Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-19
UNION

STATES anu Mexico.
Ingenious Defence of TN,
French Mexican Policy.
The Secret Thought Which
Inspired the Mexican
Expedition.
~ am not afraid to say it boldly, notwith
standing the natural opposition which ma,
exist between the diplomacy of the republi,
| and that of the empire; against interests $,
French, so elevated, so European, as thos,
We defend in Mexico there is no patriot,
opposition possible. The conception of tn,
policy in Mexico is sublime conception, {
conception misunderstood. Il shall explair
further on Why a conception as Just as ne
cessity, as vast as the ocean, as new as all
that which is apropos, conception of q
statesman, feeund as the future, a conception
of safety for America and for the world.
We must here raise ourselves to great
height in order to comprehend the full force
of this policy. The first empire, purely
military empire, and which sold Louisiana
for piece of bread to feed its armies, was
never capable of conception which equaled
this.
The idea of bold and efficacious position
to be taken in Mexico against the usurpation
of the United States of America is a new
but just idea.
Europe has the right TO take this position !.
France takes the initiative.
Letus examine the right from this elevated
point of view, from whence we distinguish
the legitimacy of things, and let us start
from this true but not radical position:
The Globe is the property Of ban; the ne,c
continent, AmericG, is the property of Europe.
In starting from this principle, which has
become at this moment fact, that the
American Continont has become the collect
i've property of mankind, and not the dis
rupted Union of single race, without title
and without right, at least over Spanish
America, and over the Latin race, mother of
all civilization, the principle of the pr.tec-
ton of Europe, and of its independence, at
least of the seventeen Republican States of
South America, belongs evidently to us and
all the Powers of the old world We must
be prepared for events; We must protect the
Latin race; we must, in the first place, take
position at the point menaced by the United
States.
We must do this, or else we must declare
that the new continent the property of Eu-
rope is to belong entirely in twenty-five
years, perhaps, to the armed pioneers who
no ntbar titIa for tbo;r ,,e,,r,,o
ton than their convenience, and who per
fleets and armies against Cuba,
while their Federal General enters in the
name of the Union into Mexico, and from
there into all the civilized capitals of South
America
Why, therefore, should Europe or the
Old World recognize these rights of piracy
by sea and land for the United States, whilst,
in the Old World we recognize not only the
right of protecting such property as is use
full to all, but further the right to expropri-
ate with indemnity the right of all States
md individuals in things useful to all?
This principle of the protection of interests
useful to all which applies to commune,
Ices it apply with less right to a continent
entire? Evidently not. We do not say .:
appropriate the United States of Spanish
America their proper organic anarchy will
appropriate them sufficiently But we say
Europe has the right, and we add, the obi
cation, of not giving over to them the Latin
ace, Spanish America, the half which still
'emains free and independent of that mag
lifcent part of the globe, more than half of
he Heaven, the earth and the population of
he New World
What are the collective, sacred posses
ions, the necessities of mankind at large
hat the policy of the Old World cannot and
,ught not to be delivered up to the mercy of
he United States of English American"
These things are the capital of the entire
world, used by few, necessary to all, in our
tate of civilization and in our system of ex-
,hange, which renders to all moneyed gold,
Is necessary as bread. The mines of gold
ire there!
In the second place, the food of the Old
World-the wheat, -four, corn, potatoes on
which people subsist, and of which the pri-
yation in the years of famine might produce
n Europe incalculable calamities and de-
truetions of populations.
In the third place, the industries which
lave become in the last few years especially,
Millions of workmen in cotton, the veritable
md indispensable stipendium of wages and of
ife
In fine, commerce, which compels us to
maintain navy and sailors a floating
incalculable as a number of men
ed under sails, still more incalculable as a
'lemeut of our national power. To permit
he United States to renew the folly of the
irst empire, to establish an anti-European
blockade, no longer on their ports alone, but
N the world, as they have just proclaimed
t, is no longer poltroonery, it is to accept |
What New York offers us, it is to abdicate
commerce, cotton, free trade, the |
marine of the Old World, it is not to live
tut on the death of life.
Thus who does not know that the grain Of |
AMERICA of the valley of the Mississippi es-
'ecially, does not constitute the worlds !
,ranary in case of famine, as Sicily was the |
,ranary of the Romans? Who does not |
now that the monetary capital Of the uni |
verse is in the immense mines of Mexico,
nd Peru and Sonora, and that these mines, |
iven up to their natural productiveness by |
good system Of drainage, will place all the |
apital in gold and silver of the universe in |
he hands of the United States, masters of |
he two Americas Who does not know
hat the master of capital is the master of |
interest, and that Europe, delivered up TO |
his country of monopolies, will be forever |
ubject to its despotism Who does not |
now that, masters of the price Of gold and |
liver, they will be masters also of our most |
-ital industries, and that their coalition al |
eady organized against cur industry in |
ilks, which rivals their industry in cotton,
yill ruin Lyons, the capital of tissues, and |
he second capital of France?
Who does not know that in depriving us
r in depriring themselves, by the extinc-
ion of the South, of the element of this in |
lustry in Europe, cotton, they will continue |
o starve, as they have already starved, eight |
Millions of workmen of France, more than
hat in England, FIVE millions in Austria, and |
hus take Europe by famine at every caprice
f their arbitrary interests Who does not
now, in fine, that our commerce and navi- |
alton will be subject to the samedestrUction
S our products?
In all this we discover, evidently, the Sc
ret thought which inspired the Mexican ex-
edition, an expedition which bears the APP
'earance of temerity without compensa-
ion, and behind which / alone in France
lave seen the general utility.
France has not comprehended this expe-
lition. Why? / win venture to reply: be-
ause in the commencement il was neither
nor explainable. 1t was because
his idea of taking a position in Mexico |
painst the United States was not tn he ex-