THE rapidity with which public opinion matures in this country, is one of the most extraordinary results of our peculiar political system. With our infinite newspaper circulation, and with party-organizations singularly complete and penetrating the uttermost recesses of the nation, a new doctrine can be suggested, discussed and determined on with as much, nay, more promptness than an ordinary suit at law can be begun and concluded. We are impressed especially with this peculiarity, in observing the present state of the public mind upon the subject of our relations with Mexico and Texas. A short year ago the whole nation was occupied by the simple prospect of annexing Texas, and the consequence of such an alliance upon our national welfare. More recently—that subject having been fully exhausted and disposed of—the chances, the dangers and the advantages of a war with Mexico, became the questions paramount. Even these have subsequently passed away. The impotence of the Mexican Government has been already discovered to be only less than its folly, and all apprehension from that quarter is giving place to speculations upon the probable consequences of annexing Mexico or some portion of her territory to our Republic. That that country is destined to become an integral portion of these United States at some future period, is a pretty universal conviction. Whether such an event is at hand, and the probable consequences of it, are now the chief points left in debate of all that have been provoked in one form or another and at divers times by the Texas Revolution of 1836. Certain it is, that the question whether we would accept Mexico into our Union, if it could be done consistently with our national honor and international duties, is no longer premature.
It is thought by some that it will be impossible permanently to compose our difficulties with her government without a war; that no permanent peace can be established while she has the power to vex this country, which she charges with having robbed her of her possessions, and that we shall be compelled to subjugate and extend over her our government, in self-defence. It is thought by others that the internal dissensions of the Mexican States will continue to become more violent when the weakness of their present administration becomes known, and that the departments conterminous with Texas will be tempted to follow her example, declare their independence, receive aid from Texas as she did formerly from the United States, and finally, like her, ask to join our confederacy.
With regard to the first point, we entertain little apprehension from any cause of quarrel at present subsisting, though we are free to admit that the state of feeling between our Western people and the Mexicans does not promise a very long continuance of peaceful relations between their respective governments unless the most rigid police be established along our western border. If through any fatuous impulse Mexico should elevate existing difficulties above the dignity of a mere border warfare, and should provoke our government to make a retaliatory invasion, it is impossible to foresee any limit to the contest short of an absolute subjugation of Mexico or of such a prostration of her national independence as to lead at no remote period to a revolution like, both in processes and consequences, to that which threw Texas into our arms. The feelings of the outraged Texans and of our Western citizens, who sympathise most warmly with them, are such that we arc assured no half-way measures will content them if occasion be given our armies once to pass the Rio Grande. The moment that event shall transpire, the young men at least, of this generation might expect to see the termination of Mexico’s independent national existence, and the Congress of the United States of America proclaiming its laws to the Pacific.