Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/434

Rh 1st. To establish a constitutional Confederacy.

2nd. To assure the people of the permanency of that institution, and of pacific self-government.

3rd. To encourage emigration, holding out inducements to foreigners, either alluring them to acquire freehold property, or such title to real estate, as will confer upon them the unquestionable and undisturbed right to the soil for a considerable length of time.

4th. To alter the tariff, so as to free trade from many of the ridiculous restrictions that impair it, and allow native industry to take its direction from wholesome competition, rather than dangerous legislation.

5th. To establish a universal system of public education.

6th. To make the Press entirely free.

7th. To distribute the church lands among the people, or to put them up at such minimum prices, as will enable all classes to become free-holders.

8th. Gradually to diminish the army, and colonize it.

9th. To destroy the corruption of Government patronage, and purify the Customs.

10th. To restore the mining interests, and reform the mint.

11th. To purify the Judiciary, and cause law to be fairly administered between man and man.

12th. To destroy the contraband trade entirely: and

13th. To permit religious liberty.

Of all these improvements, I regard the encouragement of emigration as the most essential, after the establishment and assurance of peace and religious liberty. Men will not toil to get rich, merely by virtue of acts of Congress. It requires the stimulus of example, and the infusion of a new and energetic blood into the system.

Nor is it to be feared, that the country will be absorbed at once by foreigners and foreign influence. The old staid Spanish prejudice, in favor of its own kindred, must be overcome. French, Irish, Dutch, Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Russians, Hebrews, Greeks, Norwegians, Swedes,—all find representatives in our population, harmoniously acting together for their personal advantages and the prosperity of the common weal.

Many years will be required to produce adequate confidence in Europeans and North Americans, to induce them to emigrate to Mexico for the purpose of settlement. They have had too hard a lesson in the past, to allow them to plunge into Mexican trade and territory again, notwithstanding the temptation of the country. Emigration will be by gradual and kindly progress, and I question much whether the feelings or the language of the nation will be changed. It will be a melioration of lot, without an alteration of nature; and thus, without any violent disturbance of the tastes, sympathies, or prejudices of the old, a new race will grow up with the renewed country, regenerated by the grail of foreign stamina and talent.