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Thy sufferings were necessary, that the people of the United States, powerful by their freedom and free by the principle of national independence, that common right of all humanity, should stand up, a new Moses upon the new Sinai, and shout out with the thundering voice of its twenty-five millions "Hear, ye despots of the world, henceforward this shall be law, in the name of the Lord your God and our God.
I know something of the legacy of prejudice which extended to bitter, vindictive recollection of these days of brainless despots. I was reared amid an eighteenth-century environment; both my grandfathers fought at the Battle of the Nile; both were taken by force from their vessels which were owned by themselves and their relatives.
For yonder, where slaves kneel, and despots hold The reins, where spurious greatness lifts its head, Art has no power the noble there to mould, 'Tis by no Louis that its seed is spread; From its own fulness it must needs unfold, By earthly majesty 'tis never fed; 'Tis with truth only it can e'er unite, Its glow free spirits only e'er can light.
It is enough to select one feature, strange in appearance but familiar in fact; for what can be more extraordinary than to see princes of ancient and illustrious lineage bowing to the service of despots, men of high descent and time-honored nobility frequenting their tables and accepting their bounties? Yet if we consider the end of all this, the glory of tyrants often turns to misery and ruin.
He had made revolutionary reform too solid and too widespread to admit of its total extinction by the allied despots of Europe. The dream which a Leopold and a Frederick William had cherished in 1791 of turning back the hands on the clock of human progress and of restoring conditions in France as they had been prior to 1789, was happily dispelled.
While every Moor below the Sultan ranks as equal, the fact remains that Government officials are all in their own sphere little despots, governing districts many days' journey from Court, with every chance of robbing and oppressing those under them, until the day of reckoning comes, when the Court, hearing how fat their fine bird has grown, summons him to the capital, and the process of plucking and imprisoning their wealthy servant follows.
Proclamation was made throughout the city by heralds that the despots were slain and Thebes was free, and all Thebans who valued liberty were bidden to muster in arms in the market-place. All the trumpeters in the city were bidden to blow with might and main, from street to street, and thus excite the people to take arms to secure their liberty.
But when we see this great principle of non-intervention violated when we see a free and united people crushed and trampled upon by foreign despots, because they have dared to proclaim and establish equal rights and privileges as the basis of their own institutions, must we look tamely on and see the life-blood of freedom crushed out by the iron heel of barbaric despotism, and hear the death-groans of the brave and free without daring to express our feelings or to extend the hand of sympathy and comfort to the suffering sons of liberty?
It runs thus; If your country remains an indifferent spectator of the violation of the laws of nations by foreign interference, then it has established a precedent it has consented that the principle of interference become interpolated into the book of international law, and you will see the time when the league of despots commanding the whole force of oppressed Europe will remind you thus: "Russia has interfered in Hungary, because it considered the example set up by Hungary dangerous to Russia.
Herodotus, the gossiping old historian tells some stories about these severe despots which seem worth telling again. The government of Corinth, like most of the governments of Greece, was in early days an oligarchy, that is, it was ruled by a number of powerful aristocrats instead of by a single king.
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