To the manufacturer and the merchant she is as
attractive as she is to the agriculturist; and her mineral wealth is
apparently inexhaustible, and has passed into a proverb. During the
thirteen generations since the Spanish Conquest, the value of the gold
and silver exported is estimated at $4,640,204,889; and this is
considered a very low estimate by those best qualified to judge of its
correctness. Mr. Butterfield expresses the opinion that the annual
export is now near $40,000,000, much of which is smuggled out of the
country. The land is also rich in the common metals, the production of
which, as well as of gold and silver, would be incalculably increased,
should Mexico pass under the dominion of an energetic race, greedy of
other men's wealth, if not profuse of its own.
We have said enough to show the capabilities of Mexico as a
slaveholding country; and of the desire of American slaveholders to
push their industrial system into countries adapted to it, there are,
unfortunately, but too many proofs. They are prompted by the love of
power and the love of wealth to obtain possession of Mexico, and the
energy that is ever displayed by them when pursuing a favorite object
will not allow us to doubt what the end of the contest upon which the
United States are about to enter must be.
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