of the spirit of '76; and, if we do not servilely copy what the sages and heroes of that period did, yet it is wise to consider what, under the influence of such a life-giving, and comparatively disinterested spirit of freedom, as then burned in their bosoms, they would now do, were they in our places. War is, in itself, a temporary despotism. Slavery is a tremendous evil; but he who hates slavery should just as cordially hate war, for war gave birth to slavery. The captives of war are the victims of slavery. The African slavetrade feeds on war. But, more than that, war enslaves those that are engaged in it. Soldiers are slaves. The inferior officers are all slaves to the superior; and the whole army, or fleet, are subject to the most absolute, and often tyrannical despotism of one man, the commanding general. They have no wills, or consciences, or hearts of their own. If they are ordered to kill the widow's only cow and burn her cottage, they must march up and do it, without flinching. He who undertakes to have a private opinion of his own in an army, will soon find out his mistake, by means of cashiering or the cat-o'-nine-tails. The defender of war is obliged, from the necessity of the case, to defend this absolutism; for otherwise there could be no marching or fighting to any efficient purpose. The better slaves, the better soldiers. The more total, and unquestioning, and mechanical the obedience, the more fit and successful is the army for accomplishing its objects. Can that be a good institution that makes men into machines, that enthrones another's will, however wicked or arbitrary, over the wills, consciences, reason, and every "faculty divine," of thousands and tens of thousands of responsible and immortal beings? We have already recorded the words of Madison, in which he warns his countrymen to beware of the despotic influence of war. It was timely advice. We would single out, indeed, no one man, or class of men, as aspiring to destroy the liberties of their fatherland. But we cannot avoid seeing that every war furnishes an occasion for a daring march of executive power upon the other functions of government; for the creation of a multitude of offices, dependent upon the gift of one man, or a few men; for the elevation of military talents over those of the civilian; for the increase of a standing army, always a supple tool of arbitrary power; for the erection of military governments over the conquered countries; and for the introduction of officers into every branch of the government, from the highest to the lowest, whose sole or chief distinction is prowess in arms, and who would naturally make military maxims the basis of their official administration. It was when the Pretorian Guards of Rome bore the emperor into office by their despotic will, that the mistress of nations began to decline. And when, in any nation, the glorious gifts of Christian statesmanship, and ripe experience, and large converse among men, and a lifetime of civil services to one's country and the world, are postponed and set aside for "the conquering hero," the Genius of rational, heaven-descended Liberty is already meditating her departure to some more congenial clime. CHAPTER XVI. POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD. "Freedom is fighting her battles in the world, with sufficient odds against her. Let us not give new chances to her foes." - CHANNING. THE Mexican War has done incalculable harm to the cause of liberty, throughout our country and the world. This central idea of our government, institutions, and destiny, has been foully disowned. We had already done great discredit to our good name, by our violations of Indian treaties, our slavery, and our repudiation of State debts. But this attack on weak neighbors, to steal away their lands, is capping the climax of wrong and dishonor. See, says the monarchist, the aristocrat, your boasted government of the people can do as wicked and unjust things, as were ever perpetrated by the kings and kaisers of the old world. It is the same game of ambition, only it is played by different hands. It is the ancient spirit in a new form. The reality is the same, sugar it over with fair names as much as you please. War is war, and tyranny is tyranny, and slavery is slavery, — whether in the United States, or Rome, or England. The example we have thus set before the world is a most noxious one. The stigma we have brought upon the name of Liberty will not soon be wiped out. We have caused the hearts of pacific lovers of freedom everywhere to sink within them, at the spectacle of a government of the people forgetting the rights and interests of humanity, and waging, on the ground of the old-world notions of retaliation, force, glory, security, and indemnity, a war of invasion, conquest, and terrible barbarity. But when, to all these considerations of the unfavorable bearing of the Mexican war on the interests of freedom at home and abroad, we add that it was begun, continued, and ended, to subserve the extension of slavery and the slave power, we have revealed its full enormity. That all who were engaged in the contest, as counsellors or actors, on the American side, were actuated by this motive, would be more than any wise man would assert. But we regard ourselves as holding two impregnable and historical positions, when we maintain, that had it not been for the institution of slavery, Texas never would have been conquered and an " nexed; and that had it not been for the annexation of Texas, and the desire for more Mexican soil, not a drop of human blood would have been shed, nor would such endeared names as "beautiful sight," "true cross," "holy cross," sacrament," ever have been raised from their innocent obscurity to become the dark and terrible names of battles between two Christian nations. We have already adduced, in the third chapter of this essay, documentary evidence from both the Executive and Legislative Departments of the United States, to substantiate these positions. We need not recapitulate that testimony. Suffice it to say, that since that chapter was written, the most ample declarations have been published by some, who were prominent in the measure of annexation, that they acted either under the influence of a panic got up for the occasion, that Texas was about to throw herself into the arms of some foreign power, or that pledges were given to insure their votes, which were not afterwards fulfilled. We hesitate not to say on these and previous testimonies, that the Texas plot was one of the darkest conspiracies that history anywhere records, against human liberty; and that the plot not only succeeded perfectly, but that it drew after it, as an almost necessary consequence to the same rapacious scheme, a war of conquest, still further to extend this wicked and unnatural, and naturally injurious relation of absolute power on one hand, and helpless, hopeless servitude on the other, over vast regions of God's earth, among unborn millions of his children, and down through too patient years of wrong and suffering. What the result will be for the new territories thus acquired, it would be presumptuous to predict; we can only entertain the strong hope that the Proviso of Freedom, under whatever name of man it may be called, will be extended like the wings of a guardian angel over this immense wilderness of nature. But the feeling and the fear of bringing Mexican land, purged of slavery and the slave-trade, under the dominion of the United States, cannot, in concluding this head of the subject, be better expressed than in the stirring words of a Mexican poet writing at the beginning of the war, and of an American one writing during its progress. This lyric is by Jose Ho Ace de Saltillo.* "Hearken! from our Northern borders Sounds Arista's bugle call; On the banks of Rio Bravo Bursts the shell and ploughs the ball! Ghastly hands in Tenochtitlan Strike th' old Atzee battle-drum ; "Coldly sleep our slaughtered brothers; "On they come, the mad invaders, "From the sellers of God's image. Shield thy dark-browed Mexican ! "Hearken up the Rio Bravo Comes the negro-catcher's shout: "Let the land we love be wasted, Black with fire and rough with graves; Better far for God and Freedom Die at once than live as slaves! * "A Mexican of some celebrity." See Montgomery's Life of Gen. Taylor, pp. 316, 317, |