Annexation of San Domingo.
The San Domingo expedition is now on its way. All parties agree that the President has dealt fairly and honorably with the annexation question in the appointment of the Commissioners, and in all the minor arrangements. There is little doubt of the ultimate result. Many are in favor of obtaining the island, who opposed the particular method adopted to annex Dominica. In all probability the voice of the country will be for taking the offered territory. The American soul lusts for territory, and will cry for more, until the North American continent and the islands are under our flag. If Dominica is obtained, it may be regarded as marking the beginning of a new policy and a new era. It will at once add largely to the Catholic influence, for if Dominica and Hayti are brought in separately, as proposed, four Senators of that Church will be long in their seats, the representatives of a foreign population, a foreign priesthood, and a different race from ours. In its most important aspect, this is a religious question of the gravest character. The new policy, as it is worked out, will also demand a rapid increase of the army and navy, and consequently of the power and patronage of the central government. What will the Protestant church do with the populations of the islands and Mexico? Will the dream of Louis Napoleon be realized, and will the prestige of the Latin Church and race be re-established on this continent? Can our increasing masses of such material be controlled by less than Imperial power? By this influx of foreign material, shall we become like the toes of the image seen by Daniel, part of clay, and part of iron, and therefore having neither strength nor cohesion? If the tide of our population and institutions could roll on by the force of natural growth, and overflow these regions, then through the whole might beat the strong pulses of a true American life, but the annexing them as they now are, and permitting them to share equally in the government of the Republic is altogether another affair. It will bring the country face to face with a new class of dangers which the Christian Church alone is capable of meeting.—Correspondence of the Interior.