"Not for ourselves to life we came," The noble Roman said; THE DIPLOMACY OF THE SWORD. "BEAT your swords into ploughshares and your spears into pruning-hooks," is the saintly admonition of the gentlemen in colored cloth and uncolored cravats, and not unfrequently have we heard it reiterated by the unsaintly politician of a particular order, who has learned his first lessons of statesmanship in a sectarian or sectional school. We propose now to ask our readers, and the American people generally, to look into history, past and present, and see whether this sickly sentimentality ever had any foundation in fact, as applied to us of the present day, however high may be its origin; in other words, whether the time has ever been, yet, when the diplomacy of the sword could be dispensed with. If we consult history, there is as much reason to believe that the ascending scale in the perfection of human governments has been passed, as there is that it is yet to come, or that the summit is yet to be reached. More especially does this impress us when we look around and witness so much corruption in both municipal and national affairs. Corruption has been the cankerworm of all governments; under its sway the Republic with the Monarchy must fall. The sword, as the oldest element of political power of which history gives us any knowledge, is certainly entitled to our respect; its antiquity would seem to command that. But we ask the advocates of pulpit sentimentality upon this question, when, in the history of the world, has it been laid aside, and discarded as an obsolete element? When, or by what nation has this been done? And until this question can be answered, we claim for it, as a national journalist of this country, its ancient respect, its ancient prestige, and its proper place as one of the legitimate powers of the Government. It is claimed by some that the art of printing as an element of power was destined to supplant the sword, and it was upon this mistaken theory that the sentiment with which we commence this article became a popular hobby and a popular delusion. And it has been this error in public opinion, or in certain spheres of public opinion, that has flooded this country with timid statesmen, and filled our State and national legislatures with sickly theorists and nerveless representatives, and given us cowardly and time-serving diplomatists in foreign affairs, while every department of the government has been, at times, more or less occupied with irresponsible and brainless drones, most of whom never saw a musket or a bayonet. They are mostly taken from that numerous class of impoverished families who can boast of almost everything illustrious but patriotism. But when a battle is to be fought, and the country's honor vindicated at the mouth of the cannon, we find quite a different class called into requisition. It is time the American people should awake to their true interests the signs of the times are portentous. The great powers of Europe are clashing for the spoils of empire. Not only upon that continent, but here, at our own door and upon our own soil, as it were, may we soon look upon one of the fields of that contest. It is with this view that we have chosen the subject that the head of this article suggests as the foundation for the advocacy of a bold and decided foreign policy. We believe the time is past for temporising, or tampering with this question. Our diplomacy for the last twenty years, with a very few exceptions, has resulted in nothing; worse than nothing, for its timidity has sunk us from one of the first powers of the world, to the second or third in influence. This is a humiliating acknowledgment, but when we deal with facts, we must meet them as such. Under a loose diplomacy in our foreign relations, a mass of important questions have accumulated upon us, as is shown by every recurring annual message of the chief executive of this nation. These questions were never more clearly indicated and discussed in any executive document than they were in Mr. Buchanan's message in December last. Yet a whole session of Congress was passedfrittered away-spent in idle, useless talk, and the President and the country found these questions where the Message left them in December '58. Whatever of foreign policy we have, we have it through the Democratic party and Deinocratic administrations; this policy, so far as it relates to the question of our territorial expansion, we have attempted to illustrate hitherto. So far as the general principles and policy of the party are concerned we still adhere to the doctrine thus laid down; but occasional derelictions that arise from unfaithfulness and incompetency in representatives, are not always the result of the relaxation or abandonment of a principle, but are more often attributable to the corruption of the times in foisting upon a party men for public places of trust and honor to represent us at the capital, whom we would not trust with our private interests, however small, at home. These things, in parties, are, to some extent, unavoidable; they are the perversions of the legitimate aims and ends of party organizations, and so long as they remain the exception and not the general rule, so long and to such extent will the party be potent for good, and no longer. The sentiment that the power of the sword was no longer to form an element of diplomacy did not originate with the Democratic party. It has been the popular theme in this country, in the ranks of the opposition. Like all other doctrines prejudicial to our national growth and interests, it has federal blood in its veins, and always cries, "don't fight, but give us office." It saddles its insipid descendants upon every department of the Government but the fighting department. It furnishes no soldiers, warriors, or statesmen, and contributes nothing by way of maintaining or supporting the Government, except its over quota of hungry cormorants upon the treasury under every Democratic Adininistration, demanding the best positions and those that offer the highest pecuniary rewards. With such influences at work, and often, too, bringing to bear not an inconsiderable share of the patronage of the Government, it was not so strange that public sentiment should become so contaminated as to control in a great measure the actions of some of the prominent statesmen of the Democratic party. Men are not infallible. In discussing this much neglected subject, we make no specific charge against any Democratic Administration; on the contrary, we fully endorse the general views foreshadowed in Mr. Buchanan's last annual message, and can only regret that he has not been promptly sustained by Congress. But we are discussing general principles; we must "hew to the line, let the chips fly where they will." The diplomacy which we require, and all we require in this entanglement in foreign affairs, is the bold assertion and maintenance of the letter and spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, and the recognition and strict compliance of the Ostend Conference Manifesto. These are all the treaty stipulations necessary. This narrows the issue down to a plain, practical question; nothing short of these should be submitted to. If it becomes necessary, in order to carry out this policy, to re-organize the Democratic party, and sift from it this Federal ploughshare and pruning-hook element, the sooner it is done the better. These dead weights have accumulated upon us of late through the excitements consequent upon our popular party triumphs. A Diplomacy based upon the principles we have indicated can, in view of events now transpiring throughout all Europe, only be maintained by a bold, fearless and unswerving policy; it must be unyielding, and backed by nerve such as characterized the better days of the Republic. It will not do to give timid men the control of this question. It is not their place, neither are the interests of the country safe in their hands. It is not learning that is now wanted. The American people understand their rights. There is an instinctiveness upon these issues highly characteristic of our people-a national pride that rises far above all partizan considerations; we can give it no more appropriate name than American patriotism. It is an element with the people and of the people, and its success depends entirely upon what may be called physical and moral courage. The great pulse of the nation beats strongly, and the man or the party that longer yields our rights upon questions of foreign policy, in our judgment, encounters a fearful responsibility. The political issues of parties have changed; let demagogues say what they will, the issues by which they are hereafter to be measured are no longer those of the past. The soft solder of the Slavery question has melted away before questions too long delayed by that offspring of political prostitution. The question has changed from a dangerous domestic delusion to a foreign reality. The Central American question, the present state of affairs in Mexico, the Spanish aggressions, the Cuba question, and the questions relating to our neutral rights and the rights of boundary, recently raised in the island of San Juan, are all upon us. The theatre opens with the European powers; and what is the policy we are called upon to contend with? It is emphatically the Diplomacy of the Sword. This has been the controlling element of European diplomacy since her history began. Under it the smaller powers have crumbled away and been portioned out among the stronger, until four powers now control the European world, and not only that, but the richest and most fertile portions of the east. These powers revel amid the sacred relics and among the most glorious antiquities of the old world. The very cradles of science and philosophy pay tribute to them and acknowledge them as masters; and why? What is the solution of all this? What does it teach? That it carries with it a philosophy we may sooner or later learn through the same bitter experience by which others have been taught it when too late. The lesson of teaching our Statesmen not to rely upon European magnanimity, or diplomatic duplicity, may cost ns too much, and it's possible the moral may come too late. We have all heard of the thoughtful old dame who covered up her well after her calf was drowned. In the issues now presented, timorous Statesmen or cowards had better step aside, for if they do not, the people will set them aside. Let the puritanic demagogue who has so faithfully served the cause of the bow-shinned African, live for a brief period upon the glory of his emotional philanthropy, and let the country return to a consideration of those neglected interests now crowding upon us from every side. It concerns the country little what man may be thrust aside by these issues. Let him stand, or let him fall, the questions must be met, and the sinews to back up emergencies must be provided. The campaign of 1860 will develop a popular enthusiasm upon these questions, which, in our judgment, will equal the most exciting periods in the history of this country. These, like all other bold issues, require bold advocates; they are issues that address themselves to the National Democracy, and must be carried through by Democratic statesmanship, and sustained by the patriotism of the country, without regard to cost, or consequences. If it become necessary, for the maintenance of the honor and dignity of the nation, to fight, then let us fight; we have fought three times in our history, and we believe lost nothing by it, though certain ruin was predicted by a certain class upon each occasion. It is a significant fact, and one not to be disregarded, that those who have always opposed our fighting, have always opposed everything. They have always been the bitter enemies to a foreign policy. They have stood in the way of one so long, and by their specious timidity and false issues, so diverted public sentiment from the subject, that at the present time, we in fact find ourselves almost destitute of one. The present Republican party is the successor of the whole opposition to every branch of Democratic policy, wars included, and in it we find the same office-seeking, warhating alarmists-clamoring for spoils and peace; ready to give away everything but New England, and it was not until the meeting of the Hartford Convention" that they placed much value upon that. This is a part of the historical record of this question. When we trace it to its origin, we find that the opposition to a foreign policy is not the growth of the last twenty years, but that it is only within that period that the sentiments of this opposition have been more or less in the ascendant, and have controlled, to a dangerous and alarming extent, the actions of our public men. It is one of the legitimate results of those questions upon which the people of this country |