Weekly national intelligencer., 1847-12-11

would not begin to strike at his vital parts = and
well for him, too, that he would not for the very
crowd Of court green, coarse as il then was, was
yet undebauched Of every right sentiment by party
politics, and would not have suffered in the bully
what it now endures in the President.
80 much for the mercies and the compunctions
OF him who proposes, for the lucre of five misera-
bic millions of indemnties, which he himself ac-
knowledges Mexico could not raise the means of
paying, to butcher or enslaye whole empire of
Republics But this is not all how stood the
fact Of our very right to ask for those indemnities,
after having helped ourselves to Texas, for the lib
erty of peacefully annexing which il is well known
that we stood ready, under the Tyler administra-
tion, at any time TO have given more than the
amount of the indemnites as price Even in
the moment of Annexation, the Chairman of the
Committee of Foreign Affairs in the House of Rep
resentatives, speaking as the organ of the Execu-
tive in the House, sad to quiet the last opposition,
that he had the liberty Of assuring the House that
it ascertaned that the injured feelings of Mexi-
co could be healed wiM money. Such was the in
timation then held OUT and there is every reason
to believe that authorized but unofficial offers of at
least the amount Of the indemnities had been more
than once made to Mexico for her rights over
Texas
Finally, however, in the mere confidence of i'm
punity, we took it without price: but at least, by
last reserve of shame or of pity, upon the remon-
STRANGE and the unanswerabe showing Of Mr.. BEN
TON that we were about to take much more than
Texas, (Which had never possessed any thing be-
o,I ~, n -
Resolution of Annexation ordered the Executive to
adjust by friendly negotiation the proper boundary
between Texas and Mexico.
And, now, once more for the peace-ovingness Of
this our President. His duty stood assigned him.
He knew that we had taken what we had ofen of
fered to buy; he knew that if, in honor and faith,
the indemnities were not cancelled by our seizure
Of Texas, at least that now an injury to Mexico had
been committed. But he knew that, feeble as she
was, she dared not accept that war; and at once,
with pitilessness the most singular, not content
though we had just ravished from her vast and
rich territory nor touched by the forlornness of a
nation utterly unable to revenge such treatment fur
ther than by the impotent resentment Of withdraw
ing her Ambassador from our Court, he sends Gen.
TAYLOR forward, to seize in addition to all that she
had been stripped of, even the petty and barren slip,
the mere selvage of sand the desert space between
the Nueces and Rio Grande, which Congress had
plainly meant to spare. For this worthless object,
and under circumstances so vehemently invoking
forbearance and mercy, has Mr.. Polk illegally and
unconsttuhonay involved us in this cruel war,
every step in which is plainly, according to the pro-
gress of his plans to lead further and further into
.the bowels of the land"
Yet, in the face of all this President Polk can
talk smoothly of his love of Peace, the Iiberality'
of the terms he has held out through Mr.. TmsT,
and especially the generosity with which, wherever
the sword goes to crimson the fields of Mexico,
the olivebranch forthwith waves, as fast as its COM
panion smites
No conqueror that ! ever heard Of" says Ed
mund Burke, has ever professed to make cruel
hard, and insolent use Of his conquest No! The
man of the most declared pride scarcely dares to
trust his own heart with this dreadful secret of
ambition BUTT will appear in its time. And no
man who processes to reduce another to the inso-
= lent mercy of a foreign arm ever had any sort Of
good will towards him. The profession of kind
ness, with that sword in his hand and that demand
of his hostility"
Can the President so little conceive how mere
mockery of peace and fraternity is this invading a
country with declarations of love, this sweeping off
its provinces with besom made of oliye-branches,
as to expect that Mexico will not be fired with
double resentment by the imperious and. degrading
form of negotiation to which he would have her
submit If he does expect it, then he stranger
not only to all the natural and becoming passions
of men defending their country, its honor, and its
independence, but TO all the examples of history
and all the suggestions Of prudence. War has
never thus been made, except by conquerors the
most arrogant aud mercless. The rule of the Ro-
mans, not less wise than magnanmous, was neUer
10 negotiate after deem
Can the President intend that me are to treat in
the face of disaster, should it ever come! Dare
he declare that the pretended olive-branch' would
not then be instantly Withdrawn! What, then, is
the inevitable effect but to require that they whom
are invading, destroying. and dismembering,
should, at every calamious and bloody defeat, come
forward to embrace terms necessarily made harder
and more humiliating by utter dscomhture-the
rout and dispersion of their armies, or the capture