ticulars of the engagement, or the fate of the officers, except that Captain Hardee was known to be a prisoner, and unhurt. The party was sixty-three strong.

"Hostilities may now be considered as commenced, and I have this day deemed it necessary to call upon the government of Texas for four regiments of volunteers, two to be mounted and two to serve on foot. As some delay must occur in collecting these troops, I have also desired the governor of Louisiana to send out four regiments of infantry as soon as practicable. This will constitute an auxiliary force of nearly five thousand men, which will be required to prosecute the war with energy, and carry it, as it SHOULD BE into the enemy's country."

Thus we have seen that the course of our government with respect to the boundary question has been consistent from the period of the annexation of Texas, even to the time of the first act of hostility on the part of Mexico, of which Congress was immediately notified by the president of the United States. In a special message, May 11, 1846, he says,

“As war exists, and, notwithstanding our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism, to vindicate with decision, the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country."

* When the sum of $10,000,000, and an army of 50,000 men, were authorized by almost an unanimous vote of Congress, (only 14 voting in the negative,) not a word was said about the march to the Rio Grande. The question was one of fact with regard to the commencement of hostilities. The objections to that bill were confined to the preamble - which declared that war existed by the act of Mexico. In a speech delivered in the U. S. Senate, February, 1848, by Mr. Turney, he says, "A motion was made to strike out the preamble, and reasons were assigned for striking it out, but no such reason as that we had invaded the Mexican territory. Far from it, as I will be able to show, conclusively, from the documents. The reason assigned was, the uncertainty as to the fact whether war did, in point of fact, exist."

The objections to the preamble were singular and extraordinary.

Both nations professed peace and protested against all motives leading to hostility. Let facts determine which was sincere in its professions. We have seen with what justice the boundary to the Rio Grande was claimed by Texas, and that no alternative was left to the United States but to defend that boundary. Mexico refused to negotiate. Although she claimed title to ALL TEXAS, she was committed to acts of hostility, and was ready to commence war, in relation to a question of boundary! She claimed the whole, but she preferred war to negotiation, to settle her title even to a part.

We should do the public injustice, if we were to give our views upon this portion of the subject to the exclusion of those of General Taylor, in his able communication, in reply to General Ampudia, which we insert in the Appendix.* In this, the true merits of both parties are clearly and briefly stated. The spirit of hostility on the part of Mexico is contrasted with the pacific measures of the United States. The assertion of the president, that "war exists by the act of Mexico," is a truth so fully confirmed by history that he who doubts is doomed to a record that time can never redeem. It is not that this act was the cause of the war, but that Mexico, having made war necessary by her acts, was left to be consistent

If objections had been made to the whole bill, members, urging them, might have found a defence in their consciences. But their position, as opposed to the preamble, is truly a most awkward one. It was equivalent to a confession that they were more willing to vote means for prosecuting a war against Mexico, without any positive declaration of basis, than admit the statement of General Taylor to be a fact. Their love for history was greater than their love for justice. If they believed the war commenced by the president of the United States, they also professed to believe that he had commenced it "unconstitutionally," and this renders their case still worse. They were ready to vote for an "unconstitutional war," in preference to adopting the fact, as given by General Taylor, that the war was commenced by the act of Mexico! We cannot well avoid thinking of the gnat and camel, as spoken of in the gospel of St. Matthew.t

*See Appendix.

+ Chap. xxiii. 24.

and to strike the first blow.

in her career of folly and crime She commenced what proved to be her own chastisement, by the hand of another power. She was the sole cause, and, in the hands of Providence, the sole subject of the war, and the United States government was the agent for its merited infliction.

PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.

MILITARY POWER.

THE military power of a country is generally estimated according to the number of soldiers that makes up its standing army. This number varies, as the supposed interests of a nation require, and is large or small, according to the confidence which a government has in itself. A large army always implies doubt in the government as to its hold upon the affections of the people, and of its ability to control them. Armies increase as governments become selfish or unjust, and though the decrease is not always in the same ratio with governments of an opposite character, still, the diminution is seen to take place as the result of liberal measures. Much must be allowed to the conservative principle of government anciently termed "the divine right of kings," and to those countless habits and prejudices which become associated with all the joys of a people, as well as with their hardships and sufferings. The people are slow to change. It is not in their nature to change suddenly, and remain permanent. They become attached even to a form of government that may deny them liberty of thought and of speech; but, if that government yields to a small proportion of their requisitions, they remain loyal, grateful, and content. A monarch may hold his power if he will but keep in advance of his subjects in measures of reform. To refuse reforms, and hope to be secure in a standing army, is a great error. That this may be true for a limited period, no one will deny. When we speak of success in a nation, we refer to its generations. We measure the progress

of man, as an individual, by his years or generations; the progress of a nation, by its periods of great causative events, or by its centuries.

The recent events of France illustrate the actual power of a standing army in a country where intelligence and education are beginning to reach the people, and where love of freedom has only been defeated for the want of knowledge.* First comes the desire for change, and then the ability. The French have been in a transition state for a long period of time. Every revolution shows an advance, and the period is not far distant when we shall see her strength equal to the glory of a republic. The newly-fledged eagle falls from branch to branch in its first attempts to fly, and every fall is marked by a period of rest. But the parent birds encourage its efforts by example, while its instinct unceasingly tempts it forward in its flights, and from the humble distances of the forest-cluster of its home, it soon is able to sweep its circles in the regions of the sky.

It is thus with nations, destined to life and change. Change is but another word for growth or progress. Every change is a step forward, and every step gives new strength. We mean the progress of condition, of capacity, of power. A monarchy may become a republic, and the republic may not succeed, and the monarchy may be restored. This is merely the conventional process. Every attempt is a preparation, every revolution a step. In the breaking up of power, the monarchy may seize a temporary defence, but the ultimate republic is inevitable.

Louis Phillippe was too slow for his people. Guizot was too precise in his scale of advance. The former had confidence in the latter, and the latter had confidence in science. Both seemed to lose sight of the fact, that while they were watching

*The Mexicans "say, that they are obliged to have a standing army, and that they can only enforce their laws by the grace of God and gunpowder." Hon. P. Thompson.

for changes in the people, they did not count upon changes. in the army. Armies are made up of men; and though they are excluded in some degree from the benefits of an advancing society, and may be slow to appreciate their rights as citizens, still they have begun to think.* Thought is the great source of power, and in this we may find the power of the United States in the capacity of the people to think. Right thinking is knowledge, and knowledge is power. But where is the

MILITARY POWER OF THE UNITED STATES?

If a stranger were to visit this country, he would be at a loss to find, in form, its military power. He would see no castles of defiance, no towns encircled by turretted walls; he would see no palaces, with their lords and dependent tenantry. He would see no display of royalty, with its cortége of counsellors, outriders, and guard. He would find no army, with its trappings, to admire; no national parade of strength, to awe. But, in our great cities he would see industry without embarrassment, activity without disorder, excitement without riot, and security without fear; and all without an army near, or a soldier's guard.

If he were to go to the capital, he would there see the representatives of the people, of every profession, boldly defending the right and denouncing the wrong, in the business of legislation. He would see the chief magistrate of the nation

* In speaking of the Plymouth rock, De Tocqueville makes the following beautiful reflection:

"This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show how entirely all human power and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone, which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation; its very dust is shared as a relic; and what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces ?"