Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/474

 at present stand, is next to an impossibility. The one can not repel, and the other can not pursue. The wild Indian in his forest wanderings has no respect for, if he even had a knowledge of, the lines which separate civilized nations. He roams wherever his untutored mind points the way, making in his strides the powerless—whether the white or the red man—his victim. Different, vastly different, is the condition of the neighborhood on our northern frontier. The inhabitants of the British Provinces are so assimilated in character and identified in interests with the inhabitants of the Northern States that they are as much the same as if they constituted one people. Practically there is nothing but a political line of division between them. The Marcy-Elgin treaty cemented their intercourse, and commercially annexed the Canadas and other adjacent possessions of Queen Victoria to those States. We gave to the colonies everything that they asked—everything that they could have desired.

The Senator from New York told us the other day, in substance, that the North was mighty, and that it would speedily become still mightier. In the majesty of its powder it may, at no distant day, bring those colonies into the Union, and particularly if they should become dissatisfied with the rule of the mother country. Nor can it be pleaded that they are not prepared for admission. Every day that passes—such is the frequency of their communication with the citizens of Michigan, New York, and New England—they receive practical lessons in the science of self-government, adopting of course the tenets of anti-slavery. Their number does not greatly exceed a third of that of Mexico, and yet they probably contribute ten times as much to the prosperity of the North as Mexico does to the prosperity of the South. I do not mention this in the language of sectional complaint, but in justification of the measure I propose.

The notion, sir, that Mexico will ever help herself out of the extremities to which she has been so deplorably reduced, is too absurd to be entertained by a rational mind. The more she struggles, ostensibly for the bettering of her condition, the more anarchical she becomes. To bring such a population as hers into the Union would be to assume the gravest of responsibilities. To suffer her to be parceled out by filibusters—each chief perhaps a despot—would be to fraternize with every desperate adventurer in our own land, and to invite to our continent all the wild, vicious spirits of the other hemisphere. Nor could we consent, without palpable dishonor, to see her placed in the leading-strings of any European Power, even were there a disposition manifested to so place her. We have, then, no alternative, if we put the slightest value upon our interests, and are not disposed to disregard our duty, but to arrange plans immediately for ruling her wisely, and, as far as possible, gently.

In the consummation of great measures we are apt to be—perhaps a little too apt—a closely cost-calculating people. In the matter of the proposed protectorate of Mexico, one of the first questions which is likely to suggest itself to our countrymen is that relating to the expenditure it will involve. Happily, this can be readily and satisfactorily answered.

The protectorate must be self-protecting—the expense incident to it defrayed by the protected. The General Government of Mexico could probably be administered, taking a term of ten years, for $6,000,000; while her custom receipts, under a well-regulated and honestly administered revenue tariff, would double that amount.