Washington sentinel. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1856, 1856-05-13
From The New Orleans Plcaynne.
Nicaragua.

We spoke last evening of the great meeting
at the ST. Louis Hotel, to hear Mr.. Soule's
views on affairs in Central America. 1t was q
great gathering for an impromptu affair, IN
tended to be informal, but converted by popular
enthusiasm into a grand demonstration. Every
appeal for the gallant men now struggling in
Nicaragua in the cause of American progress,
was responded to with vehement applause; and
the temper OF our people was clearly manifested
to be Enthusiastically in favor OF sustaining them
by liberal contributions OF money and direct
support of men and arms.
Indeed the current Of public feeling is run
ming rresistibly with the universal conviction
that it is also the duty and the policy OF the
people of this country to aid in the spread OF
American principles in the Central States, and
to defend and support the American influences,
where they have established themselves law
fully, against the hostile combinations which
threaten to exrpate them by force. There is
a government in Nicaragua which was peace
fully under the control of our own brethren
men of the same blood and training with our
selves who, having been called in by divided
and distracted people, had succeeded in Great
ing order out of chaos, and establishing an
authority with which the people were contented
and which promised them the blessings OF
peace, political and social improvement, and
solid prosperity. They were government de
facto without an avowed opposition within the
country. There is no pretence that there was
state of war existing with any other Govern
ment whatever, when the new Republic asked
10 be recognised as State in fact, and to en-
JOY, in its relations with our people and Gov
ernment, the simple rights which are conceded
to every organized selfexistent community
which is at peace with its neighbors A mis-
taken policy at Washington rejected this claim,
and outlawed the young republic at once by re-
jecting all official intercourse, and by applying
to its agents, and its efforts at strengthening
its position, by volunteer aid from this country,
the most rigid Of the rules by which the severest
customs of warfare have attempted TO guard
the rights of belligerents.
Nicaragua, at peace, was treated as II she
were the object of terror and aversion-as if
the first duty of the United States were to bind
her so as to make her helpless prey to the
first invader, and as If, to crush out the first
sparks of American spirit which had taken
hold of Spanish American State, and begun
to awaken it with vital and regenerating glow,
were the mission of the great North American
Republic. This is great wrong, for which
the people of this country owe reparation to the
Nicaraguan Republic, which is now exposed to
the assaults Of deadly enemies, whom our un-
friendliness has encouraged to the attack, and
our hostile measures have invested with dam
gerous advantages, to be used for the peril of
our own friends The fury that has been kin
dred in the surrounding States against Nicara-
qua, is the expression Of their hatred Of the
American name and race, and lie war they
have declared is openly proclaimed to be for
the purpose of driving the American influence
entirely out of the lsthmus; and the license
with which it is avowed takes its courage from
the fact that the American Cabinet is the enc
my and prosecutor of the Americans. The
public feeling here is reused to the enormity of
this position, and will soon make itself under
stood as renouncing it as unworthy of the spirit
Of the age and character of the country. In
dcations will soon go forward, too numerous
and emphatic to leave any doubt of the senti.
ments Of the people themselves, and exposing
the lamentable delusion that there is any sym
patty here with the invaders of Nicaragua, or
those who have misused and maligned her
liberators and her rights. She needs help--we
owe it to her in reparation Of injuries to which
we have never consented, in justice to band
Of gallant men, struggling in good cause, in
support of doctrines and measures with which
our best and permanent interests are deeply
and vitally identified, and in homage to the
principles to which we are pledged by the his.
tory aud the genius of our own institutions, and
which are the only surety of their durability
among ourselves.