Weekly national intelligencer., 1847-12-25

| comPetehl " MAKE, WIN any validity, such
transfer of their subjects. So that, by the con
sent of all respectable authors, dominion canno
be acquired, even from or to arbitrary rulers, b,
any such compulsory means as those which III
President and his .adettors propose 10 employ /,
| 1Herico
| Such being the principles which have come /,
be received even in the Old World, among State
whose institutions and PRACTICES as to public right
still retain, IN many particulars, rules originating il
ancient and arbitrary ages, how should zoe pretend
to set them aside ?-,oe, who boast ourselves the
iavorte progeny of Justice and of Freedom. ban
ished so long, but now once more descending to
bless the earth! Is it the "Model Republic
which is now to subyert what Kings themselves
have been at last taught to respect Are we the
refuge and the hope of Humanity, the gaze and the
guide OF every thing LIBERAL the morning star of a
new day of Right and of Peace, before whose rising
beam Tyranny was to skulk away and the oppressed
rejoice-are ,ce to call back the wrongfulness of
those iron times which seemed departed forever /?
Are we, the emancipators, to ret the cast-o chains
OF tyrants and conquerors, and re-manacle each
weaker nation that we can kidnap!
This principle of nations free-w -will-itsright to
be governed only by its own consent; its indefea-
sible equality and independence of all nations-is
the fundamental axiom upon which stands our own
existence as society; for, in our Declaration Of
independence the first proposition to individual
man IS that he is born free and equal to each
other individual; and the first proposition as to
men associated in society is that they have an in
alienable right to choose how and by whom they
shall be governed. Has this principle heretofore
an eternal and " selfevident TRUTH become false
ever since the President in his Message proposed
by force of arms to deprive all New Mexico and
California forever Of any right not to be governed
6ut 6y their oaon consent3
But the principle thus made the capital one of
our own great National Bill Of Rights is not found
there only. 1t has still loftier source because
that source is one which the degeneracy and infa-
tuaton of no one people can turn from veneraton
into scorn. The doctrine itself was derived into
our Declaration of Independence from the Phloso-
ply of Popular Rights, then just beginning to spread
over France, and from France over the continent of
Europe. But this philosophy had itself borrowed
the truth from a system nobler and more solid
from National Law, and the wise and liberal friends
Of mankind who led the way in the great science
which enlightens nations to their rights and du-
ties in society, and is, to them, what Revelation
and Morals are as to individuals. That great sci
ence had already taken, for its necessary founda-
ton, its first indispensable idea the same great prin-
ciple and he who will consult its ablest compen-
diary, Vattel, will find that in his preliminary chap
ter he assumes and enforces, the necessary basis
Of the whole system, these truths:
That man, in his natural state, is a rational and
responsible being that, such, he is necessarily
possessed OF free will, that he may pursue his
own duties and happiness-in other words, his
f-preservation-by obeying the laws of his ma
Iure; and that, until he becomes the member of a
society, he is free and independent Of all other men
That when he enters into society, he only vests
IN 1t the natural rights which, in common with all /
lis other members, he held: that the collective So
ciety is, therefore, invested with all the natural
rights of Individuals perfect right to its own free
will; an entire equality with all other societies
right to consult its own happiness and selfpreser-
vation; an indefeasible and perpetual right, there
ore, to be governed only with its own consent so
hat another society, however strong has no more
light TO deprive it of these, its indispensable facul-
ies the conditions of its existence than has an in
iividual man to take away the life Of his fellow
nan. nation, in Short has no more right TO mur-
Ter or ensave another nation, than has a private
person to murder or enslave another man.
Such, then, are not merely the inherent princi-
,les of our own Government but the sacred and
Universal ones of all public law, freedom, and hu-
nanty, which the President would have us set
lside and abolish forever, by the conduct that he
lrges US TO pursue towards Mexico. He would
rave US rescind our Declaration Of Independence,
lbrogate the great Code of Nations, and dissolve
III the great principles not merely Of our own Con-
'titution, but of Free Institutions every where. He
would have us make war; not only upon Mexico,
,ut the highest social truths; not only upon the
anctity of another and weaker nations life and .
liberty, but upon whatever can. protect the weak
rom the strong any where; not only upon human
ty and justice, but upon all in our own Govern
nent which was meant to embody them.
And now, to justify or to induce contradiction
total and so fragrant of our own and of all other
good principles, what is or can be allegedl
To justify it, nothing short of an invncible ne
cessity would suffice and, Of course, no induce
nent, no mere advantage TO ourselves can extenu-
ate that which necessity only-the want of power
% choosc-must be called in to Justify.
But if il be alleged that there was necessity for
yoing to war with Mexico, either because she had