DIVISIONS OF WHITES WANT OF HOMOGENEOUSNESS. 159 soul without appeal, and grasping the purse, it will be at once seen what a powerful element of influence such an institution must become when directed by a single head. If the masses would prey upon the church, it was the policy of the church to support the army; if the people desired to destroy the army, it was the interest of the army to support a church which could control by conscience or bribe by money the miscalled representatives of the people. With force and superstition, thus welded together by interest, the representative system can expect but little favor from these two important divisions of the white race. Is there hopeful reliance, then, upon another power which is controlled by a portion of the educated whites? The Liberty of the Press, in Mexico has disappointed its warmest advocates. An instrument which should ever be used for the enlightenment of the multitude has been employed only to demoralize and deceive it. Instead of attacking bravely all abuses of administration and all international prejudices, or weaknesses; instead of holding the executive departments to strict accountability before the chambers and the people; instead of displaying frankly the vital interests and materials of social reorganization, and thus contributing to the common prosperity and peace of the country, the periodical press of Mexico, with few honorable exceptions, has fostered the meanest passions and hatreds of the ignorant masses and has betrayed public opinion by trafficking with or truckling to the men or the classes who live by public abuses and disorder. Instead of checking and thwarting the interference of the church in civil affairs, it has stood mute or appalled before the ecclesiastical power. If there is no reliance, therefore, on the press, what available trust may be reposed in the pure, civil patriots, men of letters, professional characters, merchants and proprietors? The slender numbers of this class, compared with the army, church, Empleados or government employées, and intriguing civilians connected either with the state in its various departments of finance, or with the press, at once deprive it of equality in influence. In all the turns of fortune in Mexico, these men have, hitherto, never been able to cominand the country for any length of time so as to give a permanent beneficial direction to public affairs, and we may, therefore, readily agree with Lerdo in believing that his country possesses no elements of nationality. He might have gone further in his analysis, and declared 1 Lerdo, Consideraciones, p. 46, 47. Lerdo 43. — Cuevas's memoir of 1849, as Mexican Minister of Foreign and Domestic relations, p. 29 of American translation. 160 WANT OF NATIONALITY AND OF A PEOPLE that there was no nationality because there was no PEOPLE; for who will dignify with that republican name such discordant and heterogeneous materials of races, characters, politics and purposes. A PEOPLE is not a mere aggregation of human beings. A nation, in the true sense of nationality, is only a great family, for whose strength and power it is necessary that all its individual members should be intimately united by the bonds of interest, sympathy and affection. Such a nation may form a government, but it is difficult for a government to form such a nation. And this was the peculiarly fortunate position of our North American states at the period of Independence, for we had no political and social revolution to effect. Our people and our government grew up together. At the close of the war the United States were poor. The military men had enjoyed no revenue from their services but personal honor. They were badly fed, paid and clothed. There was no rich, ready made prize to be seized by ambitious or avaricious men in the gorged treasury of a nation. All were essentially equal because all were equally forced to work for livelihood. There was no recognized class in government or society. We were all of one blood, and did not fall into the error of amalgamation with Indians and negroes. We were controlled by reason and not governed by passions or instincts. We had nothing but liberty and space; soil and freedom. Our soldiers were rewarded with land; but that land was in the wilderness and exacted toil to make it productive; and thus, compulsory industry diverted the minds of our political founders from those ambitious enterprises, which by the aid of the military have so long degraded Mexico. Conquest and rapid Fruition, was the maxim of Spain; Occupation and Development, the policy of England. The eager Iberian was prompt and headlong in the adventurous life of discovery. The cautious Anglo Saxon followed in his steps, ready to glean and replant the fields that had been hardly reaped of their virgin harvests. We have endeavored to analyze candidly the condition of the Mexican republic, and, in performing the disagreeable task we have been guided not only by our own personal observations in the country, but by the argumentative criticisms of native writers. Having ascertained the disease it is our duty to seek the remedy The obvious policy of Mexico, under existing circumstances, is te exhibit a firm, constitutional, orderly, peaceful aspect, which, together with her manifold allurements of soil, climate, and geographical situation, will gradually attract to her shores the eager mul REMEDIES EMIGRATI 'N RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 161 titudes who are seeking a new home in America. Emigration is the overflowing of a bitter cup. Men do not ordinarily leave the land of their birth, the home of their infancy, their parents, friends and companions, for the untried hazards of a land in which there is no community of laws, habits, and language, unless poverty and bad government force them into the wilderness. They depart to better their lot. They must have the assurance, therefore, of their rights in property and personal liberty guarantied by stable laws promptly administered by incorruptible judges. Such meritorious emigrants will not populate Mexico unless she demonstrates her capacity for order and security; and, without these accessions, we have shown that Mexico never will, as she does not now, possess a republican PEOPLE. She must cultivate the civil idea; she must abandon her military parade; she must discard her habitual bombast and grandiloquence; she must banish the despots who have debauched and plundered her; she must reform her social life and learn to believe that there are other pleasures worthy the notice of men besides gambling, bull baiting and cock fighting; and, above all, she must establish religious liberty. It is an absurd idea that nationality can be preserved by enforcing Catholicity by virtue of the constitution. The Roman church must consent to share this earth, the patrimony of mankind, — with other believers and spiritual laborers. It cannot monopolize the soil, even if it can control the faith. The day of monoply is gone,—that of individuality has come, and there can be no good government that is not founded on tolerant Christianity, which is the creed of Love, the enemy of Force, the founder of true Democracy.1 When an orderly and firm government shall have been established, Mexico will be refreshed continually by the energizing blood of a hardy, industrious and enterprising white race from beyond the sea. Germany will send her sons and daughters; Ireland, France, England, Italy and Spain will contribute theirs. The various nations, mingling slowly by marriage with the white Mexicans, will amalgamate and neutralize each other into homogeneous nationality. Mexico may thus gradually congregate A PEOPLE. The language of the country will, in all likelihood, be preserved; 'It will scarcely be credited, but such is nevertheless the fact, that it was once seriously contemplated in Mexico to deny the right of sepulture to all strangers who were not Catholics, and that the point was only overruled by an ingenious liberalist, who contended that it was certainly healthier for the living Catholics that the dead heretic should rot beneath the ground, than taint the atmosphere by decaying above it! The priests have constantly and violently opposed marriages between Mexicans and foreigners, unless they were Catholics. U 162 POLITICAL ORDER LABOR. for the white natives who now speak Spanish will of course form, for many years, the bulk of the population, and when they die, their offspring and the offspring of the emigrants will know but one tongue. There will thus be no violent extirpation of races; but a slow and genial modification. Modern inventions, arts, tastes, science, emulation, new forms of thought, new modes of development, will be introduced and implanted by these emigrants. The million of white men, and the two millions of mestizos; will become more prosperous under the increased trade and industry of the nation. A good government will be ensured, for the hardy emigrants fly from the political oppression and poverty of the old world to enjoy peaceful liberty in this. There is nothing in this scheme of progress to which a good man or a republican can object, and if Mexico is sincere in her professions of democracy, and not merely anxious to preserve intact the fragments of a ruined Spanish colony, without a people and without nationality, she will imitate the example of the United States and welcome to her vallies and mountains all who are willing to approach her in the name of order, labor, and liberty. But if she stubbornly adheres to her stupid self-seclusion, and bars the portals of her splendid empire with the revolutionary impediments that are annually scattered over the republic, she will break the beautiful promise given to humanity in the success of her revolution; "Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished, LONGFELLOW's EVANGELINE. |