Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-03-20

painfully, 10 LOOK around upon the compleXlty OF
public disaster which must attend all wars, even
when unlike the present. sanctioned by some strong
necessity some legitimate policy, or at least some
plausible justification. The Legislative power-so
which, in our anti-monarchical Institutions was
jealousy reserved the always dangerous and often
fatal faculty of war-making-the Legislative power,
which, even where that faculty is left Kingly pre-
rogatiye, still holds, in the control of supplies a
check upon Monarchs and Ministers so absolute
and sure 10 be used, that nowhere in Europe can
the Throne dare to originate a war without first
consulting it--has finally arrived at its periodic
dissolution, without indicating, in any el1ectual
way its own high privilege which has been sub
verted; the limitations of the Constitution which
have been trampled on; our public policy of peace
and justice which has been given to the winds; or
even the ordinary prudence and everyday duty of
soberly considering achat are the true Objects and
.What IS the probable eUen, of The perilous national
enterprise in which the country has been unwt-
tingly and most unwilngly involved.
In word, the majorities of the two Houses Of
Congress have chosen that this war-no matter how,
by whom, or for what begun-shall proceed let its
origin be ever so much in derogation or destruction
of all those principles and powers on which hangs
the safety of our plan of freedom and they have
thus refusing to look back to the past equally cho
to set the future at naught to shut their eyes
all consequences, and blindy to push forward to its
event-whlch, at this moment, more than twelve
months after our army ordered TO advance into
the disputed territory and sit down before Mata-
1noros, no human intelligence can any more fore
see than 1t has pleased the headong majority
in Congress to scrutinize the commencement
Every man, reasonable or unreasonable must con-
fess that the prospect darkens we advance; that
we now seem much further from the termination OF
this war than we did al its outset; that the millions
and the lives which have been lavished have rem
dered nothing certain but still more profuse ex-
penditure of more millions and more lives; and
that meanwhile, amidst all this thickenng gloom of
fatal party compances 10 Executive usurpatons,
all this desoIaton, all this iegality, all this domes-
tic waste, all the corruption and all the imperial
stretch of direct power or Illicit influence that
are growing up from this contest, and must be its
consequence if they not its real aim, both The
causes and The objects for which we are fighting
have far the allegations or disclosures of those
conducting the conflict concerned, constantly
".
When war is necessary, these and the other
evils inseparable from il must be borne and, we
know from experience, win be cheer(ully encoun-i
tered by intelligent people. But, so far from
such being the character of the present war; il
would be a difficult matter to find any two men,
even among those who support the war, who will
agree as to ,chatH Is that zee are fighting for.
1t fell in our way, some weeks ago, TO express
our own individual opinion-for which opinion we
protested that nobody else must be held response
ble-that, in the language of Edmund Burke's
speech on the American war, I" we are at this mo-
ment fighting for phantom" Further examina-
ton and reflection have deepened the persuasion
then avowed into the strongest conviction that in
Its beginning, this had no Just cause nor right
policy; and that in It's progress, it has become
neither luster nor more expedient. The objects |
alleged by its advocates as those which command |
ed that II should be begun, or as those which re-
commend that it should be further prosecuted, have
been all the while shifting and changing: delusive
the dancing lights OF a summers eve, intangible
shadows they chop about like the wind; thew
elude the grasp like some dream and il is in this
sense that I'VE repeat we fighting for PHAN-
TOM, II not lot something worse. The proposition
may appear to many as one of that sort which is
much easier to assert than to prove but, if they to
whom IT appears in that light will favor us with
their candid attention. we shall not despair of salts
flying them that 1t is we have said
But, before we proceed, let us advert to the
state of things at the time of the assembling of Con-
gress in December, ls45, when President Polk for
the first time met them. Congress itself had. in lis
resolution of annexation, expressly directed that
the question of the true boundary between Texas
and Mexico should be settled by NEGOTIATION. The
Annual Message of the President suggested no fear
whatever of an approaching conflict No one
could, on the closest scrutiny Of that paper, have
discovered any reason to apprehend it. We had
dispatched Minister TO Mexico, by whom, there
is little doubt, the question of boundary could have
been at once satisfactorily adjusted, had not that
purpose been complicated with other objects with
which il had no necessary or even proper con-
nexion, and had not Mr.. SLIDELL been sent as a
Minister Penipotentiary instead Of the Special
Envoy which alone Mexico had expressed will
lingness to receive. The President gave Congress
TO understand, besides, that step which could pro-
duce any change in the existing state of things
would be resorted to without the sense Of Congress