issues, domestic and foreign, numbered among the events, and imprinted upon the records of 1857-8.

The formidable intestine rebellion in the Territory of Utah then approaching its culminating stage, and presenting an aspect of the most serious danger, threatening disaster to the Republic in the calamities of the first civil war encountered within its limits, is now among the things that were. The boldness and decision of the Democratic party in Congress during the last session, aided by a few honorable and Conservative members of the Opposition, no less than the promptitude and patriotism of the Administration, rescued that unhappy and distracted territory from the appalling catastrophe of a collision and conflict with the parental and paramount sovereignty of the Federal arm, and redeemed also from outrage and contempt the constitutional supremacy, and inherent force vested in, and conceded to the organic law of the Union, devolved upon and exercised alike by secondary and subordinate territorial authorities, as by its superior ministers, and highest central functionaries.

No unnatural carnage, nor the stain of fraternal blood, the invariable concomitants of every transient disaffection and revolt under the despotisms and monarchies of Europe, have been the sacrifice of the disloyal and intemperate passions that precipitated the colonists of Utah into a temporary attitude of treason, or marked the final conclusion of hostilities in the restoration throughout the territory of Federal power.

The peaceful sceptre of the law and the Constitution has again resumed its rightful position; disaffection has faded, and harmony and concord uniformly prevail; all apprehensions are now dismissed, and all danger has departed.

These portentous troubles, therefore, can no longer appal the country, invoke executive intervention, or command the legislation and care of Congress. The great problem and principle of international law, concerned in the question of the right of Visitation and Search, so interesting to our citizens in its vital bearings upon their individual freedom, and the universal prosperity of commerce, as well as upon

the dignity and independence of the government of the United States, has likewise been practically determined for all future time, by the bold and emphatic decision pronounced by Congress at its last session, and ratified by the common acclamation of the people of every state.

The concessions enforced, and the broad disclaimer extorted from the British ministry last winter by the Administration, in the negotiations and diplomatic correspondence upon this important subject, preclude all probability of the recurrence of this issue. So far at least as the United States may be concerned, we believe its solution to be permanent and irreversible.

In respect to the relations of the Central and South American Republics to the United States, the purposes and policy of this government cannot be mistaken, from the active measures instituted already by the Administration in reference to Paraguay. This policy is just and humane, and we cannot doubt but that it has the sanction, and meets the general concurrence and assent of the people.

The question, however, popularly esteemed of the greatest magnitude, yet intrinsically of the least and most inconsiderable moment, commanding the consideration and legislative action of the last Congress, was that coming up on the application of the Territory of Kansas for admission into the Union of States, under what was called the Lecompton Constitution. This was substantially an issue on the part of the Administration of expediency, dictated upon a principle adapted to the exigencies of the hour, and demanded by the imperative necessities of the time. This has found its solution in the determination and conduct of the people of that territory, and cannot create any further discussion or differences in the public councils. It has fully expired as a subject of national contention and conflict, with all the incidents to which it gave temporary instigation and rise. Being, therefore, merely provisional in its character, and accidental in its origin, the circumstances which gave it significance for the time having passed away, it will not, and cannot be revived.

We now come to observe briefly those vital and prepon

derating issues, local and foreign, foreshadowed in the successive political revelations of the day-in the mutations, vicissitudes, and expanding social and civil revolutions convulsing this continent, bringing out all the horrors of anarchy and civil war, and inducing the rapid development and delineation likewise of the policy and designs of foreign governments affecting directly or indirectly the welfare, independence, and security of the United States, in the infringement of the natural and obvious prerogatives of this government, or in contravention of what has been prescribed and uniformly indicated as our fundamental principle, and unalterable policy as a nation.

First and foremost in exigency and immediate moment, looms up the turbulence, turmoil, and distraction raging within the limits of the territory of Mexico. Many circumstances, into the elaborate examination of which we do not propose now to enter, combine to invest, with a powerful and peculiar weight, the volcanic civil eruptions, and the sanguinary revolutions both of Church and State, so unrelenting and destructive as the conflicts now pervading the Mexican Empire lying on the southern boundaries of the United States, and such also as are periodically incident to nearly all the Spanish and South American countries adjacent to our own national dominions, and intercepting the transportation of our commerce, and the transit of our citizens across the public inter-oceanic highways to the Pacific and to the American states, now and hereafter to be erected in the remote West.

A multiplicity of considerations, imperious in force, and of unimpeachable justice, as well as paramount necessity, conspire particularly to command and concentrate the attention of the American people, and invoke the earnest deliberation of the national Administration upon the condition to which the nominal republic of Mexico has been so summarily precipitated. This unfortunate nation, sustaining the closest relations to our tranquil and prosperous Union, is not only sunk in the lowest and most hopeless stages of decadence and retrogression, but is this hour destitute of all civil government, plunged into a state of reckless, irretrievable,

and bloody anarchy, and racked by all the pains of domestic convulsion, the agonies of intestine revolution, and the devastation and horrors of civil war.

Simultaneous with the roll-call of Congress on the first, Monday of December next, this great subject will assert its right of precedence, and must assume forthwith a preponderating place in the councils and legislation of that body. We anticipate a forcible exposition of this question in all its relations, direct and immediate, or collateral and remotewhether of a home and national bearing, or a foreign and international tendency-to the position, rights, and governmental policy of the United States in the forthcoming Presidential Message to be submitted to Congress at the opening of the approaching session, and received by the country as conclusive with respect to the attitude and determination of this government, and accepted likewise, perhaps, as a conclusive guarantee of the ultimate disposition and destiny of Mexico. A clear and emphatic enunciation of our policy by the Executive, followed by the immediate action of the National Legislature, is especially imperative in the incipient and introductory stages of this question, in view of the ru mored alliances between European powers, with a manifest purpose of forestalling the United States in the possession and exercise of provisional power over Mexico, and forbidding that precedent and exclusive parental Protectorate and jurisdiction which we hold to be within the indisputable province of our own government, appurtenant alike to our obligations to Mexico, and the principles long since promulgated, now known as comprised and summed up under the title of the Monroe Doctrine, in reference to the controlling power on the continent of America. The exigency has apparently now come for the practical reassertion and inflexible maintenance of this doctrine. If any power is extended over Mexico, it must be that proceeding from the government of the United States, and founded upon principles characteristic of the republicanism and democracy of this Union. All efforts to this end, by any foreign league or alliance, must be regarded in the light of a usurpation, as transcending their legitimate

functions, and derogatory to the sovereignty of the United States. Our purposes, in the event of such a contingency, are well known to every European nation, by the negotiations and diplomacy of our government in the past. It will be for Congress to declare the precise conditions of a National American Protectorate to be established over Mexico in case of a continuance of the present state of disintegration and the difficulties now notoriously obtaining throughout that republic. The outrages encountered by American citizens already, within the very shadow of the Capital of the Montezumas, and under the walls of the city of Mexico, surrendered to riot, rapine, and anarchy, demand instantaneous redress, while a heavy indemnity must be claimed, also, for the confiscation and destruction of American property. All order is banished and all law set at defiance.

In the face of such a state of things, we cannot foresee how an active and energetic policy can be deferred or obviated by either the Administration or Congress.

The great consequences that may follow the assumption of this attitude by the United States, we do not propose now to investigate. Present action is inevitable. It can only give acceleration to the manifest destiny of this Republic and the realization of the purposes of the American people.