Weekly national intelligencer., 1848-07-15

proceed, therefore, to notice Uhough more sue
cncty) the remainder of the series Of propositions
we have quoted and the more especially as some
Of them offer an opportunity Of useful truths which
one does not meet with every day.
"The stronger" continues this compend Of So
cial morals, (" always overcame the weaker, and al
ways will, in nature and in society," No; not al
ways. The stronger did, it is true, overcome the
weaker until men associated themselves into CON-
munites and invented laws, to hinder the strong of
his wild will, and save the weak Advancing. az.
terwards, from the morals Of man with man to those
Of society with society," they discovered and begun,
as civilized societies. to enforce, between themselves,
the rules Of international morals-hat greater code
OF the Law OF Nations, without which the stronger
nation would trample on the weaker, precisely as,
before any sort of law began, the powerful at his
pleasure murdered or enslayed his leebler fellow
man. Certainly this great system was long, by a
sort of necessity, confined to those who had intel-
gence TO practise it in their turn barbarians, who
did not recognise it, not considered entitled to
its benefits; and even within a society, they who
abide not by the ordinary rules Of Justice must be
treated as outlaws But in that g Progress" (not
that which SO frequently hear of in these days,)
the progress of true and Christian humanity,
peace, notwithstanding Of these ideas reach
ing even savage communities-and the respect for
these laws, the feeling Of their universal sacredness
growing stronger among civilized men-an Opinion
OF Christendom, aless positive Law of Nations, but
one becoming every day more and more potent has
arisen. This new and better law demands that civil
lized States shall be just shall be mercful, even to
barbarians And, although it has, as yet, no imme-
diate sanction to enforce it, yet the country which
violates it is indirectly punished: it loses the re-
spect the confidence Of Christendom, and must suf
fer, among nations, just what an individual suffers
amongst his neighbors by acts which injure his
reputation. Nor is this all this sense of human
ity, the honor of times and glory of our faith,
which sits in judgment upon the actions of Kings
and Nations towards each other, takes also vet
closer cognzance, claiming, with voice that often
awes the tyrant whether in purple or shirtsleeves,
on the throne of Gar or in the Provisional sash
OF ri-color, that the rights of subjects shall be re-
speced that the duties of rulers shall be perform
minion, shall be mildly treated; that Poland, if she
has been partitioned, shall not be constantly rodden
on that Ireland shall at last taste something of Br-
tish freedom. All this-for no man, now-a-days, is
bad oralistaboutother men sactons-Locofocoism
abundantly feels. Itout-laments reason and humanity
themselves, for Italy and Poland and Ireland, and
always pushing even right feelings into crimes,
would go to war at once to redress or revenge Hi
bernian, or Polish, or Italian wrongs and this.
while it is itself preaching as the sublime axioms
of national conduct, and as the commands of God
himself, those very ideas Of Force and Conquest
under which men, quite as fit as its own to be the
master of others, subjugated the countries which
these teachers OF subjugation now pretend to COM
passionate.
So much is there of mere metaphor in the usual
dialect of the demagogues of the day, an obscurity
so convenient jargon of mysticism so artful whe-
ther to cheat the ignorant or to evade conviction,
that even in the bold language of this Expositor
there is something ambiguous. His politco-reli-
gious rhapsody is not always distinct in any mean
ing but the two grand fundamental ones, Blood and
Freedom. Whether, for instance, the following
sanguinary talk is meant TO be of religious or of po
litical orthodoxy, one is puzzled to say:
I'VE look with pity upon the degradation man
lies under without Christianity but we never have
removed and never can remove national religion
: but by force. The heroes who went 10 war with
the cross in one hand and the sword in the other
: were instruments in Gods hand for the advance
ment of man."
Now, inasmuch as it would be hard to Justify,
under the Jeffersonian views, scheme for propa-
eating Christianity by arms; as, likewise, the
Crusade to which every Peter the Hermit of our
Manifest Destiny" exhorts us is against all coun-
tries, and plainly, therefore, only against the idola
tors of other political systems than our own, we
take it that all this is only meant for illustration,
or for reasoning by analogy. But, begging Demo-
cracy's pardon, neither real Christianity nor true
Liberty ever spread itself by the sword. Truth
and Humanity WELD other weapons for their con-
quest-knowledge, law, gentleness, benefits, exam
ple and the sword Only for defence. The Book
Of God and his unarned soldiers, the Apostles,
Saints, Martyrs, and Missionaries have made and
are making the world Christian Mahometanism
only proselyted by slaughter. So Of civil conquests
the Assyran, the Egyptian, the Persian, the Mace
donian despotisms the Roman arstocracy, the Sa-
racen and Turkish sutans, the Tartar and Moneol
emperors, the Russian Czars Napoleon the Snan