The New York herald., 1869-04-12

land, France and spain.
The s'grand idea" of Louis Napoleon's late
Mexican adventure was to secure the balance
of power to France over the commerce OF the
world. Under the circumstances, the enter
prise was too inviting to be declined, pro-
missing, as it promised, not only immediate
success in q permanent foothold on Mexico,
but the grandest results ultimately in arresting
the southwark march of the Anglo-Saxon, and
| in securing to France and the Latin race the
command of the Gulf of Mexico and all those
isthmus passages from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, upon which the worlds traffic between
the two oceans is hereafter to be monopolized
or divided. Such was the ''grand idea" un-
| derlying the imperial experiment in Mexico OF
Napoleon's protege, Macmillan. In the
French Emperor's letter Of explanation to
Marshal Forey the scheme and results indi-
| Gated were broadly outlined, and with an air
of selfcomplacency and confidence unquali-
fed by any possibility of a failure.
France, England and Spain, on the basis of
certain debts due from Mexico, were the
| original parties in this Mexican expedition;
but with the arrival of the allied feet at Vera
Cruz and the disclosure of the real de-
signs of Napoleon, England and Spain with
drew. They could discover no compensa-
ton to themselves for the costs and
hazards of the adventure. But there
was still common cause with France, Eng
land and Spain, and that was the success of
| JEFF Davis and his Confederate States. In
| behalf of this common cause those three
| Powers had united substantially in the same
recognitions of neutrality and belligerent
| rights to our Southern rebellion. They were
all interested in the success of the Southern
| confederacy. To England 1t would be the
much desired overthrow of our rising COM
| mercial supremacy in the dissolution of the
| Union and in the establishment of free trade
with the cotton States; to Spain it would be
security for the Island of Cuba, and to France,
| free scope in her Mexican programme. And
they were all sure of their game. The ''great
| republic" had collapsed and could never be re-
| stored. They had become fixed in this con-
viction. Meantime, struggling for existence
against the most formidable rebellion in the
| worlds history, there was no danger to be ap
pretended from the United States against any
act of European Intervention in the affairs of
| any other American republic.
Napoleon, therefore, single handed, did not
hesitate in pursuing his Mexican designs.
Nor was he unsupported by England and
| Spain; for although they had withdrawn
from his expedition, England's material
and financial aid to JEFF Davis and
the practical sympathy of Spain in the
| same direction made them still the active
allies of France in Mexico. And, had jeff
Davis succeeded in establishing his confed-
eracy with the recognition of the United
States, we can hardly exaggerate the advan-
tages that would have accrued to England and
her feudal aristocracy, to France and her i'm
perial system at home and abroad, and to
Spain and her old Bourbon monarchy. The
clock of human progress would have been set
back q hundred years, and ''the divine rights
Of kings" hierarchies, oligarchies and human
slavery would have been fixed for perhaps a
hundred years to come. The failure of JEFF
Davis involved the failure Of England, France
and Spain, and has made the United States
complete master of the situation on this con-
| tinent.
The question then recurs, what is our pre-
sent administration doing and what is it that
General Grant proposes to do to make good
this commanding position? England and
Spain have given him their precedents for
action in reference to Cuba, in their prompt
recognition of belligerent rights in behalf of
our late warlike Southern confederacy, and
Engand's neutrality might be made just now
to return and plague the inventor. Napoleon's
Mexican enterprise might be profitably re-
peated by General Grant in similar expedi-
tion to Cuba, as well as to Mexico, and on the
same broad and lofty principles of civiliza-
ton and humanity. To be sure, the issues
involved are the dwaring of England as a
commercial power under the shadow Of the
United States, the possession of Mexico and
the Gulf and the transit routes of the several
isthmuses between the Atlantic and Pacific,
from Tehuantepec to Darien, and the posses
sion of the island of Cuba, &C.; but vast and
diversified as all these fields Of occupation
may be, they have become, by the logic OF
events, our rightful Inheritance. We would,
therefore, seriously recommend TO General
dispensation on the Monroe doctrine, the armed
occupation of Cuba, and under his protection,
an election by the people Of their rulers and
government after the manner Of Napoleon in
Mexico.
HAPPY TENNEssEE.-The Knoxville Wig