Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-01-15

Il
ono y la'nuiy sustaining the eagles and uphodng the ho
M - ne oIme we can most surely and quickly overwhelm
er' we cannot hope TO obtain honorable peace by
opposing the war; On the contrary in that way we shall
PoHact the war by perpetuang the power authors
therefore, 50 far the country il concerned, the
o. PATRIOTISM we shall secure, the earliest
pa:, moment through the nstrumenlaity of Wing
administration, the blessings of an honorable peace
| NOW this is certainly meant for the explanation Of
system OF public conduct and reasons which
should be pursued by the Wing party, as opposed
to the Mexican war. and, Of course by al o,bars
opposed to the war. Ii seems most exn iii and
definite-as, indeed it was its business n he II
| was necessarily meant to be comprehensive by or
uinary intelligence; and, taking ourselves 10 be
possessed OF that we can see in but the following
lights the plan proposed.
Concurring, evidently, in all the views Of the
InfeHgencer, as to the origin and conduct Of the
war on the part of the Presdent--the g falseness
ofits pretences," the illegal and perfdious steps as
| to Congress and the country by which il was
brought about, its gross injustice of attack upon
| feeble and unfortunate neghbor, the territorial RAJ
pacIty which is its object, the enormous usurpaions
and abuses which have constantly marked its pro-
gress, the debt which it will have enailed upon us
for none but deplorabe ends, the internal dissen-
Il
the long protraced difficulties which we must have
with any considerable Mexican population which
we may attempt to hold in subsection or to incorpo-
| rate-the EUering Journal yet thinks we are en-
| tirely wrong in opposing the war. We beg to
know, then, in what case there ought to be opposi-
ton to an Administration; or Uhen before such
case of opposition the Journal itself admits was
eUer made out Is there any war which ought to
be opposed? Clearly none. But war being, at
best, one of the greatest ills which Government
can infct upon people, and an unnecessary war
being the greatest of all national crimes aciat is it
permitted to oppose, if not war which, besides
being unjust abroad, was unconstitutional at home,
and, in addition to visiting carnage and devastation
on Mexico, visits upon ourselves so much that is
mournful or guilty or suicidal in the present. with
nothing of probable in the future but what is still
darker and more appalling If 1--WE repeat an
abandoned and foolish war, ferminabie at plea
sure, is not though the greatest of all public mis-
deeds and folies, to be opposed By all mho so riew
IT, then we beg TO know what it can be right or ex-
pedent to oppose, in the measures of an Admins
tration Are we to indulge the most fatal public
crimes, and fight only faults comparatively innocent.
When the country has been betrayed into all that is
ruinous as well as wicked, we must be mute-nay,
applaud, soothing our souls with the wise and right
sentence, +" Our country, right or wrong and
we must reserve our patriotic indignation for those
things which commit or threaten no sin and no
harm! These are to us new politics. new morals,
and new logic.
But we can as little comprehend the special
course the general principles of the Journal and
Of all who talk in this wise: their strange theory is
matched by practice equally unintegible. Ii the
Journal goes for the war, right or wrong" and in
defiance of all consequences, then why does il speak
SO strongly in condemnation of that war! If it is
wrong TO oppose war once begun, mo matter how
or for what then, surely, las newspaper neither
votes fights, but only reasons or speaks, it does
every thing it deprecates, when it assents to all
which it admits we have - too conclusively proved
against the war, as "unjust in Its causes" and
:" false in its pretences." 1t abhors the authors
of the war; - cannot consent TO such miserable,
panderng, pusillanmous creatures sustained by the
patriotism of the land declares that " the Pre-
sident rushed blindly" into the thing and has mis-
managed it throughout; AYERS that he has not
treated Mexico with common decency as to ne
gotation and intimates that it will continue ito
expose, III all us nakeuHess, DdseneSS anu the
imbecity of the Administration" All this strikes
doing Just what The Iateligcncer has done,
except that do not, while proving or asserting
all the objects of the war to be bad, and probably
calamitous for the United States, yet quarrel with
the President because his " imbecility' has not
driven on this dcplorable business to that wicked
and most dangerous result at which he aims.
1t is, apparently, by NOT opposing the war that
the EUening Journal expects 10 end IL, and by
supporting Mr. Folks great measure that it intends
10 get a Uhig President who is to stop this war.
AS means to an end. we have never heard of the
like tits lending help to the wicked, that they may
be brought to destruction that seems the idea: but
will not you be brought to destruction along with
them, and that deservedly, an accomplice
And Ito pass over many other things) granting that
supporting the worst Locofoco measures is the way
TO secure a rigorous Wing President what then,
If one must "go for his country, right or wrong
that is to say consider all wars, no matter how bad
and foolish, entitled TO the citizens support, and
our country's," although made in overthrow of all
law and really for purposes fatal 10 our country