Fifty years in Wall Street
mankind at large have at stake in the Mexican question.
“The United States may find that they are brought squarely to
the issue in the Mexican question sooner than they expected,
should the report, lately reached here, of any understanding
between Maximilian, as so-called Emperor of Mexico, and the
insurgents in this country, prove correct. The archduke, it is
stated, will inaugurate his administration by acknowledging the
independence of the South, and, perhaps, he will go further; and
this, of course, by the advice, consent and support of the
French Government, whose satellite, and nothing else, will the
archduke be in Mexico.
“Among the many events calculated to terminate immediately
French intervention in Mexico, the European complications which
threaten to cause a general war on that continent should be
particularly mentioned. It is certainly wonderful that while
Europe is in so insecure and agitated a condition, menaced by
revolutions everywhere, and wrestling to recover its own
existence and independence, the French Emperor should be
thinking about arranging other people’s affairs, as if his own
did not require his immediate and most particular attention.”
Mr. George Bancroft, the eminent historian, was next called upon to
reply to the toast, “The Eminent Statesmen of Mexico,” among whom the
chair named Guatimotzin, Hidalgo, Morelos, Ocampo, Lerdo and Degollado.
Mr. Bancroft said:
MR. BANCROFT.
GENTLEMEN—Although I am not prepared to deliver an address
worthy of this auditory, I can not refrain from replying and
expressing my sentiments, as I have been called to reply to the
toast which our president has just proposed to the statesmen of
our neighboring sister republic. The struggle which for many
long years the Mexican people have sustained against their
interior tyrants has been an heroic struggle, worthy of a
civilized and cultivated people, and in which the sympathies of
the whole civilized world—of all the friends of political and
religious liberty—ought to have been manifested in a frank and
decided manner in behalf of the Mexican people, directed by the
liberal party. I believe, gentlemen, that the cause of civil
wars, not only in Mexico, but throughout all Spanish America,
has been the clergy alone, who, when they come to acquire power
in the State, always strive to overturn the government and to
subordinate the temporal interests of society to their own. This
attribute seems to belong principally to the Catholic clergy.
“The struggle, then, in which up to this time the patriotic
Mexicans have been engaged, was a holy struggle, and the
sympathy of the whole people of the United States was with
them—a people who, whatever may be their religious creeds,
adopts as a fundamental principle the most complete religious
liberty, and the absolute independence of the Church from the
State.
“But now the sympathy of the United States is increased for the
Mexican people, when, in addition to the facts already
mentioned, we find this people struggling for their independence
and nationality against a European nation, which, taking
advantage of the civil strife in which we were engaged, has
sought to establish before our eyes a form of Government in open
antagonism to our own. We can not do less than receive this
project in the same way as Europe would receive it, were we to
foment revolutions and establish republics on that continent.
“Then it is that those statesmen in the United States who aid us
to emerge from our present difficulties, and to restore our
power and legitimate influence, and those who in Mexico not only
consummate the great work of establishing religious liberty on a
solid basis, but who succeed in driving from their country the
foreign invader, or at least keep the sacred fire of patriotism
and of resistance to the invader burning, while we disembarrass
ourselves of our complications, deserve, in the highest degree,
our success and ardent homage.
“Gentlemen, the Egyptians used to place a burning lamp at the
feet of their royal corpses. On descending the steep vaults in
which the corpses were deposited, the lamp was naturally
extinguished.
“Let Europe place at Maximilian’s feet the weak lamp of
monarchial power. It will not burn in the atmosphere of our
continent.”
Mr. William Cullen Bryant was then called upon, and said, in part:
“We of the United States have constituted ourselves a sort of
police of the New World. Again and again have we warned off the
highwaymen and burglars of the Old World who stand at the head
of its governments, styling themselves conquerors. We have said
to them, that if they attempted to pursue their infamous
profession here they did it at their peril. But now, when the
police is engaged in a deadly conflict with a band of ruffians,
comes this Frenchman, knocks down an unoffending bystander,
takes his watch and purse, strips him of his clothing, and makes
off with the booty. This act of the French monarch is as base,
cowardly and unmanly as it is criminal and cruel. There is no
person, acquainted, even in the slightest degree, with the
political history of the times, who does not know that it would
never have been perpetrated had not the United States been
engaged in an expensive and bloody war within their own borders.
“We thought that we saw the dawn of an era of enlightened
government in the administration of Juarez. That dawn has been
overcast by the clouds of a tempest wafted hither from Europe.
May the darkness which has gathered over it be of short
continuance; may these clouds soon be dispelled by the sunshine
of liberty and peace, and Mexico, assured of her independence,
take the high place which belongs to her in the family of
nations.” (Continued applause.)
Senor Don Ignacio Mariscal responded to “Our Guest and the Bar of
Mexico.”
Mr. George Folsom, formerly envoy from the United States to the
Netherlands, responded on behalf of the diplomacy, making special
reference to Don Jose Lopez Uraga, Mexican Minister to Berlin.
Dr. Willard Parker responded to the health of Dr. Navarro, formerly
Chief of the Medical Staff of the Mexican Army.
Mr. George Opdyke responded on behalf of the merchants.
Senor De La Cuesta replied to the Commerce of Mexico.
Mr. Jonathan Sturges spoke for the fine arts of Mexico.
Mr. Washington Hunt spoke, protesting strongly against the French
invasion of Mexico.
Mr. Frederick De Peyster, President of the New York Historical Society,
responded on behalf of the historians of Mexico. He also made some
eloquent remarks on the tyranny of French intervention.
Mr. Henry E. Pierrepont spoke, as the representative of Brooklyn,
against the French policy in Mexico.
Mr. Smith Clift responded on behalf of the Bar.
Mr. Charles Astor Bristed replied on behalf of the Literary Men.
Mr. William E. Dodge, Jr., spoke on behalf of the Young Men of America.
“The tread of a French invasion,” he said, “is to them a direct insult,
and were our own sad war over, I believe there is not a town, or
village, or hamlet, where a full company would not spring to arms to aid
our sister republic in her glorious struggle. I give, as a sentiment in
which I know all will heartily join, the “Monroe Doctrine”-“Americans
can never allow the heel of European despotism to place its imprint upon
the soil of our Western continent.”
The Chair then said, “Let us now recognize the services of our
commissariat, who have so nobly discharged their stewardship. I propose
the health of the stewards. I beg Mr. John W. Hamersley to speak in
their behalf.” Three cheers were then given for the stewards.
Mr. Hamersley delivered an eloquent address, from which I take the
following excerpts:
“It is hardly fair, sir, to call on us while our hearts are
beating with fervid thoughts, and your ears ringing with burning
words. Had this toast been on the programme, one of my
coadjutors would have prepared an address worthy of the
compliment and the occasion. This Committee was not chosen for
their gifts of utterance, but for those humbler tastes, which
only lend a grace to eloquence. Our duties are æsthetic,
industrial and artistic. We have compassed the ends of the
earth, the depths of the sea; we have levied contributions on
the four winds of heaven, to cluster here all that can tempt the
appetite, or fascinate the ear and eye, and we fancied our
mission accomplished.
“However, there is the post-prandial law; the despotism of the
wine cup, to which we all owe allegiance—the only despotism
which the descendants of the Huguenots, or Pilgrim Fathers, will
ever tolerate on this continent. We are here, sir, in menace to
none, but firmly and respectfully, in the majesty of manhood,
and in consciousness of power, to reassert a principle, imbibed
with our mother’s milk, a household word, a dogma of American
faith; but while we cordially grasp our neighbor’s hand, in the
darkest hour of her trial, the grasp has due emphasis and
significance.
“With her, we have kindred traditions; each of us has hewn an
empire from the wilderness; each of us has expelled the
oppressor; and both of us, with tattered banners drenched in the
gore of hero martyrs, are now appealing from treachery to the
God of Battles.
“We have a common future; for who can doubt that our successes
and the death-knell of treason is already rung?—who can doubt
that the triumph of our arms will be the signal for the eagles
of Austerlitz “to change their base,” from the pyramids of
Puebla for their perch on the towers of Notre Dame? And permit
me here, sir, to express a hope, suggested by the _season_ (God
grant it may be a prophecy), that the Easter chimes of Mexico,
of the coming year, with the glad tidings of a Saviour risen,
shall peal from sierra to sierra, from ocean to ocean, with the
glad tidings of a nation risen, a nation born again. (Cheers.)
“Sir [to the Chair], it is fitting, while the accents of sweet
music recall tender and happy memories (man, imaged by that
armed cactus; woman, by that graceful palm), it is holy to
consecrate the hour to her who was “last at the cross and first
at the sepulchre.” I propose, sir, a toast, to which your
heart’s pulse will echo:
‘The daughters of Mexico—Fair as her sons are brave.’”
(Enthusiastic and prolonged applause. Music—_Viva Republica._)
THE CHAIR.
“We must not permit the modesty of our banker and steward, Mr.
Clews, to outweigh our desire to hear from the Bourse.”
MR. HENRY CLEWS.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN—Enough has already been said, in the
speeches made this evening, to indicate most conclusively the
depth of sympathy which pervades this community in behalf of the
cause of Mexico, and I rise to express my cordial concurrence
with the sentiments which have been avowed.
The unanimous and determined voices of this company clearly show
that public opinion in this country will not submit to the
encroachments of foreign powers upon any portion of the
territory of the continent.
The principles of free republican government are so strongly
implanted in the hearts of the people both of Mexico and the