portunity, while our government was embarrassed, to overthrow the Monroe Doctrine, and get at once a firm footing on this continent for the political system of Europe. It will require a succinct but careful examination of this Mexican affair, to show precisely the present position of our government in regard to the Monroe Doctrine in its practical applications under the existing aspect of affairs in Europe.

Almost simultaneously with the attack on Fort Sumter, as if by one and the same impulse, Spain obtained possession of the eastern provinces of St. Domingo, through the treachery of the President Santana, and made that fine island again a colony, our own government quietly acquiescing in this first grand outrage against the Monroe Doctrine. On the 29th of June, 1861, Mr. Corwin, our minister to Mexico, called the attention of our government to the inklings he had heard of a project of intervention in Mexican affairs by France and England; and he asks how that will affect the great idea of free government on this continent, and exclaims: "Surely American statesmen should be awake to even a suspicion that such portentious events are possible." He reasons: "The towering ambition of Napoleon to regulate. Europe, when it shall have been gratified in that quarter, will seek to dazzle the world by impressing upon this continent the idea of French glory and French supremacy." That wild suggestion is now history. Mr. Seward replied, August 24th, that "This government cherishes the actual independence of Mexico as a cardinal object, to the exclusion of all foreign intervention, * * yet the present moment does not seem to me an opportune one for personal reassurance of the policy of the government to foreign nations. Prudence requires that, in order to surmount the evils of faction at home, we should not unnecessarily provoke debates with foreign countries, but rather repair, as speedily as possible, the prestige which those evils have impaired." Wisdom would have dictated, what experience has sadly confirmed, that the national "prestige" would be best maintained by a frank and firm communication of our unalterable adhesion to the positions of Mr. Monroe. Instead of which, Mr. Seward wrote on the same day to Mr. Adams, our minister to England, to ascertain if the British government will forbear hostilities against Mexico, on

condition that we should aid the latter in the payment of certain claims. A month later, Sept. 24th, he instructed Mr. Adams "to inform the government of Great Britain that this government looks with deep concern to the subject of the armed movement," then publicly talked of, and to ask "for such explanations of it as her Majesty may feel at liberty to give," but grounding the request, not on the positions of the Monroe Doctrine, but on "the intimations we have already given in regard to an assumption of the payment of interest on the Mexican debt." In a like spirit he wrote to Mr. Dayton, March 3d, 1861:

"We have acted with, moderation and with good faith towards the three Powers which invited our co-operation in their combined expedition to that disturbed and unhappy country. We have relied upon their disclaimers of all political designs against the Mexican republic. But we cannot shut out from our sight the indications which, unexplained, arc calculated to induce a belief that the government of France has lent a favoring ear to Mexican emissaries, who have proposed to subvert the republican American system in Mexico, and to import into that country a throne and even a monarch from Europe.

"You will intimate to M. Thouvenel that rumors of this kind have reached the President, and awakened some anxiety on his part. You will say that you are not authorized to ask explanations, but you are sure that if any can be made, which will be calculated to relieve that anxiety, they will be very welcome, inasmuch as the United States desire nothing so much as to maiutain a good understanding and cordial relations with the government and people of France.

"It will hardly be necessary to do more in assigning your reasons for this proceeding on your part than to say that we have more than once, and with perfect distinctness and candor, informed all the parties to the alliance that we cannot look with indifference upon any avowed intervention for political ends in a country so near and so closely connected with us as Mexico." p. 218. Mexican Doc., April, 1862.

This deprecatory, apologetic, almost fawning approach to the British and French governments, contrasts with the manly tone of a better day. In the year 1825, the government of France sent a large fleet to the American seas without giving notice to this government, or any explanation of the object. Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State under President J. Q. Adams, instructed Mr. Brown, our minister, Oct. 25, 1825, to inform the French government that the President expects that "the purpose of any similar movement hereafter," should be frankly communicated to this government. And he added that "if any sensibility should be manifested to what the French minister may choose to regard

as suspicions entertained here," he was to disavow those suspicions, but at the same time recapitulate the circumstances that gave apparent force to our surprise as to the objects of the movement. Mr. Brown replied, Jan. 10, 1826, that he had, "in the most delicate and friendly manner, put it to the Baron de Damas," the French Secretary, that in case France should again send out an unusual force, "its design and object should be communicated to the government of the United States." The Baron de Damas explained the peculiar circumstances of the case, and promised, in behalf of France, that, "in future, the United States should be duly apprised of the objects of every such squadron sent into their vicinity." That promise has never been vacated, and its fulfillment should have been directly and categorically demanded by us on, the first demonstrations towards the invasion of Mexico. But no such demand was made. On the contrary, Mr. Dayton was directly inhibited from asking any explanations whatever. And he was directed, April 22d, 1862, to say that "M. Thouvenel's assurances on the subject of Mexico are eminently satisfactory to the President.”

It is believed that our ministers abroad, Messrs. Adams, Dayton, Corwin, and Schurtz, did all that was becoming their station to do, to impress upon the administration the true objects of the coalition, the importance of our own interests that were imperiled, and the hollowness of the pretexts with which we were turned off. That it was the intention of the coalition to effect a change of government in Mexico, was notorious to all Europe. It was impossible for our ministers to shut their eyes upon facts so patent. We find Mr. Dayton, in a letter to Mr. Seward, June 5th, 1862, after some repetition of M. Thouvenel's fallacious disclaimers, adding with evident humiliation :

"It may be difficult to reconcile the published opinions of the commissioners acting for England and Spain in Mexico with these declarations of the French government; but your original dispatch instructed me to say that I was not authorized to demand explanations, though the government would be happy to receive them. These explanations have been freely given; if they conflict with what has been said and done elsewhere, I have not felt at liberty, under my instructions, to make such conflict the subject of comment.

"Were it supposed, however, that France proposed to change the form of government, and establish a monarchy in a republic next to and adjoining our own, it is not to be doubted that, upon every just principle of international law

or comity between states, we would have the right to demand explanations. Nor do I think that France would have felt disposed to contest such right. The explanations, however, such as they are, have been volunteered by them, not demanded by us."

The whole correspondence, as far as published, between our government and those of England, France, and Spain, makes upon us the impression of a most manifest desire on our part not to see anything objectionable in the proceedings of those Powers, and a very friendly willingness on their part to make general disclaimers of any improper designs. There appears an extreme readiness on our part to accept such ambiguous disclaimers for a great deal more than they expressed, and a careful avoidance of what was our obvious course if we were in earnest, which was, to ask the allied Powers what were their objects, and what they intended to do to attain them. This direct request was what we had a just right to make, and to insist upon a frank and full explanation. The treaty of London, for the invasion of Mexico, was signed on the 31st of October, and the ratifications were exchanged November 15th, 1861. The coalition agreed to send a combined naval and military force sufficient to seize and occupy the fortresses of Mexico, and for other operations suitable to the object; and they engage "not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influence of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation to choose and to constitute freely the form of its government." This carefully studied phraseology is to be interpreted by the results now passing before our eyes.

It would lead us over too much ground for the present purpose, to show by sample citations, that the coalition against Mexico had for its object the extinction of the Monroe Doctrine, by the actual establishment of the "political system of Europe" on this continent by military force, and that it was a matter of mutual expectation and calculation, that the effect of the invasion should certainly be the establishment of a government in Mexico, different from that in existence under President Juarez, and so far conformed to European models as to constitute, according to their ideas," a stable government." M. Billaut's speech in the French Chamber, on the 26th of June, 1862, after expressing the determination not to treat with Juarez, exclaimed,-"Let this

Mexican government disappear before the force of France, or let it take a more serious form, which may offer some security for the future." And the Emperor, July 3d, 1862, in his personal instructions to General Forey, on the line of conduct which he was to follow in Mexico, directs him to "declare that everything is provisional," meaning that the existing government is to be considered only informal and temporary, and without permanent authority. And when he should have reached Mexico, he was to take measures" with the principal persons who have embraced our cause," "with the view of organizing a provisional government," composed, of course, of such parties only; the pretext being to "aid" the Mexicans in establishing "a government which might have some chance of stability;" and the assumption being, that it is not competent for a people to create such a government by their own will alone, unless it is granted to them by the emperor, or in some other way imposed and supported by military force. In the same letter, the Emperor gives the information of the ulterior object of the invasion; to head off the United States, and curtail the growing power of this republic, so that we may not "seize possession of all the Mexican Gulf, dominate from thence the Antilles, as well as South America, and be the sole dispenser of the products of the New World." And he anticipates that, "if a stable government is constituted with the assistance of France, we shall" have restored to the "Latin race on the other side of the ocean its strength and prestige," and 66 we shall have established our beneficent influence in the center of America." Coupled with all this is a special injunction as to the interests of religion;-by religion meaning the Church of Rome, which is the principal thing to be regarded in this whole programme of deceit and wrong.

There is not in all history a more shameless disregard of professions made and pledges accepted, than the manner in which the Emperor of France has trampled on all that our administration credulously assumed as his promises of respect to the wishes of the people of Mexico, in any changes of government which he should promote. His general in command, in connection with the corrupt Saligny, the French minister resident, proceeded to create a new government of three persons by his own sole author