ne by."

If at this moment France was to contract a treaty of defensive and
offensive alliance with Mexico, a treaty taking effect immediately, and
pending the war between the United States and Mexico, and binding
herself to defend it with all her forces against any and every other
Power, would not the United States at once consider such a treaty as a
declaration of war against them?

If, in lieu of declaring war against Great Britain, in the year 1812,
the United States had only suspended the ordinary diplomatic relations
between the two countries; and Great Britain had declared that she would
not enter into any negotiation for the settlement of all the subjects of
difference between the two countries, unless the United States should,
as a preliminary condition, restore those relations; would not this have
been considered as a most insolent demand, and to which the United
States never would submit?

If the United States were, and had been for more than a century, in
possession of a tract of country, exclusively inhabited and governed by
them, disturbed only by the occasional forays of an enemy; would they
not consider the forcible military invasion and occupation of such a
district by a third Power, as open and unprovoked war, commenced against
them? And could their resistance to the invasion render them liable to
the imputation of having themselves commenced the war?

Yet it would seem as if the splendid and almost romantic successes of
the American arms had, for a while, made the people of the United States
deaf to any other consideration than an enthusiastic and exclusive love
of military glory; as if, forgetting the origin of the war, and with an
entire disregard for the dictates of justice, they thought that those
successes gave the nation a right to dismember Mexico, and to
appropriate to themselves that which did not belong to them.

But I do not despair, for I have faith in our institutions and in the
people; and I will now ask them whether this was their mission? and
whether they were placed by Providence on this continent for the purpose
of cultivating false glory, and of sinking to the level of those vulgar
conquerors who have at all times desolated the earth.

VII.--THE MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES.

The people of the United States have been placed by Providence in a
position never before enjoyed by any other nation. They are possessed of
a most extensive territory, with a very fertile soil,