Weekly national intelligencer., 1846-05-16
THE WAR WITH MEXICO.

| When ones country becomes involved in war
with foreign nation, however strong the sense of
indignation against those who may have unneces-
sarily or wickedly brought about such calamity,
there is feeling of reluctance to the utterance of
the condemnation which a crime so great against
humanity and the common veal justly incars. Such
has beeu our own feeling, and, far as possible,
our course, in regard to the war with MEXICO and
its contrivers. Although the Halls of Congress and
the Public Press TEEN with denunciations of the
Administration for the unfortunate condition in
which, without single reason of necessity or ex-
pediency, it has placed the country, we have
ourselves mastered our own feelings SO far as to
refrain almost altogether from those expressions of
censure to which others have given free utterance
The government paper, instead of respecting this
forbearance, seems anxious, by display of all the
insolence inspired by official position and official
favoritism, to force us into a different attitude.
But, whilst the government paper shall not provoke
us into any forgefuness of what is due to the coun-
try under these trying circumstances, it need not
flatter itself that the Administration will be even
tually released from the fearful responsibility which
it has incurred The first care is to meet the emer-
gency brought about by the Government; to pro-
secute the war with unanimty and vigor, that it
may be the sooner ended; yet not to suffer it to
absorb all our attention, to forget the account
which we have to settle with those who have wan
tonly brought it upon the country. There is
a solemn task devolved upon us by the circum-
stances under which the country has been placed;
and it shall be faithfully dschargedbut not at this
moment when anxiety for the fate of our arms on
the Rio Grande occupies not ours only, but almost
exclusively every mind.
In the act of Congress- which we publish official
ly to-day, the two Houses of Congress have, we
conceive, given the seal and sanction Of their autho
rty to false principle and to false fact in the form
of the highest act of legislation which they ever
be called upon to perform an such as has never
before been approached but with the greatest reuc
tance and caution, and after months of deliberation
No man who will suffer his reason to pass upon the
facts in the case, and will obey the dictates of his con-
science, but must admit that this War was delibe-
rately begun by the Executive of the United States
and that twas so begun by an usurpation of power
which the Constitution has denied to the President.
The unsustaned pretence for this war, that it is the
act of Mexico, has been approved, and the usur-
patton of the war power by the President recog-
nised as constitutional, by the act Of Congress.
We are very well aware that nearly one-half of
those Senators who voted for the passage Of this
act and large proportion oc the Representatives,
voted for only on the ground Of its authorizing
levies of men and appropriations of money to meet
the emergency which exists on our Southern from
tier. The Father of Evil himself never offered a
temptation to under circumstances more persua-
sve than that of relieving our beleaguered army,
Strengthening its arm to enable it to repel its adver
sary and to revenge the slaughter of our brave officers
and soldiers. Those who have fallen in the fight,
and are still supposed to be in peril, fellow
citizens, our friends, our kinsmen our brethren. 1t
is no fault of theirs that the Executive has unne-
cessarily and unconstitutonally placed them in the
post of danger, and has already sent the souls of
some of them to the valley of the shadow of DEATH
Palsied and blasted be the hand that would with
hold from them whatever aid is necessary to succor
and sustain them, and to enable them to triumph
over their enemy!
But what necessity was there to couple with any
such provision vote, not only implying conf
dence in the rectitude of the President in beginning
miS Out PidsiiB III iiiS Hdnuo dil poWeT anu
means necessary to "prosecute" it in any manner,
and on any element, at his discretion, of which
we have during his short reign-we this term,
since Congress have made him monarch, If he
was not substantially one beforc-had SO many no
table proofs. Who knows to what objects and in
what direction he will not extend his enterprises
If he could not keep off from the Mexican territory
before, into what distant regions shall we not find
him now marching the uoiunfeers, who, for the
first time in our history, mainly relied upon to
carry on war which is, by act of Congress, to be
" prosecuted" far beyond the limits Of the Uni
ted States as suits the pleasure Of the Presidentl
Our political friends in Congress have suffered
themselves, in giving apparent sanction to that
which they themselves in many instances severaly
declared to be false and unsubstantial, to be led
into error by dread of the feeling of the People,
who, they seem to have thought had the bill pass
ed without their votes, would not be able to appre-
ciae the motives by which they would have been
influenced. We trust that, in acting thus, they un-
deryalue the intelligence of the People.
The People, moreover, do not want this war,
nor any war, set on foot by the Executive,
solely in pursuance Of plans Of his own. They
want no war, moreover, which, like this, could
have been not only honorably but proftably avoid
ed, had the wise and safe and humane course Of
his prpdecpssors heen follovuad bxy tho preside