forty minutes, he bids fair to
do it as quickly and as thoroughly as mortal skill and mortal audacity
ever did. And if he can secure all these benefits by open conquest, or,
better yet, by the people's apparently free choice of a government of
which he shall be the sole guardian and administrator, what is there in
his past career to warrant us in the expectation that he will shrink
back from any double-dealing necessary for the achievement of such a
master-stroke?

* * * * *

And now what shall we say of this policy as it concerns ourselves, and
especially the welfare and prospects of the Mexican people? We cannot
like it. That is plain. For, suffered to remain unchallenged, it cuts
right through our traditional policy. No mere diplomacy can ever mend
that again. All our fine discourse about the Monroe doctrine is, as
matters stand now, nothing but a flight of rhetoric. Then, in such a
_nonchalant_ way, it puts the curb on any future ambition which we may
cherish southward, that it is still more disagreeable. And besides, it
is such a mingled menace and warning! If this potentate could do, and
would do, such things to feeble Mexico,--if real or fancied interest
demand it, what may he not attempt with us, now that we are not so
stalwart as of old, now that we are bearing upon our shoulders a burden
that would have tasked the fabled Atlas? It is plain that we cannot
look, and ought not to look, with any favor upon this man, or any of his
Western works.

But how will his policy affect the happiness and prosperity of Mexico?
Will it hold her back from the realization of that dream of greatness
which we all cherished for her once? Or will it send her forward with a
quicker pace to its speedy fulfilment? One feature of this event is
memorable. A conqueror, with bayonet and cannon-ball, has brought to
this people the very boon which forty years ago they craved,--a
monarchy, with an offshoot from European royalty sitting upon its
throne. If Maximilian come to Mexico, he can build his palace on a
corner-stone which Iturbide, Guerrero, and many another patriot leader
who sleeps in a bloody grave, helped to lay. So the pendulum swings
back, be its arc ever so long. A closer examination, however, will show
that this remarkable coincidence is not simply an accident. The
combination which in 1823 swept away the Spanish power and established a
monarchy was not a combination of the free and liberal ele