The balance of power.
--It is obviously the policy of the South that a balance of power be established in America by European Governments. The Monroe doctrine has perished with the defunct Union, and we must now strengthen ourselves by favoring such a distribution of power among others as will prevent the undue preponderance of any one. We must prevent the North from acquiring colonial possessions in the West Indies, Mexico, or in South America, which will be her obvious interest as soon as she is cut off from the products of the South. We would rather see Mexico in the possession of any other power than that of the Northern States. The hostile conduct of the Mexican Government in granting permission to the United States to transport troops across her territory for the invasion of Texas, might justify the Southern Confederacy in retaliatory measures of a serious character. But we have no desire for foreigh conquests, on the annexation of additional territory. We should be willing to see Spain once more ‘"hold, occupy, and possess"’ her ancient property and power in our neighboring Anarchy. The practicability of Republicanism, or, indeed, of any Government at all in Mexico, except Monarchy, has been long ago exploded. For the interests of its own people, as well as those of civilization and commerce, we should be glad to see Mexico once more restored to the pockets of its original owner, Spain. Holding Mexico and Cuba, Spain, a slaveholding power, would possess a dominion on this continent worthy of her ancient prestige in America, and which would not only materially aid in establishing a balance of power in America, but give additional strength and influence to slaveholding institutions. In South America, Brazil, another slaveholding empire, is growing rapidly every day, a growth which, owing to its monarchical Government, bids fair to be as solid and permanent as it is rapid. Here, then, are two powerful slaveholding empires which will be prepared, upon the establishment of Southern independence, not only to enter into profitable commercial relations with the South but to fraternize cordially with Southern civilization, and to present a combined bulwark against modern fanaticism which will effectually arrest its farther progress.The colonies of England at the North and in the West Indies, which will all derive vast benefit from their enlarged commercial relations with the Southern Confederacy, will be another and important element in the balance of power which will hereafter be established on this continent. It is as true of nations as of individuals, that competition is the life of trade. We shall be stimulated to improvement by rivalry, and compelled to study and practice all those arts which are essential to national independence.
There is one island in the West Indies worth all the rest put together — the garden of the New World--the island of Hayti. In beauty and fertility, it is a Paradise. No other island, no other spot of earth in the Western Hemisphere, deserves to be named in the same day with it. Yet this principal pearl in the old colonial diadem of France has been cast before swine. France, in a foolish freak of revolutionary folly, gave over Hayti to the dominion of barbarism, and she owes it to the civilization of thie age to undo the mischief she has done. In a review of Soulouque and his Empire, a spirited French volume, a writer for De Bow sets forth the advantages both to France and ourselves of a redemption of Hayti by its ancient and rightful master. For ourselves, it is admirably situated to guard the transit across the Isthmus, and in the hands of France, will keep England and the North in check, and keep open the passage of the Isthmus for the trade of the world. For France, the acquisition of Hayti, once the most productive affluent of all the colonial tributaries to her commerce, would be a desideratum which the practical mind of her present Emperor cannot fail to appreciate. For the island its restoration to France would be the resurrection of the dead to life. Once it was a garden spot; now, every day, becoming a wilderness. No more complete and conclusive demonstrations of the incapacity of the negro to govern himself can be furnished in all the world or all time than the desolation his improvidence and laziness have brought upon this Eden of the Western world. The staples once furnished by that island have become necessary to the wants of mankind France, which had no scruples in conquering Algiers, ought to have none in the reclamation of Hayti. The negroes themselves, who speak French and affect French fashions in all things, would be pleased with the transition from negro despotism to French supremacy. At present they have become little better than barbarians licentiousness is universal; robbery and murder every-day occurrences; those who have property are not for one moment safe in their possessions. The hideous Paganism of Africa still exerts its influence among multitudes, including many of the highest in position, and although this Roman Catholic religion has been for a long time the only one recognized in Hayti, the head of that faith refuses to recognize the Church in that Island. On the accession of Soulouque to the throne, he asked the Pope for a Priest, who should be authorized, as the proxy of his Holiness, to crown him, and also to send him a few Bishops; but he never received a reply. The idolatries and iniquities of this abandoned island, which have caused it to be renounced by the ecclesiastical authority which is recognized by itself, can never be removed but by its subjugation by a civilized power, and the compulsion of its people to habits of order and industry.
In fine, with the establishment of Southern independence, we see a bright future, not only for our own country, but for the whole Western world. Mexico will be rescued from the gulf of anarchy and bloodshed; Hayti be civilized and made happy; the pseudo-philanthropy of Europe undergo a final collapse, and even the North itself become a wiser and a better people. Nothing is more beneficial than low diet and occasional fasting to people who suffer from an apoplectic tendency. The North has been corrupted and enervated by its vast accession of commercial wealth. Its large cities have proved ‘"sores upon the body politic,"’ which have infused deadly poison nto every vein. The tendency in the North has long been to city life, and whilst all its enterprise and energy have been concentrated in those huge, festering hives of demoralized humanity, the comparatively pure and invigorating pursuits of agriculture and of country life have been abandoned. With final separation from the South, the Northern cities will dwindle down to respectable dimensions; the sceptre of commerce be transferred to other sections, and the crowded populations be forced to go into the fields and prairies and ‘"root pig or die."’ Thus, even in the North itself, a happy effect upon the morality, happiness, and healthfulness of the inhabitants may be confidently expected to follow the establishment of Southern independence.
