Litchfield enquirer., 1858-07-15

both offered us-to-morrow, nobody sobiecting, we ought to decline them. For if Cuba was this day ours, peacefully and ungrudged, it would compel an enlargement of our Army and Navy it would increase our complica- tions with other Powers and our. chances of collision with some of them :; and it would enormously increase the cost of war to us in case we should be involved in contest with any maritime nation. Even in a war with England, it would be point of honor not to abandon our insular brethren to the enemy :; and what sort of a fleet and army would be required to defend it . moments reflection will indicate With our line of defense thus deplorably extended and Vt akened, we ceuld not, for One Hundred Millions per annum, protect ourselves from outrage and spoliation so thoroughly as with Sixty Millions while our boundaries remain as at present. But there never would be an hour even of peace, wherein Cuba in our hands would not cost us more than its worth
 The lsthmus of Darien, or any portion of it, would be an equally bnrdensome and even more sterile acquisition Cuba, annexed to the Union, would diminish our revenue and increase our expenditure, but it would afford us larger market for our staples than it now does while the Isthmus would be bill of cost and load of care from the hour we ac- quired it, with no compensating advantage. It's production and trade are insignificant in peace, it would be of no earthly use to us in war, it would be trap, rot for our enemy, but for ourselves. If our enemy had less mari time strength than we, it would be utterly hoh bod l,c I1 ded at his convenience, while it's. reduction would be simply question of time Mean while, it would cost us millions of money and thousands of men to no purpose whatever.
 We protest, then, against all acquisitions of territory, at least till what we now have is i'm proved and developed but we protest more emphatically against any acquisition of terri tory not adjacent to and conterminous with what we already possess Such acquisition must be a source of weakness and peril, not strength and safety, unless we are willing to support armies and naves after the European pattern-armies and navies which compel the housewife and her daughter to labor in the field, and send the mechanic supperless to bed We protest also against all diplomatic coups and entanglng alliances against. all preten- sions to rights in Central America or else where off our own soil which we do not freely concede to every power on earth-the weak est and furthest as well as the strongest and nearest against all bullying and menacing of foreign States on the part of our Government against all war which is not waged in absolute and undeniable selfdefense We oppose War and all that tends to War, not as Calamity but as Crime. We regard victories gained in an unjust or unnecessary war as more deplora- ble than defeats. We regard our late War on Mexico as more disastrous in its corruption of our peoples morals, in the Athestic notions which its fictitious successes tended to difuse, in its triumphs of rapacity and unrightcous- ness, than would have been a series of defeats which brought the Mexicans to Washington and the Mexican boundary back to the Sabine.
 Of course we understand that any holding our views must defy and despise the dema- gogue's reproach of pusalanimity, taking the side of the enemy, melting him to unreasona- ble exactions, &c., &c. We perceive all that and something beyond it. No Monroe doc Urine ever propounded afforded half so solid foundation for National security and strength as the doctrine of Christ. And the time will yet be, even on earth, when mankind will com prehend and believe that a nation which fears more to do wrong than to suffer wrong, which is fixed in it's resolve to do good to all and evil to none-even those who try to be its ene- mies--is wiser and safer than if its entire frontier bristled with fortresses and cannon and the ocean were swept by its men of war. The relative bravery of the Peace and of the oppo- site policy, we will discuss on some other occa- sion.-Trabune. s