Those conditions touch us very nearly.  Not merely because they lie at our very doors.  That of course makes us more vividly and more constantly conscious of them, and every instinct of neighborly interest and sympathy is aroused and quickened by them; but that is only one element in the determination of our duty.  We are glad to call ourselves the friends of Mexico, and we shall, I hope, have many an occasion, in happier times as well as in these days of trouble and confusion, to show that our friendship is genuine and disinterested, capable of sacrifice and every generous manifestation.  The peace, prosperity, and contentment of Mexico mean more, much more, to us than merely an enlarged field for our commerce and enterprise.  They mean an enlargement of the field of self-government and the realization of the hopes and rights of a nation with whose best aspirations, so long suppressed and disappointed, we deeply sympathize.  We shall yet prove to the Mexican people that we know how to serve them without first thinking how we shall serve ourselves.

But we are not the only friends of Mexico.  The whole world desires her peace and progress; and the whole world is interested as never before.  Mexico lies at last where all the world looks on.  Central America is about to be touched by the great routes of the world’s trade and intercourse running free from ocean to ocean at the Isthmus.  The future has much in store for Mexico, as for all the States of Central America; but the best gifts can come to her only if she be ready and free to receive them and to enjoy them honorably.  America in particular—­America north and south and upon both continents—­waits upon the development of Mexico; and that development can be sound and lasting only if it be the product of a genuine freedom, a just and ordered government founded upon law.  Only so can it be peaceful or fruitful of the benefits of peace.  Mexico has a great and enviable future before her, if only she choose and attain the paths of honest constitutional government.

The present circumstances of the Republic, I deeply regret to say, do not seem to promise even the foundations of such a peace.  We have waited many months, months full of peril and anxiety, for the conditions there to improve, and they have not improved.  They have grown worse, rather.  The territory in some sort controlled by the provisional authorities at Mexico City has grown smaller, not larger.  The prospect of the pacification of the country, even by arms, has seemed to grow more and more remote; and its pacification by the authorities at the capital is evidently impossible by any other means than force.  Difficulties more and more entangle those who claim to constitute the legitimate government of the Republic.  They have not made good their claim in fact.  Their successes in the field have proved only temporary.  War and disorder, devastation and confusion, seem to threaten to become the settled fortune of the distracted country.  As friends we could wait no longer for a solution which every week seemed further away.  It was our duty at least to volunteer our good offices—­to offer to assist, if we might, in effecting some arrangement which would bring relief and peace and set up a universally acknowledged political authority there.