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Updated: May 3, 2025
They had taken, and were taking, the risk of conducting the experiment in the face of a grant of self-government to the doomed community; and the first governor-general of union and constitutionalism was now to find that French racial unity, combined with self-government, was too strong even for his masterful will, although he had all the weight of Imperial authority behind him.
'But I mistake you and your friends greatly, said Kearney, 'if these were the tactics you always followed; I thought that you were the physical-force party, who sneered at constitutionalism and only believed in the pike.
In recognizing momentarily successful adventurers, Great Britain and the United States had never considered such details as justice or constitutionalism: the legality of the presidential title had never been the point at issue; the only question involved was whether the successful aspirant actually controlled the country, whether he had established a state of affairs that approximately represented order, and whether he could be depended upon to protect life and property.
With his ministry constituted as it was in July, he had to face the certainty of a vote of no confidence as soon as parliament met. Were he to do nothing, some unholy alliance of groups would defeat the government. In that case, his ministers, pledged as they were to constitutionalism by the resolutions of September, 1841, had warned him beforehand, that they would resign in a body.
In its early days and in its more moderate forms, it sought its ends under the guise of constitutionalism. As against the claims of the Stuart monarchy, there was a historic case as well as a philosophic argument, and the earlier leaders of the Parliament relied more on precedent than on principle.
Moreover, though he had, as the world came to know, soldiering in his blood though the call to war, when he counted the war righteous, stirred what was deepest in him by training and conviction he was essentially a constitutionalist: he realized profoundly how strong were the forces behind constitutionalism in Great Britain, how impregnable was the position of British Ministers if they boldly asserted the law with equality as between man and man.
Six years of stormy happenings had certainly bred in the nation a desire for constitutionalism and a detestation of military domination. But this desire and detestation required firm leadership. Without that leadership it was inchoate and powerless, and indeed made furtive by the constant fear of savage reprisals. A great opportunity had come and a great opportunity had been lost.
"This union," he said, "can be brought about only by respecting the nationalities, and by that bond of constitutionalism which can produce a kindred feeling. The bureau and the bayonet are miserable bonds." He then went on to apologize for not examining the difficulties between Hungary and Croatia. The solution of the difficulties of the empire would, he held, solve the Croatian question too.
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