New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-12-22

The right OF every people or naIlOn 10 govern ltSeu
to frame its own institutions and choose it's own
ruers-ths, since the Declaration of Independence,
has been proclaimed aud considered the fundamen-
tai principle of our foreign policy. Ia opposition
to the despOtisms of Europe, our Government
early planted itself on the ground that the gov
eminent in fact Of any country u.s. SO far as foreign
powers are concerned, the government of right
that is 10 say: the people of that country may
question its Legitimacy and Geek its overthrow but
no foreign state may riehtfully do So This simple
but wide. reaching principle, which was the corner
stone alike of WashingtOn's and of JcfersOns policy
throughout the stormy and troubled night of Euro
pean convulsiOn and conflict, would, if early pro-
claimed and generally assented to, have already
saved more human blood than would suffice to float
the American Navy. Yet for some years the moro
restless and uDprincipAed Of our people have been
falling away from it, until to-day i. ia prac-
ticaly derded and set at defiance by that
active and noisy minority which styles it
self Young America" aud expeditions arc
drummed up in our cities and sail openly
from our ports intent on the conquest and sub
jugatiOn of distant communities to which we are
bound by treaty Obligations but whose people are
presumed to be weaker than their invaders. How
much this is better, morally, than piracy, we leave
to the Judgment of the impartial historian.
1t is not to be disguised that this lust of acquisi
ton has had ilustrious patrons and has achieved
dazzling successes. Texas was its first prize. That
spacious and fertile region lay far from Mexico and
temptingy near to New Orleans and the Valley of
the Mississippi We had endeavOred, nearly forty
years ago, to acquire it Of Spain by treaty, but
failed, aid it soon after fell away from Spain
as an outlying department of Mexico. Our
first settlers obtained footing in it by fraud
falsely pretending to bs Roman Catholics suf-
Ing persecution in the United States, and
therefore seeking an asylum in Catholic
country. They received liberal grants oil land un.
| der the deluson thus created. Mexico abolished
Slavery in 1884, and settlers in Texas began, in
defiance of law to introduce it few years after
ward. In lS34-5, considerable armed emigration,
from Tennessee and the neighboring States, went
| to Texas expressly to organize there rebellion
against Mexico drive out her authorities, and pre-
pare the country for annexation to the Union The
Little Rock (Arkansas) paper that chrOnicled the
first departure of Sam Houston for Texas, while all
/ was peace dDu OIucI tuCit,
"He shall doubtless hear Of his raising his flag
there shortly" So we did.
| The Texas revolution so called, was not merely
achieved BY adsentuIers from this cOuntry-it was
sustained and rendered triumphant through the
grossest violations of professions of amity and
our treaty Obligations to Mexico. Recruits for that
epterrr rise were openly drumued up in our south
/ "A -. ,.fY.. war apti m
procuring them. Arms were taken from our public
arsenals, and cannon and munitions were sent of
in broad daylight for the use of the Texan Flibus-
tiers. And, when it was feared that all this would
not suffice, Gen. Games, at the head OF division
Of the United States Army, publicly ordered
10 cross the frontier aud take post at Nacogdoches,
(which" says Secretary -of-State Forsyth, sis
"within the claimed limits If the United States; =
though existing treaties explicitly PLACED it several
niles west Of the boundary in Mexico. We had
lust as much light and reason TO claim Vera Cruz
| or Mazatlan as within our claimed limits aud
would doubtless have done 50 had this been essen
tia to the great object Of sustaining the Fibusters
and repeIlpg the Mexican army. And the cbieI
patron of this hagrsnt National wrong was Andre "
Jackson, then President of the United States, vino
keep. his eye fixed upon it until The Mexicans had
beth defeated and repealed, Slavery fully estab-
lshed and lesalzed in Texas, aud that country, in
d.fsnce Of treaties ard international comfy, hal
been annexed to our Union. Ia offce or out Of it,
Gen. Jackson, while he lived vas the n,ainstay Of
The conspiracy which wresttd Texas fon MsxicI
aid mode Ter ore cf cur sll -ehoijins State, the
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"Tbe evil that inca 10 ii,es after them" Asic-