Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/129

 peace or war?'—in reply to the resolution of Congress unanimously voting against the establishment of a monarchy in Mexico.

The series of humiliations was now begun, and at the end of 1865 Maximilian was secretly sacrificed. This prince, whose imprudent ambition had impelled him to the shores of Vera Cruz, was about to fall a victim to the weakness of our Government in allowing its conduct to be dictated by American arrogance. Indeed, before rushing into such perilous contingencies, might not this attitude of the United States have been easily foreseen? Our statesmen needed no such rare perspicuity to have discovered the dark shadow of the Northern Republic looming up on the horizon over the Rio Bravo frontier, and only biding its time to make its appearance on the scene. If they were about so resignedly to adopt the resolution of giving way, a resolution which prudence certainly would dictate in a business so far from the mother-country, was it acting generously to lead on the archduke to his certain ruin? On the other hand, a too sudden withdrawal would wound the national pride of our own troops; for it could hardly be expected that our regiments could evacuate in succession, almost sword in hand, the towns which they had occupied, without their looking forward with emotion to the reprisals which the inhabitants would have to undergo from the victorious Liberals; and without groaning over their retreat before the American bravado. This was, we shall say boldly, the way to introduce our soldiers to a bad warlike school, in which the spirit of discussing the acts of their commander, compelled as he was to yield to an humiliating policy, must infallibly have weakened the discipline of our army, so prompt to be roused by anything which seems to them ambiguous.