American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1867-07-31
Assurealv If there

Of vengeance and the loss of rare op-
portunity and example of mercy and for.
| giveness, it is the Liberal and Democrat
ic party, who, in lS4S, abolished the
punishment of death for political often
ces--It is that portion of the European
press, which, in 1861, dissua led the mn
fortunate Archduke Macmillan from Of
fering himself as the dupe and the victim
| of the Emperor Napoleon's dreams and
designs. Those dreams and designs de.
pended for their fulfilment on the disrup-
tion and subversion of the American re-
public, and the recognition by force of
arms of the slaveholding Confederacy, at
the bost of untold calamities, for the
greater glory of the second empire. Our
tory contemporaries are at least consists
ent; they have seized the occas: on of this
catastrophe in Mexico to renew their
complaints of the shortsighted policy of
the liberal English government which
declined to lend the blood and treasure
of this country to that Napoleonic "idea;"
which consented, indeed, to join with
France and Spain in demanding Of the
Mexican government the payment of cer-
tain money claims, and the punishment
of outrages committed, not by the acts of
President Juraez, but by the promoters
of Mexican empire-by Marquee and
Miramon and their accompices-but
declined, thanks to the honesty and pru-
denee ofour Minister accredited to Pres
ident Juarez, and to the commander Of
our naval forces, supported by the Span,
ish General (Prim) to breyk [after the
fashion of the French General at Rome
in 1S49, the convention of Soledad and
to convert limited and defined expedi.
tion into an illegltimate, inordinate and
ruinons adventure, begun in per6dy, and
fated to disaster. Let the official rhet
Orleans in the Corps Legislatif, and the
official journals of the second empire,
pretended to disguise, if they can, the
full aud absolute responsibility of their
master for that enormous conspiracy of
factious priests, palace jobbers, imperial
ist agents and adven turers, and Mexican
outlaws, against the independence of the
United States, under cover of a crusade
against the anarchy of Mexico. Hund>
reds of innocent French families have
paid the penalty of that magnificent ro--
nance in the blood of their children and
in "bonds' not worth the paper they were
printed on. The claims of French mer>
chants upos the Mexican republic were
Insignificant in comparison with those of
English creditors. The Mexican empire
has cost France forty millions sterling /;
and, according TO the Moniteur, the last
state of Mexico is worse than the first
The French army not only did not ex
tinguish civil war in Mexico; it exasper-
ated and infamed every domestic faction
in that distracted country it brought
civil war and left civil war behind Is
it, we take leave to ask, the part of in.
dependent English journals to absolve
the real authors of this immense calami>
ty, because Macmillan referred his
hon or to his safety, aud declined to take
shelter with his deceivers and betrayers?
the true history of all these transactions
remains to be written, and we believe
the materials for griting 1t are IN sure
hands, and will be submitted in due time
to the judgment of the civilized world
That "black spot in the splendid pics
tore of imperial success, which even NJ
Rouher ccniesses, will not be wiped out !:
| lido the wrong and first begin to brayI.
The secret mischiefs that L set APPROACH
| q ! lay unto the gTieyous charge Of others.
But then sigh, aud with piece Of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
With strange confusion of ideas, the
Moniter describes the sentence of the
court-martial which unfortunately follow
ed the instructions of the French Gener-
ais, as g an act Of regicide." If the ma
tive constitutional government of Mexico
had been monarchy, and the Austrian
Archduke had been the hereditary or
even the elected sovereign of that coun>
try, defeated and slain by the leaders of
a domestic insurrection, then no doubt it
would be proper to characterize the san
culinary of the victorious insurgents as
"regicide" But Mexico was not mon
arehy; Maximiliau was neither the he,
reditary nor the elected ruler of Mexico,
as the simple fact of the total collapse of
his empire within two months after the
departure of the French army too clearly
proves. At any rate he was not a mon
arch in the eyes of the native republican
government, which never ceased to ex-
ercise its functions, though, as it has
sometimes happened to European mon
archs, it was temporarily superseded by a
foreign prince invited by rebel faction,
and imposed by foreign army. How
could the authorities of the Mexican re-
public be guilty of regicide? Such a
crime was unknown to their political cal.
endar. Nor is the name of Yturbide
very judiciously cited by the Moniteur.
Yturbide, it is true, was made Emperor
by the Mexicans he was a Mexican
born he was created Emperor by his
own people, and by his own people de-
posed and pensioned. 1t was not as EN-
peror, but as a rebel who had attempted
coup detat against the institutions of
his country, that he was subsequently
shot; and that, no doubt, is enough to
justify the sympathy of the Moniteur
While we most heartily subscribe, in
common with the whole liberal press Of
Europe, to the abolition of the punish
ment of death for political offenses-a
doctrine, by.the>by, by none more elo.
quentiy advocated than by Louis Blanc