before the new government could be fully organized, he was deposed by factionists and banished.* In 1824, Mexico became a republic, and a federal constitution was adopted. General Victoria was elected the first president, and he has been succeeded by such men as Pedraza, Guerrero, Bustamente, Santa Anna, Herrera, and Paredes, as presidents or dictators, at best, with scarcely an exception, rival military adventurers. Actuated by no higher motives than those of personal aggrandizement, they manifested no patriotism above party purposes, and but little conscience above self-interest. Having no hold upon the affections of the people, they relied upon no security except military rule, and this was made subject to the greatest treachery, or to the greatest cunning.

Without any settled principles of self-respect above egotism; without independence not subject to an army; † without honesty not subject to bribery and duplicity; without knowledge not neutralized by superstition; without religion not subject to vanity

* There are diversity of views with respect to the character of Iturbide. We shall not attempt to reconcile them in this place. In speaking of the congress of this time, Mr. Thompson says, "No similar body, under like circumstances, has evinced more virtue, firmness, and constancy, than did the congress of Mexico in resisting the usurpation and tyranny of Iturbide, surrounded as he was by his pretorian band."

† In his speech at Charleston, S. C., Mr. Webster says, "Our neighbor, the unfortunate, miserably governed Mexico, when she emerged from her revolution, had in her history nothing of representative government, habeas corpus, or trial by jury; no progressive experiment tending to a glorious consummation; nothing but a government calling itself free, with the least possible freedom in the world. She had collected, since her independence, 300,000,000 dollars, and had unprofitably expended it all in putting up one revolution and putting down another, and in maintaining an army of 40,000 men, in time of peace, to keep the peace."

The wife of General Canalizo died whilst he was president ad interim, during the absence of Santa Anna. She was embalmed, and had a pair of glass eyes inserted, and lay in state for several days, gorgeously dressed, and glittering in jewels. Thompson's Recol,

and a priesthood;* without virtue not debased by licentiousness; without enterprise † not blasted by frivolous pride or indolence; the people of this country have claimed to be acknowledged as free and independent, and to be regarded as within the pale of civilization and Christianity. Without genius or moral power, they have failed to organize a government that is above their own condition. Their government has been true only to its origin. It has been proud without magnanimity, sensitive without honor, extravagant without means, poor without prudence, cruel without courage, and bold without virtue. It has proved false to its sacred trusts; it has impoverished the country, debased the people, connived at riot, robbery, and murder, ‡ encouraged violence, engendered civil war, and sanctioned treason. It has legalized plunder in the acts of its citizens, and violated treaties in its intercourse with foreign nations. It has imprisoned the free citizens of other countries, robbed the unprotected traveller, § executed the innocent stranger, and assassinated the honest minister. We say that government has done all this, because such acts have been committed by the citizens of Mexico, and have been sustained in their wickedness. At no period, hardly, since that

There are in the city of Mexico, alone, seven or eight hundred secular, and near two thousand regular clergy.

†The enterprise of the Mexicans may be inferred from the fact, that they sent to Massachusetts for the granite with which to build their custom-house at Vera Cruz, although they have stone equally good within ten miles of that city.

"It is monstrous," says Gilliam, "when the great majority of the inhabitants of a country are swindlers, thieves, and murderers, in an unqualified manner, as is the case in Mexico."

§ “Understanding, as I now do,” says Mr. Gilliam, “the duplicity of the Mexicans, and their policy, I should not be surprised if some in power should have known more of Mr. Shannon's robbery than might become them. But, as Santa Anna and his officers are the acknowledged heads of a band of pirates, it cannot be astonishing that he should tolerate such deeds."

It will be remembered that Mr. Cushing, on his return from China through Mexico, was robbed.

Republic has been in existence, have her prisons been without guiltless tenants from our country, and at no period within the memory of man have life and property been safe within its boundaries.* Mexico has neglected education and all modern means of reform, and has failed to secure the honest citizen in his rights, and the industrious in the fruits of his labor.†

There is no fiction in this melancholy recital; our language is true to reality. On this point we have no occasion for corroborative evidence, as no one will doubt us. However much politicians have been willing to oppose the late war with Mexico, there are none, no, not one, who is prepared deliberately to speak well of that benighted country. They have not only been unwilling to testify to her integrity as a nation, but have actually disclaimed, in advance, all inferences that might be made from their remarks, which should seem to sanction her past practices. The delusion has been complete. Indeed, it has been cruel. She has been wrong in every thing except the war; and in regard to that, right in every thing, except defeat! Why should she be reminded of her errors, in her first attempts to do right? Why should she be blinded by a false sympathy that increased her evils, and by a mock spirit of instigation to reject her best friends?

We are free to confess our wonder, that the Republic of Mexico has been preserved so long; that its faithless and

*See Appendix F.

† For the amount of general intelligence, and the extent of the wealth and commercial intercourse of the middle classes, there is more licentiousness and vice than in any other country on the globe. The Catholic church has nowhere so corrupt a priesthood. It is the policy of this class, and the rich, to keep the lower orders in ignorance, in order that they may prostitute them to subserve their selfish and unworthy purposes. There are probably not 5000 females, out of the population of 8,000,000, who can read and write.

Gilliam's Travels in Mexico. Mr. Mayer says, in his interesting work, "that in the year 1840, while $180,000 were spent for hospitals, fortresses, and prisons, and $8,000,000 for the army, (with no foreign war,) only $110,000 were given to all the institutions of learning in Mexico."

barbarous acts should have been permitted by civilized nations to occur so often and without redress; that its people have been spared to live with so little nakedness and starvation. In no way can we account for this exemption from instant accountability, except it be in the indulgent and misguided forbearance of nations. Her weakness and position have been her protection. Her worst enemies have been within her own limits; the great sources of her evils have been in her own rulers; the greatest obstacles to her success have been in the ignorance of her own people.

The period of her retribution had come. She had improved the seed-time of iniquity, and it remained that she should gather her own bitter harvests. Bound and fettered by political impostors, encamped and fortified within her vitals, and blinded by bigots that knew no grace but physical power, nothing could save her but a foreign war. Not a war forced without cause, but produced by laws of violated nature produced by her own misguided acts and negligence ; a war of literal justice. It was as likely to happen with one nation as with another, but most likely with one nearest her borders.

The primary causes of the war with Mexico may be found in her past acts, which we have reviewed; and the recent events which have been spoken of so often, are but the ultimate results, or the legitimate outbreaks of troubles which have been engendered by her government and people.

What was true in regard to Great Britain, in 1812, has long been true in relation to Mexico. The relations between Great Britain and the United States, in 1812, were admirably summed up in a few words by President Madison, in a message to Congress.

"We behold," says Mr. Madison, " in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States; and on the side of the United States, a state of peace towards Great Britain. Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in defence of their national

rights, shall commit our just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of events, avoiding all connections which might entangle it in the contest or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable establishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question, which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the government. In recommending it to their early deliberations, I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation."

It is with no ordinary satisfaction that we find ourselves enabled to quote, as confirmatory of our method of investigation, a passage from the writings of that eminent statesman, the late John Quincy Adams. It is taken from the lecture which he delivered on the war between Great Britain and China in 1842.

“It is a general, but I believe altogether mistaken opinion," says Mr. Adams, " that the quarrel is merely for certain chests of opium imported by British merchants into China, and seized by the Chinese government for having been imported contrary to law. This is a mere incident to the dispute, but no more the cause of the war than the throwing overboard of the tca in the Boston harbor was the cause of the American revolution.

"The cause of the war is the pretension, on the part of the Chinese, that, in all their intercourse with other nations, political or commercial, their superiority must be implicitly acknowledged, and manifested in humiliating forms. It is not creditable to the great, powerful, and enlightened nations of Europe, that for several centuries they have, for the sake of profitable trade, submitted to this insolent and insulting pretension, equally contrary to the first principles of the law of nature and of revealed religion—the natural equality of mankind

'Auri sacra fames,

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis!