Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-10-17


modified by competent authority, (of hereafter and
continues office the present authorities Is there any an
nexaon here assumption OF the sovereign power oil
Government His duty is to hold the province securely
and would be folly in him to retain the authorities with
out making allegiance to the United States And
though he may the title Of Governor does he there
by acquire any power than he possessed from the mil
possession OF the territory He has not changed the laws
of the country he has annexed the territory but sim
ply declares that Military Governor, he holds as con
quest OF the United States subject to the future decision OF
Congress the treaty making power The Enquirer goes
on 10 say that does not see how General kearney coud
have acted otherwise in securing the possession OF the con-
quered territory"
See with what ease, if with his little finger,
junior Abstractionlst can remove the vast bulk OF
a question like this How facile the arguments
that satisfy the apprehensve conscience of Strict
Construction man: lst. " Ii would have been a
great folly for General KEARNEY not to exort oaths
OF allegiance, soon he got possession of the
capital of the province - I'd. w hen one has force
enough TO do wha one pleaSes, what matters the
taking what legal and political titles one likes |!
since titles cannot add to the authority of one all
powerful y Sd. " How else could Gen. X. or the
President have acted |" How satisfactory
But practical answers are the surest; let us
refer TO an example incur own history, as to the
proposition No. |.
II getting possession of the capital entities one to
exact allegiance then the British, when they took
possession of this city in 1914, had right to have
sworn us all in as subjects to the Crown, and to
have hung or shot as traitor every man afterwards
found in arms, except under his Majesty's commits
sion. But King George Ill. modest weak
and did or could not do what President Polk
has done
Let us now look an instant at the proposition No.
2. Swift maintains, in one of his reatises that the
soul is composed of certain mirrors that reflect to
the sensorum the images of all things perceived;
that some persons have these mirrors quite plane
and straight that they represent objects as they
are; but that others have them concave, convex
and with all sorts of irregularities of figure, that
they represent nothing as it is. This last is the
only sufficient physical explanation we have ever
seen of the natural inability under which all Alb
stractioniss seem TO labor, as to viewing any thing
without utter distortion. What else but this can
account for such confusion is here, of all right,
all lar, with the momentary and military right of
Force, Conquest
Conquest itself has its rules, It's limits, or il is
but Rapine. If made by lawless men, it seizes up
on what it likes, Administration is doing it
assumes not merely military but civil possession !;
it claims to deal not only with as embodied
and armed adversaries, under the laws of civilized
war, but with non-combatans, private property, the
laws, the authorities every thing, and in fine TO be
supreme.
Now, every armed ncursion into a country does
not because its native Government may for the time
have fled or been overthrown, confer the right of
setting up to which its peoples obedience may
be required. On the contrary, they have right,
recognised by all nations, Of remaining faithful to
their own rulers, their own nationality, no matter
how much for the time, cloven down and trampled
on. Merely in this sense, then, and against the
people of a Mexican province, the United States
could acquire, by the capture of Santa Fe, no such
rights President Polk has attempted to exercise.
Can it erer acquire them! Never, by mere
force: that can legitimatize no possession. Arms
are nothing but arms, and the opposite of law or
right. The region occupied is either sm jIris, dis
possible by none but itself; it is sub dtione ate
rius, the conserving dependency of the superior
power And this or that must have surrendered it
in form and by compact, before its sovereignty can
| nave passed away 10 armed possession. "A HegO-
tiation ending in peaceful consent, and conducted
and ratified by our Executive and Senate, could
alone give us, the United States mot the President,
any legal right or power in New Mexico and when
thus obtained, Congress must first provide by law
| for its exercise; the Executive, meantime having
no power there but the military one.
Instead Of all his-too plain to be disputed when
once stated-the Executive has done every thing
which not only international right but all our own
laws forbid. He has set up a power which the
United States themselves have yet no pretence to ;
he is exercising il in manner totally illegal for
he has joined in the person of military officer
who with cannot be civil fuuctonary-all other
authorities, legislative, judicial, and executive.
None of these could he yet confer: to accumulate
any of them would be monstrous, even could he
separately confer them. Yet, as we see, that most
sensitive Of all nervous things, strict construction,
is now, as to all these prodigious things, as con-
venienty hard OF sense as the neither milestone
Oh blessed guardian angel, to watch over Consti-
tutons But we had almost forgot the State Rights
proposition No. 3 namely, What else could
Gen. Kearney and Mr.. Polk do ?"
That question must, first of all, answer by
another What else or what more could Napoleon
or any other conqueror have done BIT surely he
might have done what Gen. Taylor has done; and
Gen. T.. has put on neither the civil executive, nor
legislative, nor judicial power Of all Tamaupas