As news from the Mexican War came in, Europeans wondered what the dominance of the United States portended. A French writer in a Belgian magazine argues that, left to themselves, the nations around the Union are likely to disappear, with serious damage to European interests. It will be necessary for Europe to throw its power into the balance to keep the relentlessly acquisitive “Anglo-Saxon race” in the United States in check.
Today we cannot follow the incessant progress of North America without anxiety. If the Union’s neighbor nations must disappear, will not our interests receive, by that very fact, a grave and regrettable injury? For more than a year, the figure of our exports to Mexico has already been diminished by three-quarters, and the moment when a line of transatlantic steamers has just been organized is not the time when it is proper for France to show herself indifferent to the future destinies of the new world. We know the invading spirit that characterizes the American race. The influence of an enervating climate has respected that privileged race, while it struck all around up to the Canadians and stripped from them, with the energy and vivacity of the Norman spirit, all trace of their origin. At this very moment, the military upsets of the United States’ campaign in Mexico show how little the Spanish race, left to itself, is capable of opposing a serious resistance to the Anglo-Saxon race. It is to correct this fault in the equilibrium of the races of the new world that the solicitude of Europe, we believe, could be usefully applied. To encourage the young nations of America, to aid them in their efforts to grow stronger and elevate themselves to an independent existence—this is a role that the powers of the old continent have already been able to fill brilliantly, and which it behooves them to take up again today. The more the audacious activity of the United States merits our admiration, the more it likewise demands of us care and preparation. Less than ever, in the presence of the Mexican war, is it permitted to Europe to forget that in the new world, between a State whose bounds increase every day and unfortunate societies left to a growing anarchy without end, she has interests to protect, principles to defend, and a precious influence to maintain.