Baron Deffandis, as he travelled in the

North of Mexico. "Oh, no!" was the answer; "you have nothing to fear; in

this part of the country there are no rational people,"--the speaker

remaining all unconscious of the bitter satire which was hidden in his

words.

Above the half-bloods were the Creoles, the children of white parents

and born in the Colony. Even they were doomed to feel the sting of

inferiority. They had no real political liberty, and no place in the

State. No royal trust was ever committed to them. The places of public

emolument were closed against them. All were reserved for Spaniards,

born in Spain. Of fifty-six Mexican viceroys but one was a Creole, and

he a Creole of Peru. It is the boast of a Frenchman, that in his

country, in its most despotic days, the people have always had their

songs, and that their writers have dared to breathe forth their

maledictions upon the oppression which has loaded them with exactions.

But in Spain and her colonies the Inquisition weighed heavily upon free

speech, and enforced upon all the higher subjects of human thought a

silence like the grave. The Creole scarcely knew that there was any

world beyond his horizon, or that there could be a better than his empty

and barren life; or if he did know more, he must keep that knowledge in

the solitude of his own breast. All that the Spaniard vouchsafed to him

was the liberty to achieve wealth, which opened to him no career of

usefulness and distinction. At most, he loaded himself with cheap

decorations, to which there was no answering position of responsibility.

"One is surprised," says a tourist, "to see all the traders turned into

colonels and captains, and to find officers of the militia in full

uniform, and decorated with the badge of the order of Charles III.,

seated in their shops, weighing out sugar, coffee, and vanilla." But as

for any real distinction, the Creole had none. These empty titles

sufficed to separate him in feeling yet more from the great mass of his

countrymen, but they did not satisfy those aspirations for real dignity

and freedom which cannot quite die out in any breast.

We see, then, what a fatal legacy the mother-country left to her

rebellious child: four castes,--the Spaniard, hated by all; the Creole,

proud, hospitable, and brave, but by his very training incapable of

persistent energy; the half-breed, wild and untamable, a natural brigand

and guerrilla; and the Indian, subdued, sad, and patient, yet with a

drop of the fierce and cruel blood of his Aztec progenitor coursing in

his veins.

The first act in the drama of the Mexican Revolution showed how great an

obstacle to national unity this sentiment of caste was. When the priest

Hidalgo in the year 1810 raised the standard of rebellion, though the

Creole heart was throbbing almost to bursting with the desire for

freedom, yet the Creole population nearly in a body sided with the

Government. Do you ask why? The answer is simple. Hidalgo's followers

were Indians. And all through that prolonged struggle of ten years under

Morelos, Vittoria, Teran, and countless other partisan leaders, even to

that hour when the rebellion was extinguished in its own blood, it was

the Creole who stood between the Spaniard and destruction, and who,

through his fear and jealousy of the native races, was the accomplice in

binding heavier chains on his own limbs. When in 1820 the revolt passed

out of the hand of the Indian into that of the native white, the

struggle was over. The hundred thousand foreigners were impotent, when

they stood alone.

We do not say that this jealousy and dislike have not been greatly

modified by the lapse of years and by the endurance of common

sufferings. No doubt there has been a great improvement. There would be

small hope for the country, if it were not so. But these feelings have

not by any means been altogether eradicated. An intelligent writer, as

lately as last year, speaking of the difficulties which the Liberal

Government, now overthrown by the French, had to encounter, says that

they were not a little aggravated by the fact that Benito Juarez, its

head, was an Indian. Though he was one of the most remarkable men who

have risen to power, the haughty Creole could not brook the thought that

an Indian should climb from his _adobe_ hut to be the first personage in

the State. Nor is the fire quite quenched in the Indian's breast. Under

a grave taciturnity he hides burning memories. An acute observer of the

native character remarks,--"I have myself frequently heard Indians, when

their ordinary reserve has been overcome by spirituous liquors, declare

that they were the true owners of the soil, and all others foreign

intruders,--and that, if the Creoles could expel the Spaniards, they

themselves had a far better right to expel the Creoles." We say, then,

emphatically, that the first and perhaps the greatest cause of Mexican

anarchy is that the Mexicans are not as yet a people. Their diverse

elements have not as yet been fused into a living and conscious

nationality.

* * * * *

Another striking cause is the popular ignorance. We are coming more and

more to understand that it is not enough to have the shape and thews of

a man,--that, to be fit for freedom, or long to retain it, a people must

have mental and moral intelligence sufficient to teach them

self-control, and to enable them to judge wisely of public men and

public measures. Now in Mexico there is very little of the regulating

force of a just popular sentiment. You never catch the thunder of the

people's voice, before whose majesty base men and base plans must bow.

This destitution is not a matter of chance. It is another fatal legacy

of the mother-country. Spain steadily resisted all generous culture of

her colonists. She did not hesitate to declare that it was not expedient

that learning should become general in America. A viceroy said, with

more bluntness than courtesy, that "in America education ought always to

be confined to the Catechism." Under one pretence or another, a college

established for the instruction of Indians, in the better days of

Spanish domination, was broken, up. No book was permitted to be printed

in Mexico, or to be imported from abroad, without the consent both of

the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Under this rule the actual

literature of the country was sufficiently dry and barren. A bishop

writes that the deplorable condition of the Indians has produced such

sluggishness of mind and such absolute indifference and apathy, that

they have no feelings either of hope or of fear. And he predicted the

very results, which then were prophecy, but now are history.

How entire this ignorance was, when the colonial tie was sundered, we

cannot definitely determine. But we have the testimony of one who had

ample opportunity for observation, and who made the most extended

personal inquiries, that, twenty-five years afterwards, only two per

cent. of the Indians, and only twenty per cent. of the whites and

half-breeds, could read and write; and in 1856, actual statistics showed

that but one in thirty-seven attended school. When we consider that in

Massachusetts one in every five and a third of our population enjoys

school-privileges, we shall comprehend how large a portion of the youth

of Mexico are even now growing up in utter ignorance.

One of the direct results of this popular ignorance is, that the conduct

of affairs has virtually passed out of the hands of the people. To a

considerable extent, it may be affirmed that the strifes which divide

and desolate Mexico do not rise to the dignity of civil wars. They are

not so much the conflicts of a divided people as the disgraceful brawls

of ambitious demagogues and their adherents. Every traveller notes with

astonishment how little these great changes, which ought to stir to its

depths the national heart, ruffle even the surface of society,--how the

great mass sit undisturbed, while events big with importance are

transacted before their eyes,--how a few ambitious leaders, or a few

military chieftains, with their mercenary bands, are permitted to uphold

or betray, to advance or trample under foot, great principles which with

us excite every mind and arouse every heart. We believe it to be

strictly true that a large portion of the Mexican people have not enough

mental and moral activity to take an interest of any kind in these

desolating wars,--much less to exercise that repressing influence by

which the criminal ambition of the few must bow to the rights of the

many. There could not be a worse sign. Popular ignorance, therefore,

leading to popular apathy, must be put down among the influential causes

of Mexican sorrows.

* * * * *

A third cause is that indifference to blood which appears to be

characteristic of the Mexican people, or at least of that portion of

them who have concerned themselves with public commotions. Some terrible

elements have entered into this Mexican stock. The Spaniard, one of its

sources, has written his name in blood in the history both of the Old

and the New World. Whether hunting out the remnants of the unhappy

Moriscos from the fastnesses of their native hills,--or torturing the

Jews in the dungeons of his Inquisition,--or with lust and murder

filling to the brim the cup of horror and misery for the captive cities

of Holland,--or exterminating, in the pitiless labor of the mines, the

peaceful aborigines of San Domingo,--or with Cortes putting to slaughter

a whole city on mere suspicion,--everywhere the Spaniard has recorded

great deeds with a pen of iron dipped in blood. And the Aztec, the other

source of that stock, had, if we are to credit his conqueror, a cruel

and merciless side to his character, which made him the peer of his

oppressor.

The Mexican Revolution had its horrible chapters. And impartial truth

demands that we should say that both sides made fearful contributions to

those chapters. Hidalgo, the first popular leader, wrote to his

lieutenant these terrible words:--"If you suspect your prisoners of

entertaining restless or seditious ideas, bury them in oblivion at once

by putting them to death in some secret and solitary place, where their

fate may remain forever unknown." His practical commentary was a

permission to his followers to slay every white whom they could find in

the first stronghold which they stormed, and afterwards many a midnight

execution in the gloomy ravines of the mountains. On the other hand,

Calleja, the King's general, boasts that after the Battle of Aculco he

put to death five thousand insurgents in cold blood. And Iturbide, then

a Government general, writes, under date, "Good-Friday, 1814, In honor

of the day I have just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to

be shot":--a missive in which we know not which to admire most, the

hideous brevity, the blasphemy, or the cruelty. One act of noble

clemency stands out in peculiar sweetness from this background of

horror. When Morelos had given to his lieutenant, Bravo, three hundred

of the King's soldiers to be used as a ransom for his father, who was a

prisoner in the hands of the Royalists, and when the viceroy, Venegas,

scornfully rejected the offer, and ordered his victim to immediate

execution, Bravo instantly set at liberty the soldiers:--"For I would

wish," he said, "to put it out of my own power to avenge on them the

death of a parent, lest, in the first moments of grief, the temptation

should prove irresistible." The experiences of the Texan War, whose

massacre of Alamo was the battle-cry of the borderers in all succeeding

conflicts, and whose martyrdom at Goliad, where three hundred and fifty

unarmed prisoners, trusting in the pledged faith of their captors, were

led out in squads and shot, would seem to show that the tendencies of

Mexican leaders and soldiers had not greatly changed in later times.

What can result from such examples but utter carelessness of human life?

But to destroy among any people the sacredness of life is to erase one

of the safeguards of peace and order. The nation which does not shrink

from carnage, which is not ready to sacrifice everything but principle

to avert it, will be the nation of all others to risk everything, honor,

safety, social stability, for a whim. Beyond a doubt, too great

indifference to blood has been a fertile source of unnecessary

agitations, and so of weakness and anarchy.

* * * * *

We have postponed to this stage of our inquiry the consideration of that

rock upon which the Mexican State has finally split,--party-spirit.

During the forty stormy years of its existence, that ancient conflict,

ever old and ever new, between conservatism and radicalism, has been

going on. A statistician records that Mexico has had twenty-seven new

constitutions, or at least modifications of old ones, or final plans of

settlement. It has been too much the custom to talk of these as though

they were utterly meaningless. They are full of meaning. They mark the

flux and reflux of this great battle. They stand for the victories or

defeats of one or the other of these great principles.

It is not probable, that, at the outset of the Revolution, the Creoles

had any thought of separating from the mother-country. They professed

the greatest loyalty. And they proved it by unshaken fidelity on many a

bloody field. Their only request was, that some constitutional features

might mitigate the despotism under which they groaned. Even after eleven

years' struggle, what they settled upon was a limited monarchy, with the

King's son at its head,--or, if he refused, then some scion of another

royal house. And even when this project failed, they raised to the

vacant throne their own general, Iturbide. So strong in the beginning

was the element of conservatism, or reaction, as they term it now, in

Mexican affairs.

In 1823, however, the Liberal party obtained the supremacy, and under

the lead of Santa Ana, who then first came into prominence, drove

Iturbide from the throne, and put into operation a constitution

patterned after our own. It is not too much to say, that, from that day

to the hour when the allied troops landed at Vera Cruz, the conflict

between two parties, two principles, two methods of government, has been

waged with ever increasing bitterness and ever changing fortunes. It is

probable that the Liberals have always been numerically the stronger.

But the reactionary party has had its advantages. The rich and

aristocratic have been with it. To a great extent the army, ever partial

to the iron hand, has given it the support of its great power. And the

Church, which has possessed perhaps one-quarter of the whole wealth of

the country, and whose income has often far exceeded that of the State,

has always plotted for the downfall of the Liberals.

In 1835 the power of these combined forces was so great that they were

able to overthrow the constitution of 1824, and put into operation a new

one on the plan of centralization. By this plan all federal

representation ceased, and popular freedom was subject to unaccustomed

restraints. The most noteworthy fact connected with this change was the

Texan Rebellion, and consequent upon it our own Mexican War. But of

these we shall speak hereafter. It was not until 1857 that the Liberals

won back all that they had lost,--and more; for they replaced the old

constitution by a new and freer one, and, as if by one stroke to inflict

a final blow upon their adversaries, decreed the confiscation of all

Church property. The Reactionists had at least vitality enough to make a

death-struggle. Leagued with the army, they drove Comonfort from the

presidency, and his party from the city of Mexico. For three years there

were two presidents and two sets of officers of all sorts, and a civil

war. The Liberals, under the Indian Benito Juarez, held Vera Cruz and

the larger part of the country. At the end of this period the Liberal

chieftain, with an unexpected energy, drove the opposing party out of

the city of Mexico, and its leaders into exile, carried into effect the

decree for the confiscation of Church property, and wellnigh crushed

out organized resistance.

Not only, then, did this sorely tried Republic begin its precarious

existence with a people wholly unapt for freedom and embittered by

caste-feeling, but, from the outset, it was so divided by a broad gulf

of political dissension, that the whole body politic has ever since been

in reality cloven asunder.

* * * * *

We have omitted from their proper place the Texan War and its

consequences, which in their turn have done more than any one cause to

weaken and dishonor Mexico,--not so much because they took away from her

valuable districts as because they advertised to the whole world what

feebleness was behind great apparent power. We tread now upon the embers

of an extinguished controversy. And while around us blaze the lurid

flames of a mightier conflagration, which it helped to kindle, we could

not wish to stir again its ashes. But seeking the causes of the downfall

of Mexico, we can hardly omit the weightiest cause.

The Texans were, as we all know, a people who came for the most part

from the United States, and who were drawn southward by the combined

influence of a genial climate and liberal gifts of land. These

attractions had but one drawback, and that was of a religious nature. By

the very terms of the gift, all emigrants were, or became, or professed

to become, Roman Catholics. In many cases marriages of long standing

were reconsecrated with Catholic ceremonies, while the children were

baptized at Catholic altars. Until the year 1835 the Texans had been

citizens of Mexico,--the district which they inhabited, together with

Coahuila, making a sovereign state and constituent part of that federal

republic. Though the Texans had thus lived for many years under the

protection of Mexican law, it would not be true to say that they had

done so always cheerfully or even peaceably. There had been much

smothered discontent, and some open violence. The reasons were various.

The vexations, and perhaps oppression, incident to the rapid and violent

changes of the Mexican government, led to much ill feeling, and

engendered controversies not easily put to sleep. The natural

averseness, too, of a people of Anglo-Saxon origin to yield obedience,

however legitimate, to a mixed race like the Mexicans, created

bitterness, which was intensified by the arrogant and reckless temper

characteristic of no small part of the Texan people. Last, but not

least, their irritation at those laws which abolished slavery, and which

from the beginning they had always broken and always meant to break,

would have sundered a far stronger chain than ever bound them to the

land of their adoption. When the centralized constitution of 1835 came

into force, their discontent ripened into open rebellion. In the light

of our own bitter experience, with the inception and growth of our own

civil war open for our instruction, few Northern men will doubt that

this was the infant Secession whose full-grown power we are breasting.

That there were some real grievances we may allow; for, with so many

shifting governments, there could hardly have failed to be some

injustice and some oppressive measures or deeds. That, with the

essential difference of feeling, character, and habits which existed

between the two people, disturbances must sooner or later have arisen,

we may also allow. But, after all, one of the most powerful motives for

rebellion was love of slavery. Mexico stood a bar to the establishment

of that new and powerful Slave State which was the dream not only of the

Texan, but perhaps even more of the statesmen and leaders of the extreme

South. If Mexico became a powerful government, all the more would she be

an insuperable bar to such a project. However much, then, the Texans may

have desired a separate State existence, and however little they may

have liked the establishment of a great central power, their fear was

not so much that the strong government would oppress them as that it

might grow strong enough to force them to cease oppressing others.

There were Mexican laws which they never had obeyed, never intended to

obey, and which by the aid of State existence they had always succeeded

in evading. And now, when the progress of events and the strengthening

of the central authority threatened as never before the cherished

institution, like their compeers, they took their stand on the same

battle-ground of State Rights. We repeat, that other influences and real

wrongs no doubt helped them to this conclusion. What was the exact power

of each particular influence no one can tell. But, back of all

influences, a baneful spirit and motive, was the love of slavery and the

desire to perpetuate it. Their independence achieved, the Texans did not

know what to do with it. Few in numbers, burdened with debt, harassed on

the one side by the wild Camanches and Apaches, and on the other by the

Mexican guerrillas, pressed by the British and French governments, who

wished to abolish slavery and establish a protectorate, they sought

annexation to the United States, which, after a severe Congressional

struggle, was accomplished early in the year 1845.

The farther the lapse of years removes us from the passions and pride of

the hour, perhaps the less reason shall we find for entire satisfaction

with our course, both as regards this act of annexation and the war with

Mexico by which it was succeeded. While the feelings with which we now

contemplate the French aggressions in Mexico show us that there were

other and good reasons besides love of slavery why we might wish to keep

this new and feeble Gulf State out of foreign hands,--while we cannot

fail to regard with admiration the courage and skill with which our

gallant army won its way to the very capital of a hostile State,--while,

too, the progress of events has given us no cause to regret that

sleeping California was given up to the fresh energy of the

Anglo-Saxon,--while we rejoice to believe that this present war will

result in adding to the manifold resources of Texas the crowning

blessing of freedom,--while, in short, we see that what men call

circumstance, but which is God's majestic Providence, is turning our

errors into good,--yet the final verdict of impartial truth must be,

that it was neither in the spirit of wisdom nor of justice that we

strengthened the power which even then waited to slay us, and that in

our pride and impatience we showed too little consideration to that

State at the root of whose greatness we were laying the axe.

Those who delight in historical parallels will remember that this very

tract, from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, which was included in Texas,

was the same territory which was in controversy between us and Spain at

the beginning of the century,--and that as in 1846 the advance of the

Mexican general across the southern boundary of the controverted

district brought on the Mexican War, so, forty years before, the advance

of an American general across the northern boundary of the same district

brought us to the verge of a Spanish war.

But whatever any one may think of the nature and justice of the Mexican

War, no one can doubt that its result was the infliction of the severest

of blows upon a sister-republic. And the severity consisted, we repeat,

not so much in the territory which she relinquished as in her entire

loss of prestige among the nations. We took away, indeed, more than

eight hundred thousand square miles. We left her hardly seven hundred

thousand square miles. But had there been any recuperative energy,

perhaps the State, so much more compact in territory, and so little

diminished in population, would have been stronger rather than weaker by

the process.

* * * * *

We return to our narrative. The spring of 1861 found the Liberal party

triumphant. Never had it seemed so firmly rooted. Never had its

opponents been so cast down. Well does the Scripture say, "Let him that

thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." All through the spring and

summer of 1861, the leaders of the Church party were flitting from

Paris to Madrid, and from Madrid to Paris again, weaving what webs of

intrigue, seeking what forms of intervention, none but the arch-plotter

of the Tuileries can tell. There were floating about that summer rumors

of intervention, coming through what avenues, or to whom traceable,

nobody knew. Did any one wish to intervene, there were certainly

ostensible reasons enough. In that long agony of anarchy, Mexico had

inflicted, through one or another of her jarring parties, insults and

injuries, in robberies, in murders, in forced loans, in illegal taxes,

in neglected debts, sufficient to give an apparent justification to any

violence of policy in a foreign power. The British minister, under date

of June 27, 1861, transmitted to Lord John Russell a fearful list of

outrages against English subjects. In that list were included three

murders committed, or permitted, by Government officials, and

twenty-four robberies, forced loans and the like, some of them to the

amount of twenty-five and even sixty thousand dollars. These he styles

"British claims of the small and distressing class." One fact disturbs

the force of this impeachment of the Liberal government. Almost without

exception, these outrages were confessedly the work of the conservative

party, which had just been expelled after an open rebellion of three

years against the legitimate authorities. It was as though England

should enter complaint against our Government for property destroyed by

the Alabama, or for insults and injuries inflicted upon British subjects

in the streets of Richmond. No doubt, the form of law was with her, but

hardly substantial justice. As the French have progressed, we have seen

still stranger anomalies. The leaders of this very conservative party,

who more than all others were responsible for the state of irritation

which produced the conflict, have appeared in the ranks of the French

army, thus acting the part of public prosecutors, and convicting and

condemning innocent people for their own sins.

But it remained for Juarez himself, driven by necessity, to commit the

act which settled the fortunes of his country. On the 17th of July,

1861, he published a decree announcing that for the term of two years

all payments on debts would be suspended, expressly including foreign

bonds. From that moment Mexico was doomed. The British and French

ministers at once sent in sharp protests. The reply of the Mexican

cabinet-minister is pitiful to read. His excuse is absolute necessity.

The mismanagement of his predecessors has made it impossible that he

should carry on the Government, and at the same time pay its debts.

After some further correspondence, apologetic on the part of Mexico,

sharp and bitter on the part of the foreign ministers, diplomatic

intercourse ceased. The Mexican minister at Paris, in obedience to

orders, sought an interview with M. Thouvenal. He began by saying that

"he was instructed to give the most ample explanations." Whereupon M.

Thouvenal interrupted him, exclaiming, "We will not hear any

explanations; we will receive none"; adding, in great excitement, "We

have fully approved the conduct of M. Saligny. We have issued orders, in

concert with England, that a squadron composed of vessels of both

nations shall exact from the Government of Mexico due satisfaction, and

your Government will learn from our minister and our admiral what are

the claims of France." We have quoted thus fully from official documents

to show that the emergency found France armed and ready, if not glad, to

pursue the quarrel to the end.

What was that end? As it stood on paper, simply to take possession of

the ports of Mexico, and sequestrate their customs to pay the interest

on foreign debts. This is stated over and over again by every party in

all possible forms of distinctness. By no means is any interference to

be permitted in the internal affairs of that country. In November, 1861,

Lord John Russell writes to the British minister at Mexico in these

unmistakable terms:--"You must be careful to observe with strictness

Article Two of the Convention, signed yesterday between Great Britain,

France, and Spain, by which it is provided that no influence shall be

used in the internal affairs of Mexico, calculated to prejudice the

right of the Mexican nation freely to choose its own form of government.

Should any Mexican, or any party in Mexico, ask your advice on such

subjects, you will say that any regular form of government, which shall

protect the lives and properties of natives and foreigners, and shall

not permit British subjects to be attacked or annoyed on account of

their occupation, their rights of property, or their religion, will

secure the moral support of the British Government." The statement of

France was just as clear, only shorter. M. Thouvenal said to Mr. Dayton

that "France could do no more than she had already done, and that was to

assure us of her purpose not to interfere in any way with the internal

government of Mexico; that their sole purpose was to obtain payment of

their claims and reparation for the wrongs and injuries done them." The

language of Spain, if anything, was shortest and clearest of all. She

assured Mr. Schurtz, that, "if Spain did take part in this intervention,

it would be solely for redress of her grievances, and not for the

purpose of imposing new institutions upon Mexico." So it was clear,

after all, that this was nothing but a grand naval excursion for the

collection of just dues from a reluctant or dishonest debtor! Nothing

more! No intention whatever of intruding upon the poor man's castle!

Was it not surprising, now, that, with everything so transparent, nobody

had any faith? Almost simultaneously, from Mr. Adams at London, from Mr.

Dayton at Paris, from Mr. Schurtz at Madrid, and from Mr. Corwin at

Mexico, came missives, couched in different language, but all conveying

the same lesson: England meant what she said, and France and Spain did

not. All at once, too, the air was full of rumors. The conservative

party was to be restored by force. A monarchy was to be set up. Prince

Maximilian was to be invited to the throne of Mexico. As before, nobody

could trace these rumors to any trustworthy source. But everybody

believed them. And every one of them has proved to be true. About this

time there appeared in Paris a striking book, part history, part

philosophy, part prophecy, entitled, "Mexico, Ancient and Modern," by

Michel Chevalier. What is peculiar about the book, so far as it relates

to present affairs, is, that it says but little in regard to the

collection of dues, much concerning the necessity of reorganizing

Mexico, much as to the duty of France to uphold the interests of the

Latin races, much more concerning the wisdom of establishing a strong

barrier against the ambition of the United States.

We all know what has actually happened, and that is perhaps all we have

a right to expect while the present Emperor of France is at the helm.

Events have explained these dim rumors and intimations. Vera Cruz and

Tampico taken, France unfolded new and bolder schemes. She insisted upon

marching inland and conquering Mexico, and establishing there a strong

government. Here England and Spain parted from her: the former,

evidently because she always meant what she said; the latter, either

because she, too, meant what she said, or because she found herself

measured with a more acute gamester, with a heavier hand and a sharper

sword than she could boast. France has gone forward. She has stormed

Puebla. The gates of Mexico have been thrown open to her. Her authority

has been extended over many of the States. With the assistance of the

reactionary party she has established a monarchy, and invited Maximilian

to be its head. Never results so exceeded the plan. Whatever else may be

dark, this is clear, that henceforth under the Empire promises mean

nothing,--and that whoever trusts Imperial assurances which war with

Imperial interests does so at his own proper peril.

From the Emperor's own language, and from this book which he has

permitted to appear, and to which we have alluded, we gather easily the

real motives which have governed his conduct. No doubt, the mere _eclat_

of having conducted to a successful issue a difficult undertaking, and

by which he would secure anew the respect and pride of the fickle people

over whom he reigns, may have been a minor motive. It is not unlikely,

either, that he has gone much farther than he himself originally

intended,--that the prize was so tempting, when once he had coquetted

with it, that he could not keep his hands off from it. For look again at

Mexico. A country full of noble possibilities. A land which, ruled by a

strong hand and a sagacious mind, may be the fruitful source of all

useful commodities. And if he can keep it, what a giant stride he makes

to girdling the earth with his posts! Count them: France, Martinique,

Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Tahiti, Saigon, his new ports at the mouth of the

Red Sea, Algiers, and France again. Not many links wanting in that

chain! If he cannot girdle the earth in forty minutes, he bids fair to

do it as quickly and as thoroughly as mortal skill and mortal audacity

ever did. And if he can secure all these benefits by open conquest, or,

better yet, by the people's apparently free choice of a government of

which he shall be the sole guardian and administrator, what is there in

his past career to warrant us in the expectation that he will shrink

back from any double-dealing necessary for the achievement of such a

master-stroke?

* * * * *

And now what shall we say of this policy as it concerns ourselves, and

especially the welfare and prospects of the Mexican people? We cannot

like it. That is plain. For, suffered to remain unchallenged, it cuts

right through our traditional policy. No mere diplomacy can ever mend

that again. All our fine discourse about the Monroe doctrine is, as

matters stand now, nothing but a flight of rhetoric. Then, in such a

_nonchalant_ way, it puts the curb on any future ambition which we may

cherish southward, that it is still more disagreeable. And besides, it

is such a mingled menace and warning! If this potentate could do, and

would do, such things to feeble Mexico,--if real or fancied interest

demand it, what may he not attempt with us, now that we are not so

stalwart as of old, now that we are bearing upon our shoulders a burden

that would have tasked the fabled Atlas? It is plain that we cannot

look, and ought not to look, with any favor upon this man, or any of his

Western works.

But how will his policy affect the happiness and prosperity of Mexico?

Will it hold her back from the realization of that dream of greatness

which we all cherished for her once? Or will it send her forward with a

quicker pace to its speedy fulfilment? One feature of this event is

memorable. A conqueror, with bayonet and cannon-ball, has brought to

this people the very boon which forty years ago they craved,--a

monarchy, with an offshoot from European royalty sitting upon its

throne. If Maximilian come to Mexico, he can build his palace on a

corner-stone which Iturbide, Guerrero, and many another patriot leader

who sleeps in a bloody grave, helped to lay. So the pendulum swings

back, be its arc ever so long. A closer examination, however, will show

that this remarkable coincidence is not simply an accident. The

combination which in 1823 swept away the Spanish power and established a

monarchy was not a combination of the free and liberal elements of

Mexican society, but rather of those same aristocratic, ecclesiastical,

and conservative elements which are now in alliance with the French

Emperor, and in deadly hostility to what is democratic or republican in

that distracted land. We cannot doubt, therefore, that, whatever Louis

Napoleon may affirm, that, whatever generalities he may put forth

concerning Mexican reorganization and growth, the purpose of his sway

cannot be the real elevation or freedom of the people. He has espoused

the interests of that party which seeks to perpetuate among the mass of

the people ignorance, superstition, poverty, and social degradation.

While, therefore, his invasion originated to a very great extent in

injustice and thirst for power, it is not probable that his occupation

of the country will be used with any intention of elevating and blessing

it.

But God is greater than man. And so it may well happen that the results

of human ambition may be kinder than its purpose. And if Louis Napoleon

gives Mexico rest from change and suffering, that will be something. If

the steel gauntlet crushes out the banditti, and the silken glove

encourages honest toil, then, by the blessing of God, with stable

industry and peace secured to her, and with every good gift blossoming

at her feet, Mexico may yet be trained to take her place among the

galaxy of the nations. And when that hour comes, if come it may, it will

be no power four thousand miles across gulf and sea that will keep her

from her true destiny.