HER PROPER POLICY. 353 
1st. To establish a constitutional Confederacy. 
2nd. To assure the people of the permanency of that institution, and of 
pacific self-government. 
3rd. To encourage emigration, holding out inducements to foreigners, 
either alluring them to acquire freehold property, or such title to real 
estate, as will confer upon them the unquestionable and undisturbed right 
to the soil for a considerable length of time. 
4th. To alter the tariff, so as to free trade from many of the ridiculous 
restrictions that impair it, and allow native industry to take its direction 
from wholesome competition, rather than dangerous legislation. 
5th. To establish a universal system of public education. 
6th. To make the Press entirely free. 
7th. To distribute the church lands among the people, or to put them 
up at such minimum prices, as will enable all classes to become free- 
holders. 
8th. Gradually to diminish the army, and colonize it. 
9th. To destroy the corruption of Government patronage, and purify the 
Customs. 
10th. To restore the mining interests, and reform the mint. 
11th. To purify the Judiciary, and cause law to be fairly administered 
between man and man. 
12th. To destroy the contraband trade entirely : and 
13th. To permit religious liberty. 
Of all these improvements, I regard the encouragement of emigration 
as the most essential, after the establishment and assurance of peace 
and religious liberty. Men will not toil to get rich, merely by virtue of 
acts of Congress. It requires the stimulus of example, and the infusion 
of a new and energetic blood into the system. 
Nor is it to be feared, that the country will be absorbed at once by for- 
eigners and foreign influence. The old staid Spanish prejudice, in favor 
of its own kindred, must be overcome. French, Irish, Dutch, Germans^ 
Spaniards, Italians, Russians, Hebrews, Greeks, Norwegians, Swedes, — 
all find representatives in our population, harmoniously acting together 
for their personal advantages and the prosperity of the common weal. 
Many years will be required to produce adequate confidence in Euro- 
peans and North Americans, to induce them to emigrate to Mexico for the 
purpose of settlement. They have had too hard a lesson in the past, to 
allow them to plunge into Mexican trade and territory again, notwith- 
standing the temptation of the country. Emigration will be by gradual 
and kindly progress, and I question much whether the feelings or the Ian- 
guage of the nation will be changed. It will be a melioration of lot, 
without an alteration of nature ; and thus, without any violent disturbance 
of the tastes, sympathies, or prejudices of the old, a new race will grow 
up with the renewed country, regenerated by the graft of foreign stamina 
and talent. 
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