Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1865-11-24
PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND EAPO-
oa LEON HI.


From the London Examiner, Oct. 2s.
Ihe statement that the American Govern
inent had served a threatening notice on
that OF France, warning it not to send Afri-
can troops TO Mexico has been formally con-
tradicted upon what we must presume to Be
authority; and che TINES, in whose columns
1t first attracted European notice, argues IN
geniously against the likelihood Of its being
true. From the first we had doubts OF the
r1lmor; but from other considerations than
those which have weight with our cotempo-
rary lie Yankee veto upon Imperial pro-
Jects OF aggression in the new world is a
sword IN the scabbard, not a sword drawn:
and whlletthere are still "upon the blade
and dudgeon goutsof blood which were not
50 before. there is not much probability of
the weapon being bFandished in the air.
After long or hard fight men are either
fiioddy or exultant; bat they are seldom
found to be in a threatening humor. Thev
sitdown to mourn or laugh, to drink healths.
or to curse their luck; but they don't in
genera. want forthwith to begin again.
President johnson evidently feels and acts
as if he knew that although the republic
has cause for self-eongratulatio at having
won the desperate fight, she has had quite
enough Of it for the time and that it would
be mere craziness to rush into a new conflict
with any body or about anything that, with
decency, can be put of.
Between six and seven hundred thousand
men have been disbanded during the last
four months. although the Confederate
South contessedly remains restless and re-
senttm. Preparations should be made for
return to cash payments and the punctual
acquIttance of per cent. interest on a con-
solidated debt of e600, ,0O0, 900 sterling.
This implies necessarily the imposition of a
dead weight OF permanent taxes of which
the people knew nothing in the days before
secession and civil war. Is this time to
provoke a rupture with the greatest militia
ry power in Christendom? We think net;
but we do not on that account think less of
the settled determination and design to
thwart steadily and sedulously, though for
the present it may be silently and insidious-
ly, the establishment of a Franco-German
Imperialism in Mexico.
Our republican cousins are masters Of the
art of disintegrating neighboring State,
and preparing thereby for its internal col
lapse, or upon beckoning for armed interfe-
renee when the proper time shall have ar
rived. Already, as we know, efforts have
been undlsguisedly made in various ways to
encourage and facilitate emigration from the
Anglo-Americau to the Spanish-Ameriean
commonwealth. The process may not as
yet have been carried on to very palpable
extent; but OF the fact there can be no
doubt; and of the advantages and facilities
1t would afford, when convenient time for
Intervention should arrive, no one can effect
to be unconscious. That the time will come
we believe TO be as certain as that midsum-
Il
her political Christmas now with hard wealth
er and good cheer, short days for campaign
ing, and long political nights wherein to
recount past trials and triumphs, and to
picture forth, in the sanguine blaze that
brightens every household, new adventures
and aDnexations. The Monroe Doctrine is
not dead, is not disowned, is not even DOR
mant. What might have been, had Napo-
leon Ill reorganized the Southern Confed-
eracy before 1t was exhausted and oyerpow-.
cred Is question it would now be useless to
discuss. That he was willing and anxious
to do so in concert with England is well
known. Our cooperation being refused
he hesitated and forebore until it was too
late to accomplish any purpose by commit
ting himself TO quarrel with the federal
Union; and thus, we rejoice to think, he
threw away his only chance of seeing the
exotic system of rule he had planted, root
itself in Mexico. 1t will never take root
now. All his baponet digging about it, and
all his devices for irrigation with blood, viii
fail, as they ought to fail Juarez may be
hard pressed for a season, and Egyptians,
bargained and paid for, may even cross the
ocean. Lille may be made the border trap
for Belgiin and ether recruits, and French
regiments, though decimated with disease,
may be kept some time longer in that dis
tant scene of inglorious suffering. But
Maxamilian' dynasty viii no more be rem
dered permanent or safe thereby than it is
to-day The Monroe doctrine will no more
be driven out of the heads of American
Cayours than the idea of Unity will be ex-
expelled from the brain of Germany. 1t is
essentially an idee .tce in each case; and
mere ratiocination upon the utiitarian mod
elwill pass by it as the idle wind. IF Mexico
does not revert to representative govern
ment of its own, it viii infallibly be absorb
ed into the ever-expanding Angle-Saxon re-
public. And France viii have ACQUIRED not
even glory by the forcible setting UP Of
European monarchy, with pinchbeck crown
and sceptre, with important treasure, and
an army on loan. All these things viii but
serve as food for ridicule, scorn, and aver
sion, while their failure to assume the air
Or answer the purpose of reality viii only
incense national pride and national resent
ment.