Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-07-03

course oil enlightened and improved principles,
come to wish to shed an unhappy peoples blood
for that they were the prey of domestic disorders
we did not hate where we should have helped we
did not trample where we should have pited nc
horrible combination of men with too much religion
and of men with none, of fanatics detestng Catho-
licsm and of inidels ready to violate any affairs,
had yet taught themselves to listen without horror
to familiar talk of the enormous wealth Of the MeXi-
can churches, their sacred vessels and images oil
massive gold their balustrades of silver their heaps
of gems. sober and pacific people, we had not
yet begun to feed our fancies with the thought OF
" revealing in the halls of the Montezumas,' or of
rioting any where amidst the blood and plumber OF
captive cities the moral and suspicious vision of
" Manifest Destiny that was to make us lords
of this entire Continent, and then, bursting beyond,
to lay the world at our feet, had not yet risen upon
our dazZled view. In word, no fraud upon
Freedom itself, whose name has been used for the
OCCASION, no subdoous rivalry of Despotsm in its
darkest crimes while pretending to resist it, lurked
in the conduct or purposes of those who originally
set up this idea Of an american System of
policy Brotherhood of Republics, the antagonists,
whenever there should be need, Of that kingly
league which had then formed itself in the Old
World against Free Principles. In effect and in
intention, to the case in and for which this men,
orabe declaration of Mr.. MONROE was uttered, the
protecting attitude which we, byit assumed towards
the younger free States of this hemisphere was at
once magnanimous and enlightened. In those
young commonwealth, founded by our example
and modelled on Institutions we should by
steadily pursuing that generous policy, have drawn
about us a great system of Free Nations covering
this continent and acknowledging in their friend
and their guide, the elder Power under whose
strength they could rally, under whose counsel be
safe, into whose lap might be thrown without fear
every advantage of trade which countries so con-
nected could yield one to the other. Such was the
MONROE Contnentalism the conception Of true
statesman, just and wise-a patriot but philan-
thropist, remarkable for his fairness when out of
power and his moderation when ina man who
had served much, but intrigued lttle and, to the
height of all praise, the honest President who alone,
since the day of WASHINGTON, dared to look on
every fellow-czen alike, and to consider Party as
thing which, in the discharge of high public duties,
the Chief Magistrate of free People must not
know. Such, repeat, that american
Continental Policy which Mr. MONROE invent
ed, when he saved the infant Spanish American
Republics.
Let us now see that which Mr.. Polk has dis
covered, under the same name, when he would
overwhelm and subjugate one of those same States,
and lead us on to that long series of crimes which
is, by manifest Destiny" to destroy the rest.
Breaking from all possibility of parallel, the
two present nothing but contrast; and
contrast not only of things, but of persons-not
only of the acts, but of the actors.
Not obscure as to talent; not undistinguished as
to public services commanding by his character
wide and unminged esteem, Mr. MONROE was no
child of fraud by faction changeling slipped into
the cradle by the nurses of Convention, while
the true heir whom they were sent to take care of
was stolen away or stuffed, that founding might
be exalted. The first war of independence had
seen him bravely in the field and the second,
which found him old, found him with youthful
courage seeking, in the disasters Of 1914, the ha-
zardous post of the War Department, in which
Armstrong had just become so unpopular, or rails
ing money, upon the pledge Of honor and his per-
sona fortune, to enable Gen. Jackson's troops to
march to New Orleans. In civil life, he had dis
charged with signal honor, long series of trusts
he had conducted three important embassies-to
England, to Spain, and that to France which ac-
qured for us the vast tract of the Mississippi As
Mr.. MADIsoNs Secretary of State, he had been
entrusted with the important negotiation which
afterwards, under his own Presidency, secured to
us the Floridas-a negotiation which he had been
originally selected to open in 1904. Such had been
the career such the public labors of this ong-tr
man, who, much heard of, had never been heard of
but with honor and, rising slowly through the most
eminent employments, must be confessed never to
have attained any dignity for which his fitness and
his reputation were not, through his unusual mo-
desty, abundandy ripe.
But the personal abilities, however high of
ruler could effect but little without corresponding
ministerial assistance and hence one of the surest
tests of Chief Magistrates capacity is admitted
to lie in the selection which he makes of those who
are to aid him in carrying on the Government. Let
US see, then, what the composition Of the
Cabinet which Mr.. MONROE formed
His Secretary Of State was JOHN Quincy ADAMS
his Secretary of War JouS c. CAIUouN: of the