The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1859-05-12

of protection is Neutrality-suspicious. Navy t.
guard our commerce all around the world
or an Army to defend the country agains,
armed invasion from without, or domestic
insurrection from within; or Tariff to
protect our home industry against the dan
gerous obtrusions of foreign labor and cap
ital.
OF the existence Of the power and duty o.
the Government to protect the people ir
their persons, their property, their industry
and their locomotiop, have no doubt; but
the time, the mode and the measure of pro-
lection, being always questsons of policy
and prudence, must of necessity be left to
the wisdom and patriotism oc those whose
duty it is to make laws for the good govern
ment ofthe country. And with them freely
leave it, as the safest, and indeed the only
constitutional depository of the power.
AS to our Foreign Policy generally, l have
hut little to say. am not much of pro-
gressive, and am content to leave it where
Washington placed it, upon that wise, vir-
tuous, safe maxim, "Peace with all nations
entangling alliance with none." The greedy
and indiscriminate appetite for foreign acqui-
sition, which makes us covet our neighbors
lands, and devise cunning schemes to get
them, has little of my sympathy. view it
as sort ofpoltical gluttony, as danger rus
to our body polite as gluttony is to the
natural man, producing disease certainly,
fastening death, probably. Those of our
politicians with this morbid appetite are wont
to cite the purchase of Louisiana and Florida,
as giving countenance to their inordinate de-
sires. But the cases are wholly unlike in
almost every particular. Louisiana was in
dspensible to our full and safe enjoyment
of an immense region which was already
owned, and its acquisition gave us unques-
toned control of that noble system ofMissis-
sippi waters, which nature seems to have
made to be one and indivisible, and rounded
off the map of the nation into one uniform
and compact whole Nothing remained to
mar and disfigure our national plat, but Flor
ida, and that was desirable, less for its lntrin-
sic value, than because it would form dam
gerous means of annoyance, in case Of war
with Maritime Power, surrounded as it is
on three sides by the ocean, and touching
three Of our present States, with no barrier
between. The population of louisiana and
Florida, when acquired, was very small com
pareI with the largcness of the territory !;
and lying in contact with the States, was
easily and quickly absorbed into and assim-
Hated with the mass of our people. Those
countries were acquired, moreover, in the
most peaceful and friendly manner, and for
a satisfactory consideration.
Now, without any right or any necessity,
it is hard to tell what we do not claim in all
the continent south Of us, and the adjacent
islands. Cuba is to be The first fruit of our
grasping enterprise, and that is to be gotten
at all hazards, by peaceful purchase if we
can, by war and conquest if we must. But
Cuba is only the outpost to the Emperor of
Islands and continental countries that are to
follow. A leading Senator has lately declar-
ed Gin debate on the thirty million bilD that
we must not only have Cuba, but all the Is
lands, from Cape Florida to the Spanish
main. so as to surround the Gulf of Mexico
and Caribbean Sea, and make them our
snare clausum," like the Mediterranean in
old times, when the Roman Emperor ruled
both its shores, from the. pillars Of Hercules
to the Hellespont. This claim of mare nos
trum, implies, of course, that we ,nnst own
the continent that bounds our sea on the west,
as well as the string of islands that inclose it
on the east-Mexico, Central America, and
all South. America, so far south at least as
the Orinoco. In that wide compass of sea
and land there are good many native gov
ernments, and provinces belonging to the
strongest maritime powers, and narrow
continental isthmus which we ourselves, as
vel as England and France, are wont to cali
the high,coy Of nations. To fulfill the grand
conception, and perfect our tropical empire,
we must conquer all these torrid countries,
and their mongrel populations. As to buy
ing them, it strikes me that we had better
wait awhile, at least until the Government
has ceased to borrow money to pay its cur
rent expenses. And as to conquering them,
perhaps it would be prudent to pause and
make some estimate of costs and contingen-
cies, before we rush into war with all mara
time Europe and half America.
am not one of those who believe that the
United States is not an independent and
safe nation, because Cuba is not part of it.
On the contrary, believe that we are quite
capable Of elfdefence, even If the ''Queen
Of the Antilles" were province of England,
France or Russia and surely, while it remains
an appendage ofa comparatively feeble nation,
Cuba has much more cause to fear us than
we have to fear Cuba. In fact, gentlemen,
l cannot help doubling the honesty of the
cowardly argument by which we are urged to
rob poor Spain fthis last remnant Of her
Western empire, for fear that she might use
it to rob us.