409
PAPERS OF l\1IRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR
the interest felt in the United States for your continued prospeTity is daily increasing and it is to me, no small matter both of pride and pleasure, to witness the course of policy, your Government has pursued, as to annexation to the United States. You may perhaps recollect, that in my letters last Spring, I intimated my beliefe of the correctness of such policy, anticipating the presnt evil state of affairs here, which have flown fr[om] the rash madness of fanatics both Religious an [ <l.] moneytary. I could have wished for the honor of the "Hero of St Jacinto", and his posthumous fame, which will be ever associated with the glory of your arms, that when requested by Congress, to make his communications in writing his conduct had been more in conformity with the dignity of a President, and the respect due the Representa- tives of a free and intelligent people the conduct on this occasion, has here excited no other feelings than contempt for the Ex-President You have no doubt, received the proceedings of the United States congress, at this momentous crisis of this Nations existence, and whilst a citizen of this Republic, having belonged to that small, but gallant band of Patriots Nullifiers (to which I am proud of having ever belonged) the bold and independent position of the • distinguished Senator from South Carolina, has doubtless raised him if possible in your estimation, not having lost your feelings of affection for your native land, on the genuine doctrines of the old Democracy, the late l\Iessage of President Van Buren, as. to the leading question of the day,-the seper.ation of the political and moneyed power, I hope meets your Approval-I hesitate not in advancing the opinion that .the late message, for comprehensiveness of views, elegant simplicity of style, a candid and lucid exposition of our foreign and domestic relations, it is equalled by few and surpassed by none of its predecessors. Of the bold and decisive views of the President on the all absorbing and leading question of the day, I can only say they need no encomium so rich in thought, so dignified in style, so replite with patriotic zeal, as to command for themselves, the admiration if not even the assent, of those misguided ones, who have heretofore beheld this great measure of "Deliverance", only through the distorted media of its miss-representators-they are worthy of being written with a diamond on the tablet of our memories, and instilled into the m1nd of our youth, as the good old doctrines of genuine Democracy. The President takes the truly Republican ground, that monopolies of all kind are at variance, with the spirit of our free institutions- ~iving a preference to one portion of Citizens over another that ~ s neft:i1 fair or equal, and alike injurious to both the Government and people; that the only safe course for both the Government and Banks, is, to remain as they are se_parated; each in the use of their own credit, and management of their own affairs; maintaining that the less the influence or control of the one over the other the better. Nor has the President in treating this great and important question; upon the decision of which depends the weal or woe of the whole country, evinced any unkind or hostile feelings toward the Banks, or waged an uncompromising warfar against a properly regulated
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