In order to judge correctly of the causes of this war, it is necessary that we should understand the present and past condition of the two nations. What has Mexico been, and what has she done? What have been the acts of the United States with regard to Mexico? These are questions which, if properly answered, will give us some insight into the true causes of the war.

Our prescribed limits will not permit us to give many details of history, further than mere outlines that may enable the reader to understand our views. If we would fully understand the Mexican character, we must study the Aztec race before the conquest of Cortés. It is quite true the changes since that period have been many and great; still, without some knowledge of the causes which have produced them, we cannot hope to avoid errors of opinion in respect to the Mexicans as they are. Let us turn for a moment to

ANCIENT MEXICO.

The following quotations from Prescott's CONQUEST OF MEXICO, and we cannot quote from this author without commending him for his ability and faithfulness, may be here introduced with great propriety, as affording in a few words his reflections upon the fall of that ancient empire, and particularly as they embrace the elements of the causes which produced that fall.

After speaking of the wonders of the conquest, of its romantic and legendary features, he says,

"Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote the happiness of its subjects, or the real interests of humanity. Notwithstanding the lustre thrown over its latter days by the glorious defence of its capital, by the mild munificence of Montezuma, by the dauntless heroism of Guatemozin, the Aztecs were emphatically a fierce and brutal race, little calculated, in their best aspects, to excite our sympathy and regard. Their civilization, such as it was, was not

their own, but reflected, perhaps imperfectly, from a race whom they had succeeded in the land. It was in respect to the Aztecs, a generous graft on a vicious stock, and could have brought no fruit to perfection. They ruled over their wide domains with a sword, instead of a sceptre. They did nothing to ameliorate the condition or in any way promote the progress of their vassals. Their vassals were serfs, used only to minister to their pleasure, held in awe by armed garrisons, ground to the dust by imposts in peace, by military conscriptions in war. They did not, like the Romans, whom they resembled in the nature of their conquests, extend the rights of citizenship to the conquered. They did not amalgamate them into one great nation, with common rights and interests. They held them as aliens, even those who, in the valley, were gathered round the very walls of the capital. The Aztec metropolis, the heart of the monarchy, had not a sympathy, not a pulsation, in common with the rest of the body politic. It was a stranger in its own land.

"The Aztecs not only did not advance the condition of their vassals, but, morally speaking, they did much to degrade it. How can a nation, where human sacrifices prevail, and especially when combined with cannibalism, further the march of civilization? How can the interests of humanity be consulted, where man is levelled to the ranks of the brutes that perish? The influence of the Aztecs introduced their superstition into lands before unacquainted with it, or where, at least, it was not established in any great strength. The example of the capital was contagious. As the latter increased in opulence, the religious celebrations were conducted with still more terrible magnificence — in the same manner as the gladiatorial shows of the Romans increased in pomp with the increasing splendor of the capital. Men became familiar with scenes of horror and the most loathsome abominations; women and children — the whole nation became familiar with and assisted at them. The heart was hardened, the manners were made ferocious, the feeble light of civilization, transmitted from a milder race,

was growing fainter and fainter, as thousands and thousands of miserable victims, throughout the empire, were yearly fattened in its cages, sacrificed on its altars, dressed and served at its banquets! The whole land was converted into a vast human shambles! The empire of the Aztecs did not fall before its time."

In another place, comparing the ancient with the modern Mexicans, the same accomplished historian remarks, —

"The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in his nature. He shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a foreign hand. Even when this foreign influence comes in the form of civilization, he seems to sink and pine away beneath it. It has been so with the Mexicans. Under the Spanish domination, their numbers have silently melted away. Their energies are broken. They no longer tread their mountain plains with the conscious independence of their ancestors. In their faltering step, and meek and melancholy aspect, we read the sad characters of the conquered race. The cause of humanity, indeed, has gained. They live under a better system of laws, a more assured tranquillity, a purer faith. But all does not avail. Their civilization was of the hardy character which belongs to wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his own."

For our present purpose it is unnecessary to add to the language of Prescott, in regard to ancient Mexico, as it is of greater importance that we should give a more particular attention to

MODERN MEXICO.

Under the most favorable circumstances, a colonial government labors under numerous disadvantages. Detached and isolated from the sources of its own power, it cannot realize that individuality necessary to energy and advancement. Genius can have no encouragement to give birth to enlightened systems of national polity, which, to be developed, requires national concentration; and individual pride lies dormant

where the ultimate objects of ambition centre in powers of foreign origin and foreign control. Such evils increase with the increase of population.

This was true of the British American colonies, where the people were of common origin and of one blood. But if we look to the condition of the Spanish colonies of North America, before the separation of the viceroyalty of Mexico from the crown of Spain, we shall find the blighting influences of hate, jealousy, and revenge giving character to the motives and acts of the different races, castes, and orders, and rendering government a military rule, and necessarily destructive to the rights and well-being of the people. The outrages of the Spaniards in the overthrow of the Montezumas make the real and traditionary history of the mixed castes and native inhabitants of Mexico; and their hate has been continued for centuries, and but little unabated even to the time of Iturbide. Most of the honors and emoluments of government were given to Europeans, and what was first deemed a system of outrage, was resolved into a system of settled injustice. It was the reign of royalty and ignorance, of selfishness and wrong.

In this condition of things, was it strange that the first revolutionists of Mexico should prove to be robbers and murderers, and that the first efforts of the masses of the people to act for themselves should develop ignorance, intrigues, corruption, criminal frauds, debasing servility, indecision, imbecility, and all that variety of causes which end in anarchy !* In the adop

* The first abortive effort, which was commenced in 1809, by Hidalgo and Allende, had not for its object the establishment of a republic or of free institutions; if, indeed, free institutions can exist under any other form of government. That movement had its origin in feelings of enthusiastic and devoted loyalty, which, up to that time, was the ruling passion in the heart of every Spaniard. The abdication of the legitimate monarch of Spain, the atrocious perfidy by which it was obtained, and the transference of the sovereignty of the country to the emperor of France, which country had for centuries been regarded as the hereditary enemy of Spain, were the true causes of the insurrection in Mexico in 1809. It was begun under

tion and execution of the "plan of Iguala "* and treaty of Cordova, all these fearful developments were made.

An ignorant race is jealous, cowardly, and cruel. It can neither protect the interests of others or conceive of its own. There is nothing in nature more terrific than the rising of an ignorant people, who have been chained down by an unrighteous power. All desire comfort and consideration, and most fail in their wishes, because they have no faith in integrity. Their experience has taught them a most bitter selfishness, and it is the work of time alone that can convey to their benighted minds even the ordinary knowledge of what is due to themselves and to others.

By the third article of the plan of Iguala, all distinction of castes was abolished, so that all individuals, whether Spaniards, Americans, Indians, or Africans, were placed on equal footing. At this time, the republican form of government was proposed and urged by several members of the Junta, but the proposition was successfully opposed by Iturbide and others. The views of Iturbide were expressed with an honest manliness highly creditable to him. "Nature," said he, "produces nothing by sudden leaps; she operates by intermediate degrees. The moral world follows the laws of the physical. To think that we could emerge all at once from a state of debasement such as that of slavery, and from a state of ignorance such as has been inflicted on us for three hundred years, during which we had neither books nor instructors, and the possession of knowledge had been thought a sufficient cause for persecution; to think that we could gain information and refinement in a moment, as if by enchantment; that we could acquire every virtue, forget prejudices, and give up false pretensions, was a vain expectation, and could only have entered into the visions of an enthusiast."

In 1822, Iturbide was declared emperor by the people; but

the auspices of the Spanish viceroy, and had for its object, real as well as professed, the saving of that portion of his dominions for Ferdinand VII. - Thompson's Recollections of Mexico.

*See Appendix E.