Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: I shall send you by this post a copy of La France of the 19th instant, containing an extraordinary article in defence of the French occupation of Mexico, from the pen of Lamartine. I should not trouble you to read this or anything else that Lamartine has written about the United States since his unsuccessful appeal to American charity some ten years since, but for its appearance in the columns of a quasi official journal, and for the comments which introduced it to the public. La France is edited by M. de la Guerronière, a senator, who is supposed to enjoy in a special degree the confidence of his sovereign, and to be a perfectly legitimate aspirant to the portfolio of foreign affairs whenever it becomes vacant. The language of commendation, therefore, bestowed by La France upon “the masterly style,” “lofty inspiration,” and “strong thoughts” of Mr. Lamartine’s rhodomontade gives it a certain importance which the effusions of his brain alone have long ceased to possess. The thesis which Mr. Lamartine attempts to elaborate, and which Senator La Guerronière deems worthy of a conspicuous place in the columns of La France, is the following:
“The Globe is the property of man. The new continent, America, is the property of Europe.”
In elaborating this doctrine in justification of “the generous and eminently civilizing purpose which has directed the imperial policy” of his sovereign in Mexico, Mr. Lamartine finds occasion to void all his ignorance and venom—and it is difficult to say in this case which most abounds—upon the people and government of the United States. Here is a specimen of both:
“We can easily understand that this people possess as yet hardly any elements of an American literature. The Mexicans before the conquest, the so-called savages of Montezuma, the Peruvians with their quippos, (pœms,) were in this respect greatly in advance of them. The gigantic monuments left by the Aztecs give evidences of intellect and power far superior to those evinced [Page 424] in the purely utilitarian structures of the Americans of the north. Pioneers do not build for posterity; woodmen only know how to cut down those grand aristocratic trees of the forest to convert them into lumber, taking pleasure in falling them, as envy does in overcoming natural superiority. Their eloquence extends no further than the debates of their public meetings, where they bring the violence of their rude manners, and where brutal gestures and clenched fists take the place of that moral suasion which the great orators of ancient or modern Europe exert by means of argument and logic over distinguished men assembled for the purpose of seeking together for truth and right in all things.
“Their journals, innumerable because cheap, are but collections of the advertisements of quacks recommended by the Barnums of the press, compilations of slanders and invectives daily thrown to the different parties to furnish them with odious names or trivial accusations wherewith to discredit each other and gain subscribers. Their drawing-rooms are held at hotels; their gatherings of men, unsoftened by kindly feelings or female politeness, are but clubs in which eager traders avail themselves even of their time of rest to increase their fortune at the close of the day, proud of knowing nothing except that which pays, and conversing only on real or imaginary speculations in which to increase their capital a hundred-fold. Their liberty, which is entirely personal, has always in it something hostile to some one else. The absence of kindly feelings gives them in general the tone and attitude of a person afraid of insult or seeking to prevent insult by dint of an overbearing attitude. They are themselves aware of the habitual disagreeableness of their manners.
“One of the few political orators they possess, the most eloquent and the most honest, whom national jealousy has always prevented, on account of his superiority, from rising to the presidency, said to me one day: ‘Our liberty consists in doing everything that can be most disagreeable to our neighbor.’ The art of being disagreeable is their second nature. To please is a symptom of loving. They love no one; no one loves them. It is the expiation of selfishness. History furnishes no type of a nation like unto this people. Pride, coldness, correctness of features, stiffness of gestures, chewing of tobacco in the mouth, a spittoon at their feet, the legs streched on the mantel-piece or crossed, without regard for the decorum which man ought to observe towards man, a short, monotonous, imperious tone, a disdainful personality stamped upon every feature—such are these autocrats of gold.
“With a few shining exceptions, who suffer everywhere from the general pressure in an inferior atmosphere—exceptions which are all the more honorable as they are the more numerous individually, such is the American of the north, such is the air of his country, the pride of what he lacks. Such is this people to whom Mr. Monroe, one of its flatterers, said, in order to gain its applause: ‘The time has come when you must not permit Europe to interfere in the affairs of America, but when you must henceforth assert your preponderance in the affairs of Europe.’”
While, as I have already intimated, the feebleness of Mr. Lamartine’s character has long since made his talents as a writer a calamity to himself, and a source of mortification to his friends, it may be profitable for those who direct the government of the United States to know what sort of opinions about us are still most cheerfully propagated by journals deriving their inspiration from official sources.
In connexion with Mr. Lamartine’s view of the Mexican expedition so cordially approved by Senator La Guerronière, I invite your attention to an extract from an article which appeared in the same journal only the day previous, the 18th instant, entitled “Les remaniements territoriaux.” Its purpose was to show that if Prussia should persist in her design of annexing the duchies, France must look to her own safety, and seek a compensation by extending her frontier, it is to be presumed, on the Rhine:
[Page 425]“The Emperor’s government, faithful to that spirit of moderation which France has shown, has no conflict to engage in, pretensions to support, or compromising questions to raise. But, if other great powers thought fit to give way to the impulses of an ambitious and turbulent policy, to rush into adventures, and to overthrow for their own profit the conditions of European order and equilibrium, France could not remain inert in the midst of that agitation more or less directed against her; she could not see aggressive forces increasing around her without thinking of fortifying her defensive positions; she would not feel bound to remain platonically quiet within her frontiers while other states had overleaped the bounds fixed by treaties; she would regulate her conduct by the necessities of a situation which she has neither desired nor sought, but which had been created without her, in spite of her, and against her. She would do what the most simple common sense commands in such a case; she would in her turn take her precautions, and would think of her own safety by re-establishing an equilibrium which would restore to her the guarantees destroyed by the changes effected.”
Should the time ever come when we need the counsel of older states to guide us in determining how to indemnify ourselves against the encroachments of European powers upon the territory of our neighbors, this paragraph may have a certain value.
I am, sir, with great respect, your very obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c.