“I agree with you, that Nature has decided that Canada and the United States must become one, for all purposes of free intercommunication. Whether they also shall be united in the same federal government must depend upon the two parties to the union. I can assure you that there will be no repetition of the policy of 1776, on our part, to prevent our North American colonies from pursuing their interest in their own way. If the people of Canada are tolerably unanimous in wishing to sever the very slight thread which now binds them to this country, I see no reason why, if good faith and ordinary temper be observed, it should not be done amicably. I think it would be far more likely to be accomplished peaceably, if the subject of annexation were left as a distinct question. I am quite sure that we should be gainers, to the amount of about a million sterling annually, if our North American colonists would set up in life for themselves and maintain their own establishments; and I see no reason to doubt that they also might be gainers by being thrown upon their own resources.
“The less your countrymen mingle in the controversy, the better. It will only be an additional obstacle in the path of those in this country who see the ultimate necessity of a separation, but who have still some ignorance and prejudice to contend against, which, if used as political capital by designing politicians, may complicate seriously a very difficult piece of statesmanship. It is for you and such as you, who love peace, to guide your countrymen aright in this matter. You have made the most noble contributions of any modern writer to the cause of Peace; and as a public man I hope you will exert all your influence to induce Americans to hold a dignified attitude and observe a ‘masterly inactivity’ in the controversy which is rapidly advancing to a solution between the mother country and her American colonies.”
A prudent patriotism among us will appreciate the wisdom of this counsel, more needed now than when written. The controversy which Cobden foresaw “between the mother country and her American colonies” is yet undetermined. The recent creation of what is somewhat grandly called “The Dominion of Canada” marks one stage in its progress.
LUCAS ALAMAN, 1852.
From Canada I pass to Mexico, and close this list with Lucas Alaman, the Mexican statesman and historian, who has left on record a most pathetic prophecy with regard to his own country, intensely interesting to us at this moment.
Alaman was born in the latter part of the last century, and died June 2, 1855. He was a prominent leader of the monarchical party, and Minister of Foreign Affairs under Presidents Bustamente and Santa Aña. In this capacity he inspired the respect of foreign diplomatists. One of these, who had occasion to know him officially, says of him, in answer to my inquiries, that he “was the greatest statesman Mexico has produced since her independence.”[642] He was one of the few in any country who have been able to unite literature with public life, and obtain honors in each.
His first work was “Dissertations on the History of the Mexican Republic,”[643] in three volumes, published at Mexico, 1844-49. In these he considers the original conquest by Cortés, its consequences, the conqueror and his family, the propagation of the Christian religion in New Spain, the formation of the city of Mexico, the history of Spain and the House of Bourbon. All these topics are treated somewhat copiously. Then followed the “History of Mexico, from the First Movements which prepared its Independence in 1808 to the Present Epoch,”[644] in five volumes, published at Mexico, the first bearing date 1849, and the fifth 1852. From the Preface to the first volume it appears that the author was born in Guanajuato, and witnessed there the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1810, under Don Miguel Hidalgo, the curate of Dolores; that he was personally acquainted with the curate, and with many who had a principal part in the successes of that time; that he was experienced in public affairs, as Deputy and as member of the Cabinet; and that he had known directly the persons and things of which he wrote. His last volume embraces the government of Iturbide as Emperor, and also his unfortunate death, ending with the establishment of the Mexican Federal Republic, in 1824. The work is careful and well considered. The eminent diplomatist already mentioned, who had known the author officially, writes that “no one was better acquainted with the history and causes of the incessant revolutions in his unfortunate country, and that his work on this subject is considered by all respectable men in Mexico a chef-d’œuvre for purity of sentiments and patriotic convictions.”
It is on account of the valedictory words of this History that I introduce the name of Alaman, and nothing more striking appears in this gallery. Behold!—
“Mexico will be, without doubt, a land of prosperity from its natural advantages, but it will not be so for the races which now inhabit it. As it seemed the destiny of the peoples who established themselves therein at different and remote epochs to perish from the face of it, leaving hardly a memory of their existence; even as the nation which built the edifices of Palenque, and those which we admire in the peninsula of Yucatan, was destroyed without its being known what it was or how it disappeared; even as the Toltecs perished by the hands of barbarous tribes coming from the North, no record of them remaining but the pyramids of Cholula and Teotihuacan; and, finally, even as the ancient Mexicans fell beneath the power of the Spaniards, the country gaining infinitely by this change of dominion, but its ancient masters being overthrown;—so likewise its present inhabitants shall be ruined and hardly obtain the compassion they have merited, and the Mexican nation of our days shall have applied to it what a celebrated Latin poet said of one of the most famous personages of Roman history, STAT MAGNI NOMINIS UMBRA,[645]—Nothing more remains than the shadow of a name illustrious in another time.
“May the Almighty, in whose hands is the fate of nations, and who by ways hidden from our sight abases or exalts them according to the designs of His providence, be pleased to grant unto ours the protection by which He has so often deigned to preserve it from the dangers to which it has been exposed!”[646]