491
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoXAPARTE LAM.AR
but in the language of affection; and would gladly make it apparent to your minds, that the course which we advise you to pursue although attended with mutual benefits, is designed for your good and cannot fail to conduct you to an individual and a national happiness which you never have enjoyed, and can never hope to do, so long as you con- tinue your connection with a power which cherishes no respect for your rights, and holds no interest in common with you. And shurely when freedom and despotism are fairly laid before a brave and intelligent people, the cannot long hesitate which to choose. And this we appre- hend is your present situation. You are called upon fellow citizens, to make your election between two governments, the very antithesis of each other; the one being based upon the affections of the people, and admin- istered with a single eye to their good. while the other, as you know from experience, is founded in corruption, sustained by fraud and force, and is wielded for the cupidity of those in authority, without the slightest reference whatever to the interests of the Governed. Which of the two will you select? Will ·you shelder yourselves under the broad banner of the Single Star, which sheds luster whereever it floats, and lights the brave to victory and glory; or will you prefer still to cling to the unsightly Cactus which gives you no sustenance but thorns you as you embrace it. If you choose the latter, then is your deplorable condition too justly represented in your National emblem; for what can we esteem you but the unfortunate reptile that writhes in the beak of your voracious bird? We cannot believe that you will be influenced in your deliberations by any lingering attachment to the l\fexican Authorities. What claim can the Government of l\fexico poi:;sibly have upon your affections? She has certainly never sought to elicit your confidence and gratitude by foster ing your interests, protecting your persorn:, or opening to you any of the sourses of useful lmowledge; but on the contrary, has she not despoild you of your property, exposed you unarmed to the savages, stripped you of almost every vestige of civil and political liberty; shut you out from the career of honorable ambition, and erected every possible impediment to your advancement in character intelligence and power? Indeed it seems to have been her particular policy to destroy your manly energies and degrade you in your own estimation; to keep you -blind, that you might not assert your rights, and weak that you might not resist your wrongs: and to allow :vou only latitude enough to accumulate wrath by your industry, that she might wrest it from you to gratify her insatiate rapacity. Such has been and is still her conduct towards you; and such it ever will be so long as you give ~·our allegiance to her or permit her to exercise anv dominion over you. She has weighed like an incubus upon your faculties and your brightest hopes and most pleasing pros- pects have all periRhed beneath her baleful influence, as the spring flow- ers wither .in the shades of the Upas. You never have received. and need not expect from her, any of the tenderness of maternal regard, for she is an unnatural parent, a monstrous mother,-who turns with a phrenzied appetite to prey upon her offspring! She is even more cruel than the blood sucking vampier l for it is said of that animal, that it fans its victims with its wings, while it drains its arteries; but the Government of Mexico still more obdurate offers no soothings to her prey, but seems as much delighted with the torture she inflicts as the
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