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It was indeed a sorrowful sight to see how nations bled, and how freedom withered in the iron grasp of despotisms, leagued for universal oppression of humanity. It was a sorrowful sight to see that there was no power on earth ready to maintain those eternal laws, without which there is no security for any nation on earth.
The French Emperor had just received Savoy and Nice; he had been spending the blood and treasure of France in giving the first blow to the old despotisms of Italy; how could he now fly in the face of his own principle of the national will in order to save the worst of those despotisms?
Such an education would be real in its method as well as in its substance. We have fairly entered upon the era in which education must be, and, spite of any temporary recoil of timorous despotisms, must continue to be, popular and universal.
As the indictment was read against these men for "preaching the gospel contrary to law," a deep and solemn voice interrupted the proceedings. Patrick Henry had come on horseback many a mile over roughest roads to listen to the trial, and this phrase, which savoured of the religious despotisms of old, was quite too much for him. "May it please your worships," he exclaimed, "what did I hear read?
To the end of the Middle Ages the Knights of Suabia and the Rhineland maintained the predatory traditions of the Dark Ages; and everywhere feudalism remained a force inimical to national unity. But the great feudatories who survived into the age of Machiavelli and of the new despotisms had usually some claims upon the respect of their subjects.
Boutwell said, "To-day there are eight millions and more of people, occupying six hundred and thirty thousand square miles of territory in this country, who are writhing under cruelties nameless in their character, and injustice such as has not been permitted to exist in any other country of modern times; and all this because in this capital there sits enthroned a man who, so far as the Executive Department of the Government is concerned, guides the destinies of the Republic in the interest of the rebels; and because, also, in those ten former States, rebellion itself, inspired by the Executive Department of this Government, wields all authority, and is the embodiment of law and power everywhere. . . . It is the vainest delusion, the wildest of hopes, the most dangerous of all aspirations, to contemplate the reconstruction of civil government until the rebel despotisms enthroned in power in these ten States shall be broken up."
One word of concession would have saved the Nation at this juncture; but that one word would not be written, had the consequence of refusal been the loss of every subscriber it had in the world. It maintained its high position in face of the two despotisms which had combined to crush it.
A constitutional government had been promised to various Italian States by the first Napoleon in 1796. when he invited the Italians to rally to his standard and overthrow the Bourbon and Austrian despotisms; but his promises had not been kept. "Never," said that great liar to Prince Metternich, "will I give the Italians a liberal system: I have granted to them only the semblance of it."
It seems that so far from having left Louis Napoleon far behind in the grey dust of the dead despotisms, it is not at all improbable that our most extreme revolutionary developments may end where Louis Napoleon began. In other words, the Victorian Englishman did not understand the words "Emperor of the French."
Get them, then go on for the Man Higher Up! Leave me, when A drop back in the dark to-night; if A'm in my senses, A'll shout a bravo and give y' a wave! Y'r the Man on the Job, the Nation's job! 'Tis not by bludgeons and bayonets, 'tis by ballots and brains y'll fight this battle out; and fight y' must or y'r freedom will go the way o' the old world despotisms down in a welter.
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