Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-05-17
N ASHVILIE:
SATURDAY, MAY II, 1856.
The Nicaragua Meeting Tonight.

The Nicaragua Meeting Tonight
The public have learned by announce
ments in the papers of yesterday, that
meeting of the friends and sympathisers
with the Nicaraguan Republic viii be held
tonight at the Market House. We trust
to see large and general assemblage of
our citizens present, to give expression to
the sentiment of this community on this
most exciting subject. 1t is a question
upon which every man in the Southern
States, and especially in Tennessee, has
more or less feeling, and upon which it will
not be long before every man in the Re
public will be called upon to form an opin-
ion. The events of every hour are lending
interest and Importance it. 1t may prove
itself the most perplexing international
question which we have ever been called
upon to solve, and may lead to consequen-
ces which some will deplore, while 9th
ers will regard them with satisfaction. No
less serious an issue than war may be the
result to uS--a war with one or more great
and powerful nations while, however, we
hope that such an issue may be prevented,
there can be little doubt that the struggle
in Central America will terminate in the
establishment in that hitherto badly-gov-
erned region, of a form of government
modelled after our own, and conducted by
our America Anglo-Saxon brethren, ;who
have emigrated thither, and are now gal
lantly fighting to secure their independence.
In any light in which the question is view
ed, it is deeply interesting to us as nation
and as a people.
The country which is the scene of these
interesting events is a remarkable one. Ly-
ing intermediate to the two great divisions
of the western continent, and commanding
the most practicable routes of communi-
cation between the great oceans which lave
either side of the continent-of tropical
fertility and productivenesS, it would seem
intended by nature to figure in no unim~
pOrtant part in the worlds drama. The
wonder is that its position and natural adj
vantages have not hitherto attracted more
attention. 1t has been looked upon as a
low, marshy, sickly plain, inhabited by a
half-civilized, Catholic-ridden, ill-governed
community; and other more inviting por-
tions of Columbus discoveries have receiV-
ed to its exclusion, the attention of enter
prise and capital, and absorbed their ener-
gies. The sagaciOus statesmen of our ever
alert and grasping rival over the waters,
have, in their multifarious duties, never
omitted to cast an occasional longing glance
towards it, and have shown themselves jeal-
Gus of any other power which exhibited in
tereSt in its welfare. 1t was not till the
acquisition of our possessions on the Pa
cifc, that American attention was in any
considerable degree directed to Central
America. The immense amount of travel
and emigration from this country to Cali
fornia brought it more Immediately under
the notice of the shrewd, sapient and
opportunity-improving Yankee, but lured
by the glitter and shine of the golden pros
pect which saluted his vision at the end
of his journey, he hurried on, only glancing
at its luxuriant forests and teeming soil as
he passed.
Authentic histories of travel, and the
eyewitness testimony of thousands of Amer
lean citizens, have corrected the impress
sioDs which for a long time prevailed in
regard to it, The world is coming to un-
derstand that it is one of the richest and
most fertile countries on the globe, and
not that hot, fiat, wet, diSeaSe-exhaling re-
gion which has been imagined. The exc
cradle government under which its popula-
ton has barely lived and suffered, has done
much to deprive it of that position in the
worlds esteem to which the bounty of Ma
ture entities it. 1t would be difficult to
convey an exact impression of the misera-
bic apology for government which has so
long misruled it, but glance at the de-
graded condition Of her people, contiguous
as they are to the great sun of American
civilization, is evidence that some mighty
retarding agent has been at work among
them.
Admitting all that may be said in rela-
ton to their incapacity to appreciate and
manage better form of government, there
can be no question that had they been bet
ter governed, they would now hold higher
position in the scale of civilization, and the
fairness of their Heayen-favored country
would not for so long a period Of time have
wasted and gone to naught. The spirit Of
rational, enlightened liberty has achieved
wonders in the last century, as this splen-
did fabric of government testifes, but the
change that has been wrought in mems
ideas and modes of thinking, is among the
most wonderful of its results. 1t has liber-
allied them, and inaugurated an era of pro-
gress. 1t has given birth to an inquiring,
innovating spirit, which is the arant courier
of civilization and Christianity, a sleepless,
unresting spirit, which is not content to al
low things to remain barely tolerable, when
they can be made better One of the max
inns of this spirit is that no country or peo-
pie can prosper under a bad government
and whenever a people evince desire to
reform their government, it is prompt and