Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-02-22

only sure defence, our J0TanS Vi Hoscihion, "iAi'.
still manifest themselves in high public acts, and
give token of spirit that may yet redeem the coun-
trv and its Government from those wild influences
that seem Just now on nearly all sides in the ascen-
dant, but temporarily only, as we still believe
While, amidst all the agitations that prevail all the
vehement passions that excited, in contest like
that Just past we can see, at its decision, even I'M
der recent circumstances, minority the most for
midable that ever in any country saw itself thus
overthrown submit to the forms OF law and vlndl-
cate its patriotism and its rectude still more by its
patience under ill than its struggle against it, we
shall still hope something of that which the iend in
Milton breads when, bidding his fellows not to be
too confident Of their own powers Of hurt he says:
-"Or could we break our way
BY force and our heels all Hell should rise
With blacklist instruction, to confound
Heavens purest light yet our great enemy,
All incoruptible, would on his throne
Sit unpoluted and tn ethereal mould,
Incapable of STAIN would soon expcl
Her mischief and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious"
tits, however, by the intervening news OF foreign
event-the final overthrow of SANTA ANNA and the
triumph in Mexico Of Revolution against an old
artifcer of Revolutionsthat are led to recur to
the fact of last week, presenting happy contrast
to the violence which, in the neghboring Republic,
SO often subverts the State by its very efforts even
when sincere) to correct its temporary mschefs.
That unhappy country has continually, for some
twenty years, been the victim of its own facility to
resort, against every temporary abuse Of power, TO
the overthrow of law and government itself-des-
perate remedies, utterly beyond almost any thing
that the rulers of day, however pernicious, can
infct upon people possessing system of freedom.
The lessen to the late Mexican chief is not less
we're than it is in the main just. He had himself
shown too often how authorities were to be pulled
down; and when, accomplishing the objects of his
personal ambition, he grew conservative, and would
have contained by force the spirit which he had
helped to teach, he has himself been upset by the
very arts which he had shown. He had sown the
wind he has reaped the whirlwind.
If better fate has thus far attended our expert
ment in government we owe it partly TO the old
habits of our raceto that which constitutes for the
Anglo-Saxon genuine glory, most different from
me which we hear with shame imputed to the
lineage Its virtues alone its love of law its resistance
given it performance without. The nation that
irampes upon its own laws that violates every do
mestic security that is formidable to the best of its
own citizens, will never be able long to accomplish,
however willing to attempt, those.wrongs to other
countries which men amongst us seem meditating
with such delight, though to be achieved at the sa
criice of every thing permanently good and safe in
our own institutions.
But even these instructive habits of our race
would not, in the outset of our Government, have
saved us from disorders which, once begun, grow
easier at every repetition, if il had not been our for
tune TO possess in one illustrious citizen man the
ittest in virtue, in wisdom, in courage, in patriot
ism, and in the confidence which all these had at
racted to him, TO maintain the steadfast temper Of
the land and teach veneration of our laws, before
yet custom and time had made the general attach
ment TO them implicit sure, incapable of yielding to
momentary events or passions.
Constitutions have been subverted in Mexico bv
design; they might be overthrown among ourselves
by sort Of popular inadvertence, which, carried
away by the passion or the fancy of The day, over
looked in the eager pursuit of some present object
or feeling, the havoc which it was perpetrating of
things infinitely more valuable.
We passed safely through the Whiskey Insur-
recton, kindled up against just and necessary
exercise of the powers of the Government by bad
men, who worked upon that jealousy of the
taxing power which forms one Of the great checks,
throughout the British race, Of governmental abuses
In the famous Olmstead case we saw the State
authorities Of Pennsylvania, under Governor SNY-
DER, arrayed in arms against the execution Of the
Federal laws. Yet again the conservative prudence
of the Government and the people averted serious
violence, and saved the Constitution from that Sc
we're trial. And again, in the attempted Nulliica-
ton of South Carolina, the passions of a particular
section, enlisted against the legitimate acts of the
Government, threatened direct issue Of strife but
once more, by wise concession, the authority OIL
the laws was preserved, the Constitution saved
from being either abrogaed, or, for its enforcement
stained with blood. Less fortunate, certainly, was
the example last year Of the deliberate, contempu-
GUS, and as utterly needless as illegal overthrow, by