THE WAR ON MEXICO.

tillian master. His Bunker Hills and Sarato-thief, arraigned for stealing a horse, plead zas and Yorktowns are there! The Mexican that it was the best horse that he could find can say, "There I bled for liberty! and in the country! We want California. What shall I surrender that consecrated home of for? Why, says the Senator from Michigan, my affections to the Anglo-Saxon invaders? we will have it; and the Senator from South What do they want with it? They have Carolina, with a very mistaken view, I think. Texas already. They have possessed them- of policy, says, you can't keep our people selves of the territory between the Nueces from going there. I don't desire to prevent and the Rio Grande. What else do they them. Let them go and seek their happiness want? To what shall I point my children as in whatever country or clime it pleases them memorials of that independence, which I be- All I ask of them is, not to require this Govqueath to them, when those battle-fields shall ernment to protect them with that banner have passed from my possession?" consecrated to war waged for principlesSir, had one come and demanded Bunker-eternal, enduring truth. Sir, it is not meet Hill of the people of Massachusetts, had Eng- that our old flag should throw its protecting land's Lion ever showed himself there, is folds over expeditions for lucre or for land.there a man over 13 and under 90 who would But you still say you want room for your peo not have been ready to meet him-is there a ple. This has been the plea of every robber river on this Continent that would not have chief from Nimrod to the present hour. I run red with blood-is there a field but would dare say when Tamerlane descended from have been piled high with the unburied bones his throne built of seventy thousand human of slaughtered Americans before these conse- skulls, and marched his ferocious battalions crated battle-fields of liberty should have been to farther slaughter, I dare say he said, “I wrested from us? But this same American want room." Bajazet was another gentleman goes into a sister Republic, and says to poor, of kindred tastes and wants with us Angloweak Mexico, "Give up your territory-you Saxons--he "wanted room." Alexander, too. are unworthy to possess it-I have got one- the mighty "Macedonian madman," when he half already-all I ask of you is to give up wandered with his Greeks to the plains of Inthe other!" England might as well, in the dia, and fought a bloody battle on the very circumstances I have described, have come ground where recently England and the Sikhs and demanded of us, Give up the Atlantic engaged in strife for "room," was no doubt in lope-give up this trifling territory from Al- quest of some California there. Many a Monlegany Mountains to the Sea; it is only terey had he to storm, to get

room." Sir, he from Maine to St.. Mary's-only about one-made quite as much of that sort of history as third of your Republic, and the least interest-you ever will. Mr. President, do you remem ing portion of it." What would be the re-ber the last chapter in that history? It is soon sponse? They would say, we must give this read. Oh, I wish we could but understand up to John Bull. Why?" He wants room." its moral. Ammon's son, (so was Alexander The Senator from Michigan says he must named.) after all his victories, died drunk in have this. Why, my worthy Christian broth- Babylon! The vast empire he conquered to er, on what principle of justice? "I want" get room," became the prey of the Gener als he had trained; it was disparted, torn to

room!"

Sir, look at this pretence of want of room. pieces, and so ended. Sir, there is a very sig With twenty millions of people you have about nificant appendix; it is this: The descendone thousand millions of acres of land, in-ants of the Greeks, of Alexander's Greeks. viting settlement by every conceivable argu-are now governed by a descendant of Atilla! ment-bringing them down to a quarter of Mr. President, while we are fighting for a dollar an acre, and allowing every man to room, let us ponder deeply this appendix. 1 squat where he pleases. But the Senator was somewhat amazed the other day, to hear from Michigan says we will be two hundred the Senator from Michigan declare that Eu millions in a few years, and we want room. rope had quite forgotten us, till these battles If I were a Mexican I would tell you, "Have waked them up. I suppose the Senator feels you not room in your own country to bury grateful to the President for " waking up your dead men? If you come into mine we Europe. Does the President, who is, I hope, will greet you with bloody hands, and wel- read in civic as well as military lore, remem come you to hospitable graves." ber the saying of one who had pondered up

Why, says the Chairman of this Committee on history long-long, too. upon Man, his naof Foreign Relations, it is the most reasona- ture and true destiny? Montesquieu did not ble thing in the world! We ought to have think highly of this way of" waking up.”. the Bay of San Francisco. Why? Because" Happy," says he, "is that nation whose anit is the best Harbor on the Pacific! It has nals are tiresome."

been my fortune, Mr. President, to have prac- The Senator from Michigan has a different ticed a good deal in criminal courts in the view of this. He thinks that a nation is not course of my life, but I never yet heard a distinguished until it is distinguished in war.

women too.

CORWIN'S SPEECH.

He fears that the slumbering faculties of Eu-shall be short-lived? Was it not ordained of rope have not been able to ascertain that old that truth only shall abide forever?there are twenty millions of Anglo-Saxons Whatever we may say to-day, or whatever here-making railroads and canals, and speed- we may write in our books, the stern tribunal ing all the arts of Peace to the utmost accom- of History will review it all, detect falsehood. plishment of the most refined civilization!-and bring us to judgment before that posteriThey do not know it! And what is the won-ty which shall bless or curse us as we may derful expedient which this Democratic act now, wisely or otherwise. We may hide method of making history would adopt in or- in the grave, (which awaits us all,) in vain; der to make us known? Storming cities, we may hope there, like the foolish bird that desolating peaceful, happy homes, shooting hides its head in the sand, in the vain belief men-ay, Sir such is war-and shooting that its body is not seen, yet even there this preposterous excuse of want of "room," shall Sir, I have read in some account of your be laid bare, and the quick-coming future battle of Monterey, of a lovely Mexican girl, wiil decide that it was a hypocritical prewho, with the benevolence of an angel in her tence, under which we sought to conceal the bosom, and the robust courage of a hero in avarice which prompted us to covet and to her heart, was busily engaged during the seize by force that which was not ours. bloody conflict, amid the crash of falling Mr. President, this uneasy desire to aug houses, the groans of the dying and the wild ment our territory has depraved the moral shriek of battle, in carrying water to slake sense, and blunted the otherwise keen sagacithe burning thirst of the wounded of either ty of our people. What has been the fate of host. While bending over a wounded Amer-all nations who have acted upon the idea that ican soldier, a cannon ball struck her and they must advance! Our young orators cherblew her to atoms! Sir, I do not charge my ish this notion with a fervid, but fatally misbrave, generous-hearted countrymen who taken zeal. They call it by the mysterious fought that fight with this. No, no-wé who name of "destiny." ""Our destiny," they say, send them, we who know that scenes like is "onward," and hence they argue, with this, which might send tears of sorrow "down ready sophistry, the propriety of seizing upPluto's iron cheek," are the invariable, inev- on any territory and any people that may lay itable attendants on War, we are accountable in the way of our "fated " advance. Recentfor this; and this is the way we are to belly these Progressives have grown classical made known to Europe. This-this is to be some assiduous student of antiquities has the undying renown of free Republican helped them to a patron saint. They have America! "She has stormed a city-killed wandered back into the desolated Pantheon, many of its inhabitants of both sexes-she has and there, among the Polytheistic relics of room." So it will read. Sir, if this were our that "pale mother of dead empires," they only history, then may God of his mercy grant have found a god whom these Romans, centhat its volume may speedily come to a close. turies gone by, baptized "Terminus.”

Why is it, sir, that we of the United States, Sir, I have heard much, and read somewhat a people of yesterday, compared with the of this gentleman Terminus. Alexander, of older nations of the world, should be waging whom I have spoken, was a devotee of this war for territory, for "room?" Look at your divinity. We have seen the end of him and country, extending from the Alleghany his empire. It was said to be an attribute of Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, capable it this god that he must always advance, and self of sustaining in comfort a larger popula- never recede. So both republican and impetion than will be in the whole Union for one rial Rome believed. It was, as they said, their hundred years to come. Over this vast ex-destiny. And for a while it did seem to be panse of territory your population is now so even so. Roman Terminus did advance. Unsparse that I believe we provided at the last der the eagles of Rome he was carried from session a regiment of mounted men to guard his home on the Tiber, to the farthest East on the mail, from the frontier of Missouri to the one hand, and to the far West, among the mouth of the Columbia, and yet you persist in barbarous tribes of western Europe, on the the ridiculous assertion, "I want room!"-other. But at length the time came when One would imagine, from the frequent reïter-retributive justice had become "a destiny." ation of the complaint, that you had a burst- The despised Gaul calls out to the contemned ing, teeming population, whose energy was Goth, and Attila, with his Huns, answers back paralyzed, whose enterprise was crushed for the battle shout to both. The blue-eyed Nawant of space. Why should we be so weak tions of the North," in succession, or united, or wicked as to offer this idle apology for pour forth their countless hosts of warriors ravaging a neighboring republic? It will im- upon Rome and Rome's always-advancing pose on no one at home or abroad. god Terminus. And now the battle-ax of Do we not know, Mr. President, that it is a the barbarian strikes down the conquering law, never to be repealed, that falsehood eagle of Rome. Terminus at last recedes,

"

46

THE WAR ON MEXICO.

slowly at first, but finally he is driven to protect him now? Far from it. Blood, slaughRome, and from Rome to Byzantium. Who-ter, desolation spread abroad over the land ever would know the farther fate of this Ro- and finally the conflagration of the old comman Deity, so recently taken under the pa-mercial metropolis of Russia closes the retri-| tronage of American Democracy, may find bution; she must pay for her share in the dis ample gratification of his curiosity in the lu- memberment of her weak and impotent minous pages of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." neighbor. Mr. President, a mind more prone Such will find that Rome thought as you now to look for the judgments of Heaven in the think, that it was her destiny to conquer prov-doings of men than mine, cannot fail in this inces and nations, and no doubt she sometimes to see the Providence of God. When Mossaid as you say, "I will conquer a peace." And cow burned it seemed as if the earth was where now is she; the Mistress of the World? lighted up, that the Nations might behold the The spider weaves his web in her palaces, scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered the owl sings his watch-song in her towers. and heaved and rolled upward, and yet highTeutonic power now lords it over the servile er, till its flames licked the stars, and fired remnant, the miserable memento of old and the whole Heavens, it did seem as though the once omnipotent Rome. Sad, very sad, are God of Nations was writing in characters of the lessons which Time has written for us.-flame on the front of His throne, that doom Through and in them all I see nothing but that shall fall upon the strong nation which the inflexible execution of that old law which tramples in scorn upon the weak. And what ordains as eternal that cardinal rule, "Thou fortune awaits him, the appointed executor of shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor any this work, when it was all done? He, too, thing which is his." Since I have lately heard conceived the notion that his destiny pointed so much about the dismemberment of Mexi- onward to universal dominion. France was co, I have looked back to see how, in the too small-Europe, he thought should bow course of events, which some call "Provi- down before him. But as soon as this idea dence," it has fared with other nations who took possession of his soul, he too becomes engaged in this work of dismemberment. I powerless. His Terminus must recede too. see that in the latter half of the Eighteenth Right there, while he witnessed the humiliCentury, three powerful nations, Russia. Aus- ation, and doubtless meditated the subjuga tria and Prussia, united in the dismember- tion of Russia, He who holds the winds in his ment of Poland. They said, too, as you say, fist, gathered the snows of the north and blew it is our destiny." They "wanted room." them upon his six hundred thousand men; Doubtless each of these thought, with his they fled-they froze-they perished. And share of Poland, his power was too strong now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had on universal dominion, he too is summoned his California, another his New-Mexico, and to answer for the violation of that ancient the third his Vera Cruz, Did they remain law, "Thou shalt not covet any thing which is Juntouched and incapable of harm? Alas! thy neighbors." How is the mighty fallen.No-far, very far from it. Retributive jus- He, beneath whose proud footstep Europe tice must fulfill its destiny too. A very few trembled, he is now an exile at Elba, and now years pass off, and we hear of a new man, a finally a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena, Corsican lieutenant, the self-named "armed and there on a barren island, in an unfre soldier of Democracy," Napoleon. He rav-quented sea, in the crater of an extinguished ages Austria. covers her land with blood, volcano, there is the death-bed of the mighty drives the Northern Cæsar from his capital, conqueror. All his annexations have come and sleeps in his palace. Austria may now to that! His last hour is now come, and he, remember how her power trampled upon the man of destiny, he who had rocked the Poland. Did she not pay dear, very dear, for world as with the throes of an earthquake, is her California? now powerless, still-even as the beggar, so But has Prussia no atonement to make?- he died. On the wings of a tempest that You see this same Napoleon, the blind in-raged with unwonted fury, up to the throne strument of Providence, at work there. The of the only Power that controlled him while thunders of his cannon at Jena proclaim the he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful work of retribution for Poland's wrongs; and warrior, another witness to the existence of the successors of the Great Frederick, the that eternal decree, that they who do not rule drill-sergeant of Europe, are seen flying in righteousness, shall perish from the earth.across the sandy plain that surrounds their He has found "room" at last. And France. capitol, right glad if they may escape captiv- she too has found "room." Her "eagles ity or death. But how fares it with the Au-now no longer scream along the banks of the tocrat of Russia? Is he secure in his share Danube, the Po, and the Boristhenes. They of the spoils of Poland? No. Suddenly we have returned home to their old eyrie, be see, sir, six hundred thousand armed men tween the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyren marching to Moscow. Does his Vera Cruzlees; so shall it be with yours. You may car

CORWIN'S SPEECH.

ry them to the loftiest peaks of the Cordil-hazards of internal commotion at home, leras, they may wave with insolent triumph in which last I fear may come if another provthe Halls of the Montezumas, the armed men ince is to be added to our territory. There is of Mexico may quail before them, but the one topic connected with this subject which weakest hand in Mexico uplifted in prayer I tremble when I approach, and yet I cannot to the God of Justice, may call down against forbear to notice it. It meets you in every you a Power, in the presence of which the step you take. It threatens you which way iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned soever you go in the prosecution of this war. into ashes. I allude to the question of slavery. Opposi

Mr. President, if the history of our race has tion to its farther extension, it must be obvi established any truth, it is but a confirmation ous to every one, is a deeply-rooted deterof what is written, "the way of the trans-mination with men of all parties in what we gressor is hard." Inordinate ambition, wan-call the non-slaveholding States. New-York, toning in power, and spurning the humble Pennsylvania and Ohio, three of the most maxims of justice has ever has--and ever powerful, have already sent their legislative shall, end in ruin. Strength cannot always instructions here-so it will be, I doubt not, trample upon weakness-the humble shall be in all the rest. It is vain now to speculate about exalted-the bowed down will at length be the reasons for this. Gentlemen of the South lifted up. It is by faith in the law of strict may call it prejudice, passion, hypocrisy, fajustice, and the practice of its precepts, that naticism. I shall not dispute with them now nations alone can be saved. All the annals of on that point. The great fact that it is so, and the human race, sacred and profane, are not otherwise, is what it concerns us to know. written over with this great truth, in charac- You nor I cannot alter or change this opinion ters of living light. It is my fear, my fixed if we would. These people only say, we will belief, that in this invasion, this war with not. cannot consent that you shall carry slave Mexico, we have forgotten this vital truth-ry where it does not already exist. They do Why is it that we have been drawn into this not seek to disturb you in that institution, as whirlpool of war? How clear and strong it exists in your States. Enjoy it if you will, was the light that shone upon the path of du- and as you will. This is their language, this ty a year ago! The last disturbing question their determination. How is it in the South? with England was settled-our power ex- Can it be expected that they should expend tended its peaceful sway from the Atlantic to in common, their blood and treasure in the the Pacific; from the Alleghanies we looked acquisition of immense territory, and then out upon Europe, and from the tops of the willingly forego the right to carry thither their Stony Mountains we could descry the shores slaves, and inhabit the conquered territory if of Asia; a rich commerce with all the nations they please to do so? Sir, I know the feelof Europe poured wealth and abundance into ings and opinions of the South too well to calour lap on the Atlantic side, while an unocculate on this. Nay, I believe they would| capied commerce of three hundred millions even contend to any extremity for the mere of Asiatics waited on the Pacific for our en-right, had they no wish to exert it. I believe terprise to come and possess it. One hun-(and I confess I tremble when the conviction dred millions of dollars will be wasted in this presses upon me) that there is equal obstinafruitless war. Had this money of the people cy on both sides of this fearful question. If been expended in making a railroad from then we persist in war, which if it terminate your Northern Lakes to the Pacific, as one of in anything short of a mere wanton waste of your citizens has begged of you in vain, you blood as well as money, must end (as this bill would have made a highway for the world proposes) in the acquisition of territory, to between Asia and Europe. Your capitol which at once this controversy must attachthen would be within thirty or forty days this bill would seem to be nothing less than a travel of any and every point on the map of bill to produce internal commotion. Should the civilized world. Through this great ar- we prosecute this war another moment, or tery of trade, you would have carried through expend one dollar in the purchase or conthe great heart of your own country, the teas quest of a single acre of Mexican land, the of China, and the spices of India, to the mar-North and the South are brought into colliskets of England and France. Why, why, ion on a point where neither will yield.Mr. President, did we abandon the enter- Who can foresee or foretell the result! Who prises of Peace, and betake ourselves to the so bold or reckless as to look such a conflict barbarous achievements of War? Why did in the face unmoved! I do not envy the heart we" forsake this fair and fertile field to batten of him who can realize the possibility of such on that moor." a conflict without emotions too painful to be But, Mr. President, if further acquisition of endured. Why then shall we, the representa territory is to be the result either of conquest tives of the Sovereign States of this Unionor treaty, then I scarcely know which should the chosen guardians of this confederated Rebe preferred, eternal war with Mexico, or the public, why should we precipitate this fear

ANECDOTE OF CORWIN.

ful struggle by continuing a war, the results of true patriotism. Let us abandon all idea of which must be to force us at once upon it? of acquiring farther territory, and by conseSir, rightly considered, this is treason, trea-quence cease at once to prosecute this war.son to the Union, treason to the dearest inter- Let us call home our armies, and bring them ests, the loftiest aspirations, the most cher-at once within our own acknowledged lim ished hopes of our constituents. It is a crime its. Show Mexico that you are sincere when to risk the possibility of such a contest. It is you say you desire nothing by conquest. She a crime of such infernal hue that every other has learned that she cannot encounter you in in the catalogue of iniquity, when compared war, and if she had not, she is too weak to with it, whitens into virtue. Oh, Mr. Presi-disturb you here. Tender her peace, and my dent, it does seem to me, if Hell itself could life on it, she will then accept it. But yawn and vomit up the fiends that inhabit its whether she shall or not, you will have peace penal abodes, commissioned to disturb the without her consent. It is your invasion that harmony of this world, and dash the fairest has made war, your retreat will restore peace. prospect of happiness that ever allured the Let us then close forever the approaches of hopes of men, the first step in the consumma-internal feud, and so return to the ancient tion of this diabolical purpose would be, to concord and the old ways of national proslight up the fires of internal war, and plunge perity and permanent glory. Let us here, in the sister States of this Union into the bot- this temple consecrated to the Union, pertomless gulf of civil strife. We stand this form a solemn lustration; let us wash Mexiday on the crumbling brink of that gulf-we can blood from our hands, and on these altars. see its bloody eddies wheeling and boiling in the presence of that image of the Father of before us-shall we not pause before it be too his Country that looks down upon us, swear late? How plain again is here the path, I to preserve honorable peace with all the may add the only way, of duty, of prudence, world, and eternal brotherhood with each other.

TOM CORWIN-PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION.

Judge H―, an old and respectable citi- the dark ages from the statute-book of the zen of Franklin County, related to us, some great republican State of Ohio. He took his years since, the following anecdote of Gov. seat-the House completely electrified with Corwin, which we do not recollect ever to the eloquent powers of the young orator. The have seen in print: old Yankee arose, and replied as follows:

At the time the "Wagon Boy" was first "Mr. Speaker, all the gentleman from Warren sent to the Legislature by the good people of has said is well enough in its way. I am glad to Warren, he found a law on the statute-book see young men of our State growing up inspired providing for the punishment of certain of with those feelings of philanthropy which the genfences by public whipping. It was no un-tleman has so eloquently given utterance to. But usual thing at that day to see a whipping-post in a practical light. Now I can give one illustration that is not the thing. We must look at the matter in every court-house yard, where, whenever in favor of my side of the question that will en occasion required, the stealers of pigs and tirely upset all the gentleman's fine-spun theories. chickens were drawn up by the sheriff, and You know, Mr. Speaker, I was born and raised in received "thirty-nine lashes on the bare back, the State of Connecticut. A law similar to this well laid on." Tom was made Chairman of has been for years in force in that State, where its the Judiciary Committee in the House; and effects are most salutary. You once expose a being, as is well known, a man who is dead rascal to the ignominious disgrace of a public set against all such relics of barbarism as pub and you are never troubled with him afterward. whipping, and he clears out-leaves the Statelic whipping, forthwith brought in a bill to Out of hundreds I have known to be whipped repeal the aforesaid enactment. The bill met there, I never knew one of them to show his face with considerable opposition from the "Old in that community afterward." Hunkers," among whom was one old gentle- The gentleman sat down, satisfied that his man from the Western Reserve, who was. practical illustration" was a clincher, and particularly horrified at the idea of repealing would kill the bill. Corwin arose very gravewhat he termed the wisest and most practical ly, and remarked:

jenactment in oar whole criminal code. Cor- "I have often endeavored, Mr. Speaker, to solve win made an eloquent speech when the ques- the question why there was such an immense emtion of engrossment was before the House, ap-igration from Connecticut to the West, but always, pealing to the members, as Christian legisla- until now, without success. The gentleman has tors and enlightened freemen of the Nineteenth explained it to my entire satisfaction." Century, to come up and erase this relic of Corwin's bill passed.

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