Weekly national intelligencer., 1848-07-22


employ itself in prescription and persecution rather
than be idle.
Though, as we have seen, this detestable doc
trine of " moral treason" was distinctly avowed
as principle, twelve months before the occasion
arose for its application as means of dragooning
the Senate and the Press, not at all satisfied
that did not enter into the party nsotues for the
War with Mexico. Weare by no means sure that
one of the objects Of those who planned the war
was not to reduce all those citizens who would ma
turally oppose it-as illegally begun, unjust, as
impolitic, as likely to involve great waste of life
and treasure--to the dilemma of either succumbng
TO all these consequences, or Of incurring, by OPP
posing the scheme, these predetermined accusations
before the populace; which populace the projectors
regarded certain bndly to sustain any war,
when once begun, and war in particular which to
the plea of some national injuries could join the
Aductions offered by Mexican lands, mines, and
ports, the faterng delusion of Manifest Destiny y
and boundless empire, some religious fanaticism,
and much political propagandism. The chief reli-
ance undoubtedly, if not the chief incentive of this
political speculation, was the idea that War, no
matter for what or with whom, must make the for
tunes Of its authors and the ruin of Its opponents
for that the mass of our people were-ike those of
all other countres-too ignorant and too headlong
to consider of either causes consequences, when
once blood had been shed that they would shut
their eyes to all fact but that of " their country S
having drawn the sword,' and their ears to all rea-
son except so much is contained in that tocsn of
destruction, g. Your country, RIGHT OR WRONG"
The President may have thought, in word
that a Chief Magistrates treacherously plunging
the country into war, without consulting Con-
gress, was one of those crimes the very COM
mission of which secured not merely its own impu-
nifty, but the ampes rewards which Ambition can
seek or Corruption covet; and that the very men,
of either party, who most comprehended and dread
ed the true aims of the war would be obliged to
give into it or, if they did not, be crushed by that
mistaken popular indignation which the Executive
influence would he able to direct upon them. Hap
PLY, the scheme, though well-conceived. was found
ed on an exaggerated idea of the populace's want
of judgment and morals. A body Of the people,
quite large enough encourage faithful public men
to do their duty, stood firm, and set at nough like
brave citizens, all the terrors of the Executive, all
the clamor of his creatures the rout, the roar, the
din of expected rabble-pairiotism did not come !:
zee hare moi the rabbleism on whose senselessness
those who let loose the dogs of war T" had built
their faterng calculations. No: their fancy, their
fond imagination, beguiled them with false image
of the multitude stod but easily stirred, slow to
reason but quick for mischief and folly, dupes to
deceive whom and make them the instruments of
their own destruction no talent but that of il-n-
tenons, and no superiority but that of perfdy were
necessary. In Short they drew to themselves, with
lover-lke fantasy, too partial picture-quite like
the dear conception worshipped in their own bo-
SONS, the People such as they would have them; ;
but by no means like the homely, unadorned origi-
nal-simple enoug where it has given lis confidence
capable OF being led to much i'll where it has trust
ed, but never much trusting any of these men !;
and if misled, still endowed with a substantial
sense and recii;ude, which rally in the last resort
of public danger, and shiver the perncious designs
of the most cunning demagogues. Such resist
ance among the good men Of our land arose from
the frst such rally among the mere body OF the
people has been already witnessed if for the time
there error or submission to party-dril on
one side or if there were falterers before denun-
citation and the dread of unpopuariy on the other.
Be, however, as well or as i'll founded as they
may, the strong suspicious Of those party or per-
sonal calculations which seem--from the first mo-
ment of President Polk's Inauguration down to that
when the will Of the People, effectively pronounced
through their representatives, brought his Mexican
war to a siand-to have directed this his double
war-policy, within and without, against foreign
enemy and domestic opposition both voluntarily
sought, one thing, at least, is certain that, no
sooner had the kndling war broke out into fame,
than the design to convert this public misfortune
TO party use stood at once revealed. Ii was at
once decided, in those councils of high strategy
which are held in the Cabinet that, while the ILL
supplied ordnance of General Scott and TAYLOR
Numbered upon the external foes Of the President
and his war, those more loyal and pacifcally brave
divisions, which fight under the immediate orders
OF the Executive for still, more cherished victories at
nome, should deal out denunciation and DEATH with
patriotic illumination, upon any who dared gainsay
the national expediency or the martial prudence
of the least part of what the PRESIDENT had done
or might do. As when, in a Despotism, al signs OF
rebellion, offended majesty collects its nigh, and
wrath SO, at the FIRST whisper Of public doubt
4 the first murmur OF dsapprobaton, to silence