being always one], assumed the right to interfere at will with the internal policy of any state, and to require such an administration of its domestic affairs as they judged to be necessary to what was styled "the tranquility of Europe." No state was allowed to manage its own concerns or construct its own government, according to its own judgment of what was most for the welfare of its own people, but each was required to conform its economy to a pattern laid down by the managing Powers. And this prerogative of review and control was held to extend beyond the limits of the ring, and nations outside of Europe were to be coerced into conformity to the will of this overshadowing conspiracy. This tremendous machinery was guided by men of the highest sagacity and largest experience, and thoroughly devoted to its objects. They were too shrewd to attempt the reduction of all governments to the uniformity of a common pattern, for they knew that diversity is inseparable from humanity. But they evidently had an ideal form or standard of perfection, and made it their constant aim to bring all governments into as near conformity with this as circumstances would allow, and to repress all tendencies in the contrary direction. The beau-ideal of the Holy Alliance was an absolute monarchy, hereditary, and both imposed and maintained by military force. Constitutional monarchy, in its various grades, was recognized where it could not be avoided, with the proviso that the constitution must derive its validity from the grant of the monarch, and not by the will of the people. And then they held it to be quite competent for the sovereign to resume his grant, and set aside the constitution, whenever he thought that the interests of the monarchy required. So a legislature, with powers more or less extended, could be tolerated, provided it owed its being to the gift of the crown. But it was not allowed that the people should create a legislature, and then offer to the king the privilege of reigning under such limited prerogative as they chose to prescribe. Revolutions might be permitted to succeed, where they resulted in hereditary governments, imposed by the will of the Alliance, and maintained by military force. The antiquity of the Swiss republics, with their comparative insignificance, and perhaps the difficulty of their subjugation, permitted them to continue; but no other republic was to exist in Europe, nor elsewhere if it could

be prevented. The idea was utterly rejected, that it is in the power of a people, by their own will, and without asking leave or receiving assent from any body, to create a valid government, such that to revolt against it should be a crime by human and divine law. To this day, the reactionaries and conservatives of Europe do not allow that the authority of a government, thus originated, is of the same nature with that of one of their old monarchies. For this reason the sober mind of Europe is not shocked at the wickedness of the American secession, because they do not consider the casting off of such a government an offense against good morals. Our government is generally regarded in Europe as a mere aggregation of individuals, to and from which men may come and go at pleasure, without incurring any moral obligation or violating any moral principle.

It is upon this ground that we are to explain what appeared to Americans so shameless in the conduct of the French Emperor, when, in his letter to General Forey, he directed him to treat any government he might find in Mexico as merely provisional. The government of President Juarez is unquestionably the constitutional government of Mexico, and it has been supported by the great body of the people as such-the malcontent priests and their followers, and a few factious chiefs, only excepted. But it originated solely in the voice of the people, and neither had nor asked any other sanction than the popular will ;—and therefore Europe pronounces it only provisional, and hence liable to be replaced by another of equal authority by any faction which could get possession of the Capital, so as to wield for a moment the forms of government at the accustomed seat of government. Another point gained by this subtlety is to give color to the pretext by which Mexico is held to be bound by the acts of the transient Usurper, Miramon; for if Juarez' government is only provisional, Miramon's had as much authority as his. And on no better ground than this, the Three Great Powers, Great Britain, France, and Spain, formed a coalition to invade Mexico, just as it was recovering from the disorders of a long revolution, in order to coerce the payment of Miramon's bonds, for which the scoundrel bankers had paid the plundering brigand only at the rate of four or five cents on the dollar. And by the same rule, if Jeff. Davis

had been smart enough to seize Washington City in 1861, and inaugurate himself as President of the United States, they might by and by be making war against us to compel the payment of his loans, for his government would have been provisional, and just as valid in fact as Mr. Lincoln's; for Europe decides in the case of Mexico that a constitutional government, sanctioned alone by the will of the people, is "only provisional."

If there had been any doubt as to the real intent of the language employed in the diplomatic correspondence of the allied Powers and in the Emperor's letter, it is all now dispelled by the action of the French commander since he got possession of the city of Mexico. He knew the object of the expedition, and what his master meant by his orders. He has treated the constitutional government of Mexico as no valid government, as a merely provisional arrangement, a locum tenens, until military power could come in and grant to the people a government conformed to the fundamental ideas of Europe. He first appoints by his own authority a commission of three persons, one a renegade Mexican, the instigator of the invasion, Almonte; the second, the Archbishop, a servant of the sovereign of Rome, to give the sanction of the Pope to the proceeding; the third, Salas, the most unprincipled of all the chiefs who have aided to keep Mexico in turmoil for a generation. These three convene a Council of Notables, selected by themselves, who proceed at once to declare Mexico an Empire, and appoint the Archduke Maximilian of Austria for Emperor, with the provision that, if he declines, the Emperor of France shall designate a person to be their monarch. Here we have the true intent of the ambiguous phraseology which was used throughout by the allied powers, of their intention to secure to unfortunate Mexico the blessings of a stable government. They meant a frame of government not originating with the people, in the exercise of their own inherent rights, and which they were always at liberty to change for good cause, but one granted to the people by some authority above them. is a legitimate outgo of the political system of Europe, as adjusted by the Congress of Vienna.

It

We have devoted the more space to this attempted analysis of the political system of Europe, in order the better to show its

antagonism to the ideas which have been adopted in America, both concerning the origin of valid governments, and as to the mutual relations of states or nations. But few words are necessary to explain the system which exists among the nations of this continent, and to make it manifest that the two systems cannot exist together in the Western Hemisphere without creating a constant and irrepressible conflict of irreconcilable ideas. It is the fundamental idea that underlies our institutions, that the state is for the people, and not the people for the state; that the state is valued for its benefits to the people, rather than the people for the greatness it adds to the state; that the people are, in the order of nature, before the state, which they create by their will; and that, in like manner, the state is before the government, which it creates for itself, and may alter as it sees fit. Hence the stability of the government rests in the intelligence and patriotism of the people, and is promoted by whatever expands the minds and strengthens the principles of every class in society. The American Land system, by which the laborer owns the land he cultivates, and the system of Common Schools, by which every man learns to know his own rights and those of his neighbors, are natural products of the American Political System. The government neither stands on the grant of a superior, nor secures itself by keeping the people in subjection. For the sake of international comity and good neighborhood, it asks recognition, and courtesy, and justice from other nations, as its equals in rank, but would peril everything rather than concede that it owes its validity to the grant of any potentate, or depends for its continuance upon the strength of any foreign power. It would carry us over too much ground, to show in detail how perfectly such a government must shape itself to the people, and how such a people would grow up to their government, until it would become impossible to mold either the people or the government into compliance with the opposite political system. It were more practicable to exterminate them from the face of the earth than to make them patient and submissive subjects of a government imposed upon them without their consent. It is more to our present purpose to consider the workings of this political system upon the international relations of independent states. And the

first thought which suggests itself is, that each state, creating its own government for its own purposes, will necessarily have such a government as it prefers, such as it can create, can administer, and can support, and defend-and no other. And hence it does not admit the right of any combination of states to judge for another state what is best for it, or to dictate to another what it may or may not have for itself. The people living under such institutions would feel an interest in the progress of civil liberty everywhere, and would extend a cheering sympathy to any people who were struggling worthily to obtain the boon of self-government; but the nation itself would maintain a pure and impartial neutrality, unless some extreme case should arise in which our own safety was involved, or where the voice of outraged humanity might call for interposition. We would neither attempt to force such institutions upon the unwilling, nor purchase them for the incompetent. Whatever people would have them must win them; and if they would enjoy them, must keep them. In a word, the principle of non-intervention, which some statesmen are vainly endeavoring to graft upon the political system of Europe, is the natural growth of the American system, or rather, it is a necessary part of the life of society on this Western Continent-to be asserted on all occasions, and maintained at all hazards.

The European system in its full-blown development under the domination of the Holy Alliance, brought all Europe under its control. The final struggle for popular rights was made in Spain, where the Cortes adopted a constitution by their own authority, and compelled the king to accept its conditions. Ferdinand the VII appealed to the Holy Alliance to restore him to his legitimate prerogative, of governing by hereditary right, and making his people contented with such privileges as he saw fit to give them. It was a test case, and the absolutists were equal to the occasion. By their advice and consent, France sent an overwhelming army into Spain, in aid of the king, and totally broke the power of the popular party, leaving the throne as absolute as any in Europe. Europe was tranquilized, in the Vienna sense, and the Holy Alliance was at liberty to turn its attention to other continents for conquests to win, or dangers to repress.