Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-02-08

only gamers. A successful war may strengthen the
Government, may even enrich some privileged class
that WELD it; but ii must ever cost the mass OF a
people dear in life, in property, and finally in their
liberties. These are surely heavy price to pay
for the qualification Of national jealousy dislike,
or for the vanity Of a few mems renown, bought
by the blood of multitudes who perish obscurely,
leaving their children TO become the slaves Of per-
haps the very man for whose the fathers fell
Among the many wise things left by the illustri-
GUS MADISON in his writings we know none SO just
in its sentiments or SO finely expressed the fol-
lowing passage, which we find in his Letters Of
Helvdius." Nothing could well be more oppor-
tune to the subject Of which we are speaking.
q War is, in fact the true nurse of Executive ag-
: grandizement. In war physical force is to be
i created, and it is the Executive will which is to
direct it. In war the public treasures are TO be
= unlocked, and it is the Executive hand which is
to dispense them. In war the honors and the
= emoluments of Office are TO be multiplied, and it
is the Executive patronage under which they are
to be enjoyed. 1t is in war; finally, that laurels
are to be gathered and it is the Executive brow they
are to encircle. The strongest passions and the
most dangerous weaknesses OF the human breast
ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venia
desire and the duty Of peace.
Hence it has grown into an axiom that the Ex-
ecutive is the department Of power most distin-
guished by its propensity to war; hence 1t is the
practice of all States, in proportion as they are
i free, to dsarm this propensity of its influence.
AS the best praise, then, that can be pronounced
on an Executive Magistrate is, that ne is the friend
'of peace-a praise that rises in its value as there
may be known capacity to shine in war--so It
- IL I..t.no nf fr0Ql
people to mark the first omen in the society OF
principles that may stimulate the hopes of other
Chief Magistrates, of another propensity, to intrude
into questions on which its qualification depends.
If free people be wise people also, they VIII
not forget that the danger of surprise can never be
SO great as when the advocates for the prerogative
Of war can sheath it in symbol Of peace.
Our whole system, indeed--the very fundamental
idea of our institutions-is one of peace, of the
strictly voluntary consent of all over whom our
FORE the very contradiction Of all our own political
faith the denial Of all that gave and preserves us
being, an independence Of our own. Speaking of
Gear Alexander's imputed love for Greece and her
independence, BYRON asks,
"How should the auocrat Of bondage be
| q The king of serfs, and set the nations free ~
| Not greater is the contradiction when we, under
the name Of liberty would form, by arms, by usur-
patton, or by fraud, the more than imperial domi-
Mon of which one now hears men every day talk
| Familiarity.
Before career of injustice and violence for such
purpose can be designed, the sacred love of right
1.-THE genuine foundation Of all our liberty must
have ceased in mems hearts. Such an unhappy
idea is the fatal symptom, not merely that we are
grown TO be the enemies of other mems freedom,
but that we cherish no longer, and soon utterly
to forfeit our own. Ettf .sa..
But were il otherwise such an insane long,
ing in the people not signify precisely what it did
in Caesar or Napoleon--still, what could follow
from the joining to us of an alien, an inferior, a
subjugated people, but degradation Of our own
institutions, which depend, for their vgor, their
reality, not merely on the acquiescence Of those
who participate in them but on their equal fitness
to apply them to their own affairs and ours! Not
all Of our own blood and tongue even are fit for
this; and as for the other nations of European
origin now occupying this continent, which of them
has yet shown itself capable Of more than very
rude and uncertain imitation Of our freedom?
They yet to want all its instincts, to be in
competent to put on its habits.
II is, BESIDES saying not too much to say that no
nation can receive from another the gift of freedom.
That is social salvation which each people must
work out for itself, with fear and trembling, just
each man must seek righteousness for himself of
God. The admirable law Of Providence is mani
fest in all this matter and it is, that when nation
becomes fit for freedom, no power can hinder IT
from being Free Such is the defensive vgor Of
true liberty! Equally true is it. of course, as al
most the converse Of this proposition, that no ma
ton which can be subdued, either from within or
| from without, is in condition TO be common.
wealth. We may incorporate alien States, to the
deterioration of our own good government: but we
cannot render them fit for it, Whatever we might
confer upon them of good order, would have to be
at some equal sacrifice of our own. II we would
hold them to us on terms Of equality, then we must
descend, i'm order to raise them. And 1t is still
worse if we are to hold them as masters; for, po-
tcally at least, and externally, if not socially,
free people must be their own masters only, not
those Of other subject communities. Territories so
acquired will but constitute after all, apanage
fef dependency for their rulers, not for them, and
form to those rulers power sure TO be used to the
destruction Of domestic liberty. The greater the
extent of this sort of subject dominion, the more
would its management confded of necessity to our
Government, and chiefly to the Executive, render
that Government independent Of ourselves.
II is, therefore, with horror and alarm that we