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The most Bitter Foe of Nations, and the Way to its
Permanent Overthrow.


AN

ADDRESS,

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY,

AT

YALE COLLEGE, JULY 25, 1866,

BY

ANDREW D. WHITE.


NEW HAVEN:
THOMAS H. PEASE, 323 CHAPEL STREET.
T. J. STAFFORD, PRINTER.

1866.




        NEW HAVEN, _July 26, 1866_.

DEAR SIR,

The undersigned have been appointed by the PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY a
Committee to render you the cordial thanks of the Society for your
admirable Address, delivered last evening, and to request a copy for
the Press.

        Respectfully and truly yours,

            A. C. TWINING,

            G. P. FISHER.

Professor WHITE.


        STATE OF NEW YORK,

            _Senate Chamber_,

                _Albany, Aug. 30th, 1866_.

GENTLEMEN,

Accept my thanks for the very kind expressions regarding the Address
which, in accordance with the request conveyed by you, I forward
herewith.

        With great respect,

            Very truly yours,

                A. D. WHITE.

Professors A. C. TWINING and
           G. P. FISHER.




ADDRESS.


In this sacred struggle and battle of so many hundred years,--this
weary struggle of truths to be recognized,--this desperate battle
of rights to be allowed;--in this long, broad current toward more
truth and more right, in which are seen the hands of so many good and
bad and indifferent men,--and in the midst of all, and surrounding
all, the hand of very God,--what political institution has been most
vigorous against this current,--what political system has been most
noxious to political truth and right?--in short, what foe, in every
land, have right and liberty found it hardest to fight or outwit?

Is it Ecclesiasticism?--is it Despotism?--is it Aristocracy?--is it
Democracy?

The time allotted me this evening I shall devote to maintaining the
following Thesis:

     OF ALL SYSTEMS AND INSTITUTIONS, THE MOST VIGOROUS IN
     BATTLING LIBERTY,--THE MOST NOXIOUS IN ADULTERATING
     RIGHT,--THE MOST CORROSIVE IN EATING OUT NATIONALITY, HAS
     BEEN AN ARISTOCRACY BASED UPON HABITS OR TRADITIONS OF
     OPPRESSION.

I shall also attempt to deduce from the proofs of this a corollary,
showing _the only way in which such an Aristocracy ever has been or
ever can be fought successfully and put down permanently_.

Let me first give this Thesis precision.

I do not say that Aristocracy, based upon habits and traditions
of oppression, is the foe which takes deepest hold;--Despotism
and Ecclesiasticism are dragons which get their claws far deeper
into the body politic;--for Despotism clutches more temporal, and
Ecclesiasticism more eternal interests.

Nor do I say that Aristocracy is the enemy most difficult to find and
come at. Demoralization in Democracy is harder to find and come at;
for demoralization in Democracy is a disease, and lurks,--Aristocracy
is a foe, and stands forth--bold; Demoralization is latent, and
political doctors disagree about it,--Aristocracy is patent, and men
of average sense soon agree about it.

But the statement is that Aristocracy, based upon oppression, is, of
all foes to liberty the most vigorous, of all foes to rights the most
noxious, and of all foes to nationality the most corrosive.

Other battles may be longer;--but the battle with Aristocracy is the
sharpest which a nation can be called upon to wage,--and as a nation
uses its strength during the contest--and _as it uses its wits after
the contest_--so shall you find its whole national life a success or a
failure.

For my proofs I shall not start with _a priori_ reasoning:--that
shall come in as it is needed in the examination of historical
facts. You shall have the simple, accurate presentation of facts
from history--and plain reasoning upon these facts--and from Ancient
History, rich as it is in proofs, I will draw nothing!--all shall be
drawn from the history of modern States--the history of men living
under the influence of great religious and political ideas which are
active to-day--and among ourselves.

Foremost among the examples of the normal working of an Aristocracy
based upon the subjection of a class, I name SPAIN. I name her
first--not as the most striking example, but as one of those in which
the evil grew most naturally, and went through its various noxious
phases most regularly.

The fabric of Spanish nationality had much strength and much beauty.
The mixture of the Barbarian element with the Roman, after the Roman
downfall, was probably happier there than in any other part of Europe.
The Visigoths gave Spain the best of all the barbaric codes. Guizot
has shown how,[1] as by inspiration, some of the most advanced ideas
of modern enlightened codes were incorporated into it.

The succeeding history of the Spanish nation was also, in its main
sweep, fortunate. There were ages of endurance which toughened the
growing nation,--battles for right which ennobled it;--disasters which
compacted manliness and squeezed out effeminacy.

This character took shape in goodly institutions. The city growth
helped the growth of liberty, not less in Spain than in her sister
nations. Cities and towns became not merely centres of prosperity, but
guardians of freedom.[2]

Then came, perhaps, the finest growth of free institutions in Mediæval
Europe.

The Cortes of Castile was a representative body nearly a hundred years
before Simon de Montfort laid the foundations of English parliamentary
representation at Leicester.[3] The Commons of Arragon had gained yet
greater privileges earlier.

Statesmen sat in these--statesmen who devised curbs for monarchs,
and forced monarchs to wear them. The dispensing power was claimed
at an early day by Spanish Kings as by Kings of England;--but Hallam
acknowledges[4] that the Spaniards made a better fight against this
despotic claim than did the English. The Spanish established the
Constitutional principle that the King cannot dispense with statutes
centuries before the English established it by the final overthrow of
the Stuarts.

Many sturdy maxims, generally accounted fruit of that early English
boldness for liberty, are of that earlier Spanish period. "No taxation
without representation" was a principle asserted in Castile early,
often and to good purpose. In Arragon no war could be declared,--no
peace made,--no money coined without consent of the Cortes.[5]

The "Great Privilege of Saragossa" gave quite as many, and quite as
important liberties to Arragon as were wrested from King John for
England in the same century.

Such is a meagre sketch of the development of society at large. As
regards the other development which goes to produce civilization--the
development of individual character, the Spanish peninsula was not
less distinguished. In its line of monarchs were Ferdinand III.,
Alfonso X., James II., and Isabella;--in its line of statesmen were
Ximenes and Cisneros--worthy predecessors of that most daring of all
modern statesmen, Alberoni. The nation rejoiced too in a noble line of
poets and men of letters.[6]

Still more important than these brilliant exceptions was the tone of
the people at large. They were tough and manly.[7]

No doubt there were grave national faults. Pride--national and
individual--constantly endangered quiet. Blind submission to
Ecclesiastical authority was also a fearful source of evil! Yet,
despite these, it is impossible not to be convinced, on a careful
reading of Spanish history, that the influence which tore apart
States,--which undermined good institutions,--which defeated
justice,--which disheartened effort,--which prevented resistance to
encroachments of Ecclesiasticism and Despotism--nay, which made such
encroachments a _necessity_--came from the _nobility_.

The Spanish nobility had risen and become strong in those long
wars against the intruding Moors,--they had gained additional
strength in the wars between provinces. They soon manifested
necessary characteristics. They kept Castile in confusion by
their dissensions,--they kept Arragon in confusion by their
anti-governmental unions.

Accustomed to lord it over inferiors, they could brook no
opposition,--hence all their influence was Anarchic; accustomed to no
profitable labor of any sort, their influence was for laziness and
wastefulness;--accustomed to look on public matters as their monopoly,
they devoted themselves to conjuring up phantoms of injuries and
insults, and plotting to avenge them.

Every Aristocracy passes through one, and most Aristocracies through
both of two historic phases.

The first may be called the _Vitriolic_,--the period of intense,
biting, corrosive activity,--the period in which it gnaws fiercely
into all institutions with which it comes into contact,--the period in
which it decomposes all elements of nationality.

In Spain this first period was early developed and long continued.
Grandees and nobles bit and cut their way into the Legislative
system,--by brute force, too, they crushed their way through the
Judicial system,--by judicious mixtures of cheating and bullying they
often controlled the Executive system.

Chapter after chapter of Mariana's history begins with the story of
their turbulence, and ends with the story of its sad results;--how
the nobles seized King James of Arragon;--how the Lara family usurped
the Government of Castile;--how the houses of Lara, Haro, Castro and
their peers are constantly concocting some plot, or doing some act to
overthrow all governmental stability.

But their warfare was not merely upon Government and upon each
other;--it was upon the people at large. Out from their midst comes a
constant voice of indignant petitions. These are not merely petitions
from serfs. No! history written in stately style has given small place
to their cries;--but the great flood of petitions and remonstrances
comes from the substantial middle class, who saw this domineering
upper class trampling out every germ of commercial and manufacturing
prosperity.

Such was the current of Spanish history. I now single out certain
aristocratic characteristics bedded in it which made its flow so
turbulent.

Foremost of these was that first and most fatal characteristic of all
aristocracies based on oppression--_the erection of a substitute for
patriotism_.

Devotion to caste, in such circumstances, always eats out love of
country. A nobility often fight for their country--often die for
it;--but in any supreme national emergency,--at any moment of moments
in national history the rule is that you are sure to find them
asking--not "What is my duty to my country?" but "_What is my duty to
my order?_"

Every crisis in Spanish history shows this characteristic,--take one
example to show the strength of it.

Charles the Fifth was the most terrible of all monarchic foes to the
old Spanish institutions. The nobles disliked him for this. They also
disliked him still more as a foreigner. Most of all they disliked him
because the tools he used in overturning Spain were foreigners.

Against this detested policy the cities of the kingdom planned a
policy thoughtful and effectual. Cardinal Cisneros favored it,--the
only thing needed was the conjunction of the nobles. They seemed
favorable--but at the supreme moment they wavered. The interest of the
country was clear;--but _how as to the interests of their order_? They
began by fearing encroachments of the people;--they ended by becoming
traitors, allowed the battle of Villalar to be lost--and with it the
last chance of curbing their most terrible enemy.[8]

Another characteristic was _the development of a substitute for
political morality_.

These nobles were brave. The chronicles gave them plentiful supply of
chivalric maxims, and they carried these out into chivalric practices.
Their quickness in throwing about them the robes of chivalry was only
excelled by their quickness in throwing off the garb of ordinary
political morality. They could die for an idea, yet we constantly see
among them acts of bad faith--petty and large--only befitting savages.

John Alonzo de la Cerda, by the will of the late King, had been
deprived of a certain office; he therefore betrays the stronghold
of Myorga to the new King's enemies.[9] Don Alonzo de Lara had
caused great distress by his turbulence. Queen Berengaria writes an
account of it to the King. Don Alonzo does not scruple to waylay the
messenger, murder him, and substitute for the true message a forgery,
containing an order in the Queen's hand for the King's murder.[10]
Of such warp and woof is the history of the Spanish aristocracy--the
history of nobles whose boast was their chivalry.

How is this to be accounted for? Mainly by the fact, I think, that the
pride engendered by lording it over a subject class lifts men above
ordinary morality. If commonplace truth and vulgar good faith fetter
that morbid will-power which serf-owning gives, truth and good faith
must be rent asunder.

The next characteristic was _the erection of a theory of easy treason
and perpetual anarchy_.

Prescott calls this whimsical; he might more justly have called it
frightful.

For this theory, which they asserted, maintained, and finally brought
into the national notion and custom was, that in case they were
aggrieved--_themselves being judges_--they could renounce their
allegiance, join the bitterest foes of king and nation,--plot and
fight against their country,--deluge the land in blood,--deplete the
treasury; and yet that the King should take care of the families they
left behind, and in other ways make treason pastime.

Spanish history is black with the consequences of this theory. Mariana
drops a casual expression in his history which shows the natural
result, when he says: "The Castro family were _much in the habit_ of
revolting and going over to the Moors."[11]

The absurdity of this theory was only equaled by its iniquity.

For it involved three ideas absolutely fatal to any State--_the right
of peaceable secession--the right of judging in their own cause, and
the right of committing treason with impunity_. Now, any nation which
does not, when stung by such a theory, throttle it, and stamp the life
out of it, is doomed.

Spain did not grapple with it. She tampered with it, truckled to it,
compromised with it.

This nursed another characteristic in her nobility, which is sure to
be developed always under like circumstances. This characteristic was
_an aristocratic inability to appreciate concessions_.

The ordinary sort of poor statesmanship which afflicts this world
generally meets the assumptions and treasons of a man-mastering caste
by concessions. The commercial and manufacturing classes love peace
and applaud concessions. But concessions only make matters worse.
Concessions to a caste, based upon traditions of oppression, are
but fuel to fire. The more privileges are given, the higher blazes
its pride, and pride is one of the greatest causes of its noxious
activity. Concessions to such a caste are sure to be received as
tributes to its superiority. Such concessions are regarded by it not
as favors but as rights, and no man ever owed gratitude for a right.

There remained then but one way of dealing with it,--that was by
overwhelming force; and at the end of the Fifteenth Century that force
appeared. The encroachments upon regular central government produced
the same results in Spain as in the rest of Europe at about the same
time.

To one not acquainted with previous history, but looking thoughtfully
at the fifteenth century, it must seem strange that just at that
time--as by a simultaneous and spontaneous movement--almost every
nation in Europe consolidated power in the hands of a monarch.
In France, in England, in Italy, as well as in Spain, you see
institutions, liberties, franchises, boundaries sacrificed freely
to establish despotism. You see Henry VII. in England, Louis XI.
in France, Charles V., a little later, in Germany and Italy,
Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain--almost all utterly unlovely and
unloved--allowed to build up despotisms in all cases severe, and
in most cases cruel. Why? Because the serf-owning caste had become
utterly unbearable; because one tyrant is better than a thousand.

Then the Spanish nobility went into the next phase. Ferdinand, Charles
the Fifth, Philip the Second--three of the harshest tyrants known
to history,--having crushed out the boldness and enterprise of the
aristocracy it passed from what I have called the _Vitriolic_ into
what might be called the _Narcotic period_.

A period this was in which the noble became an agent in stimulating
all evil tendencies in the monarch, and in stupefying all good
tendencies in the people.

The caste spirit was a drug infused into the body politic, rendering
inert all its powers for good. Did Charles the Fifth insult and depose
Ximenes,--the nation sleepily permitted it; did Philip the Second lay
bigot plans which brought the kingdom to ruin,--the nation lazily
fawned upon him for it;[12] did Philip III. and his successors allow
the nation to sink into contempt,--there was no voice to raise it.

Do you say that this resulted from Ecclesiasticism? I answer that
the main reason why Ecclesiasticism became so strong was because it
sheltered the lower class from the exactions of the Aristocracy. Do
you say that it resulted from Despotism? I answer that Despotism
became absolute in order to save the nation from the turbulence of the
Aristocracy.[13]

No single Despotism, either in Church or State, could by itself
have broken that well-knit system of old Spanish liberties. It was
the growth of an oppressive caste, who by their spirit of disunion
made Despotism possible, and by their spirit of turbulence made it
necessary.

The next nation in which I would show the working of a caste with
traditions of oppression is ITALY.

Man-owners had cost Italy dear already. Roman serf-culture had
withered all prosperity in the country; slave service had eaten out
all manliness from the city.

It is one of the most pregnant facts in history, and one which, so
far as I know, has never been noted, that whereas the multitude who
have written upon the subject have assigned innumerable causes for the
decline and downfall of the Roman nation, _not one of any note has
failed to name, as a cause, Roman slavery_. As to other causes they
disagree--on this alone all agree.

The philosophers Montesquieu[14] and Gibbon,[15] the economist
Sismondi,[16] the _doctrinaire_ Guizot,[17] the republican
Michelet,[18] the eclectic Schlosser,[19] high tory Alison,[20]
moderate Merivale,[21] democrat Bancroft,[22] _quasi_ conservative,
_quasi_ liberal Charles Kingsley,[23] wide apart as the poles on all
else, agree to name as a cause of Roman ruin the system of forced
labor.

But after the Roman downfall the straggle of Italy with her upper
caste seems singularly fortunate. At an early day her cities by
commerce became rich and strong. Then in the natural course of
things--first, free ideas, next, free institutions, next, war upon the
nobles to make them respect these ideas and institutions.

The war of municipalities against nobles was successful. Elsewhere
in Europe cities sheltered themselves behind lords; in Italy lords
sheltered themselves in cities. Elsewhere the lord dwelt in the castle
_above_ the city; in Italy the lord was forced to dwell in his palace
_within_ the city.[24]

The victory of freedom seemed complete. The Italian republics were
triumphant; the nobility were, to all appearance, subdued.

But those republics made a fearful mistake. They had a great chance
to destroy caste and lost it. They allowed the old caste spirit to
remain, and that evil leaven soon renewed its work. The republics
showed generalship in war, but in peace they were outwitted.

First, the nobles insisted on pretended rights within the city, and
stirred perpetual civil war to make these rights good.[25]

Beaten at this they had yet a worse influence. Those great free
cities would not indeed allow the nobles to indulge in private wars,
but gradually the cities caught the infection from the nobles. The
cities caught their aristocratic spirit of jealousy,--took nobles as
leaders,--ran into their modes of plotting and fighting, and what I
have called the _Vitriolic_ period set in.

Undoubtedly some of this propensity came from other causes, but the
main cause was this domineering aristocracy in its midst, giving tone
to its ideas. Free cities in other parts of Europe disliked each
other,--a few fought each other,--but none with a tithe of the insane
hate and rage shown by the city republics of Italy.[26]

Hence arose that political product sure to rise in every nation where
an aristocracy shape policy, the _Spirit of Disunion_. Its curse has
been upon Italy for five hundred years. Dante felt it when he sketched
the torments of Riniero of Corneto and Riniero Pazzo,[27] and the
woes brought on Florence by the feuds of the Neri and Bianchi.[28]
Sismondi felt it when his thoughts of Italian disunion wrung from
his liberty-loving heart a longing for Despotism.[29] All Italy felt
it when Genoa, in these last years, solemnly restored to Pisa the
trophies gained in those old civil wars, and hung them up in the Campo
Santo behind the bust of Cavour.

No other adequate reason for the chronic spirit of disunion in Italy
than the oppressive aristocratic spirit can be given. Italy was
blest with every influence for unity;--a most favorable position and
conformation, boundaries sharply defined on three sides by seas and on
the remaining side by lofty mountains, a great devotion to trade, a
single great political tradition, a single great religious tradition,
both drawing the nation toward one great central city.

Had Italy been left to herself without the disturbing influence of
this chivalric, uneasy, plotting, fighting caste, who can doubt that
petty rivalries would have been extinguished and all elements fused
into a great, strong Nationality?

Turn from this history and construct such a society with your own
reason. You shall find it all very simple. Put into energetic free
cities or states a body of men accustomed to lord it over an inferior
caste, whose main occupation is to brood over wrongs and to hatch
revenges, and you ensure disunion between that state and sister states
speedily. To such men every movement of a sister state is cause for
suspicion, every betterment cause for quarrel.

But you ensure more than that. Under such circumstances _disunion is
always followed by disintegration_. They are two inevitable stages
of one disease. In the first stage the idea of country is lost; in
the second, the idea of government is lost; disintegration is closely
followed by Anarchy, and Despotism has generally been the only remedy.

To Italy in this strait despotism was the remedy. Disunion between
_all_ Italian Republics was followed by disintegration between
factions in _each_ Italian Republic. A multitude of city tyrants rose
to remedy disintegration,--a single tyrant rose above all to remedy
disunion.

These were welcomed because they at least mitigated anarchy. If a
Visconti or a Sforza was bad at Milan, he was better than a multitude
of tyrants. If the Scala were severe at Verona, they were less severe
than the crowd of competitors whom they put down. If Rienzi was
harsh at Rome, he was milder than the struggles of the Colonna and
Orsini,--if the Duke of Athens was at once contemptible and terrible
at Athens, he was neither so contemptible nor so terrible as the
feuds of the Cerchi and Donati.

And when, at last, Charles the Fifth crushed all these seething
polities into a compact despotism, that was better than disunion,
disintegration and anarchy.

This compression of anarchic elements ended the Vitriolic period of
Italian Aristocracy, but it brought on the Narcotic period. It was the
most fearful reign of cruelty, debauchery and treachery between the
orgies of Vitellius and De Sade.

Yet those debaucheries and murders among the Borgias and later Medici,
and so many other leading families, were but types of what this second
phase of an oppressive aristocracy _must_ be.

For the domineering caste-spirit immediately on its repression breaks
out in cruelty. This is historical, and a moment's thought will show
you that it is logical. The development of the chivalric noble into
the cruel schemer is very easily traced.

Given such a lordling forced to keep the peace, and you have a
character which, if it resigns itself, sinks into debauchery--which,
if it resists, flies into plotting. Now both the debauchee and the
plotter regard bodies and souls of inferiors as mere counters in their
games,--hence they _must_ be cruel.[30]

I turn now to another nation where the serf-mastering spirit wrought
out its fearful work in yet a different manner, and on a more gigantic
scale,--in a manner so brilliant that it has dazzled the world for
centuries, and blazoned its faults as virtues;--on a scale so great
that it has sunk art, science, literature, education, commerce and
manufactures,--brought misery upon its lower caste,--brought death
upon its upper caste,--and has utterly removed its nation from modern
geography, and its name from modern history. I point you to POLAND.

Look at Polish history as painted by its admirers,--it is noble and
beautiful. You see political scenes, military scenes, and individual
lives which at once win you.

Go back three centuries, stand on those old towers of Warsaw,--look
forth over the Plains of Volo. The nation is gathered there. Its King
it elects. The King thus elected is limited in power so that his
main function is to do justice. The whole voting body are _equals_.
Each, too, is _free_. No King, no Noble, is allowed to trench upon
his freedom. So free is each that no will of the majority is binding
upon him, except by his own consent. Here is equality indeed! Equality
pushed so far that each man is not only the equal of every other--but
of all others together;--the equal of the combined nation.

These men are brave, hardy, and, as you have seen, free, equal, and
allowed more rights than the citizens of any republic before or
since.[31]

But leave now this magnificent body--stretching over those vast plains
beyond eye-reach. Tear yourselves away from the brave show--the flash
of jeweled sabres and crosiers--the glitter of gilded trappings--the
curvetings of noble horses between tents of silk and banners of
gold-thread. Go out into the country from which these splendid freemen
come.

Here is indeed a revelation! Here is a body of men whom history
has forgotten. Strangely indeed--for it is a body far larger than
that assembled upon the plains of Volo. _There_ were, perhaps, a
hundred thousand; _here_ are millions. These millions are Christians,
but they are wretchedly clad and bent with labor. They are indeed
stupid,--unkempt,--degraded,--often knavish,--but they love their
country,--toil for her,--suffer for her.

To them, in times of national struggles, all the weariness,--to them,
in times of national triumphs, none of the honor.

These are the _serfs_ of those brilliant beings prancing and
caracoling and flashing on yonder plain of Volo--to the applauding
universe.

Evidently then, there has been a mistake here. History and poetry have
forgotten to mention a fact supremely important.

The _people_ of Poland are, after all, _not_ free--_not_ equal. The
voting is not voting by the _people_. Freedom and the suffrage are for
_serf-owners_,--equality is between _them_.

No one can deny that in this governing class were many, very many
noble specimens of manhood--yielding ease and life for ideas--readily.

Emperor Henry the Fifth of Germany had tried in vain to overcome them
by war. When the Polish ambassador came into his presence, the Emperor
pointed to his weapon, and said, "I could not overcome your nobility
with _these_;"--then pointing to an open chest filled with gold, he
said, "but I will conquer them with _this_." The ambassador wore the
chains and jewels befitting his rank. Straitway he takes off every
ornament, and flings all into the Emperor's chest together.

Yet myriads of such men could not have averted ruin. Polish history
proved it day by day.

It was not that these nobles were especially barbarous,--it was not
that they were effeminate. _It was simply that they maintained one
caste above another--allowing a distinction in civil and political
rights._ The system gave its usual luxuriant fruitage of curses.

_First_ in the _material_ condition. Labor and trade were despised.
If, in the useful class, a genius arose, the first exercise of his
genius was to get himself out of the useful class. Labor was left to
serfs; trade was left to Jews. Cities were contemptible in all that
does a city honor. Villages were huddles. The idea thus implanted
remains. Of all countries, called civilized, Poland seems to-day,
materially, the most hopeless.[32]

It may be said that this results from Russian invasions;--but it was
so _before_ Russian invasions. It may be said that it results from
Russian oppression,--but the great central districts of Russia are
just as much under the Czar, and they are thriving. It may be said
that Poland has been wasted by war;--but Belgium and Holland and the
Rhine Palatinate have been far more severely wasted, yet their towns
are hives, and their country districts gardens.

Next, as to the _Political_ condition.

A man-mastering caste necessarily develops the individual will
morbidly and intensely. The most immediate of political consequences
is, of course, a clash between the individual will and the general
will.

Trouble then breaks forth in different forms in different countries.
In Spain we saw it take shape in _Secession_;--in Italy we saw it lead
to fearful territorial _Disunion_;--in Poland it first took the form
of _Nullification_.

The nullifying spirit naturally crystallized into an institution. That
institution was the _Liberum Veto_.

By this, in any national assemblage--no matter how great, no matter
how important,--the veto of a single noble could stop all proceedings.
Every special interest of every petty district or man had power of
life and death over the general interest. The whim, or crotchet, or
spite of a single man could and did nullify measures vital to the
whole nation. In 1652, Sizinski, a noble sitting in the national diet,
when great measures were supposed to be unanimously determined upon,
left his seat, signifying his dissent. The whole vast machinery was
stopped, and Poland made miserable.[33]

Closely allied to this was another political consequence.

Constant, healthful watchfulness over rights is necessary in any
republic; but there is a watchfulness which is not healthful; it is
the morbid watchfulness--the jealousy which arises in the minds of a
superior caste, _living generally in contact with inferiors, and only
occasionally in contact with equals_.

The Polish citizen lived on his estate. About him were
inferiors,--beings who were not citizens--depending on him--doing him
homage. But when the same citizen entered that Assembly on the Plains
of Volo all this was changed. There he met his equals. Pride then
clashed with pride,--faction rose against faction.

The result I will not state in my own words, for fear it may be
thought I warp facts to make a historical parallel. I shall translate
word for word from Salvandy:

     "_Confederations_ were now formed--armed leagues of a
     number of nobles who chose for themselves a Marshal or
     President, and opposed decrees to decrees, force to force;
     contending diets which raised leader against leader, and
     had the King sometimes as chief, sometimes as captive;
     an institution deplorable and insensate, which opened to
     all discontented men a legal way to set their country on
     fire."[34]

From the political causes I have named logically flowed another.

In that perpetual anarchy, some factions must be beaten. But a class
with traditions and habits of oppression is very different, when
beaten, from a society swayed by manufacturing, commercial, and legal
interests. These last try to make some arrangement. They yield, and
fit matters to the new conditions. They are anxious to get back to
their work again. But a class with habits of domineering has its own
peculiar pride to deal with. It has leisure to brood over defeat, to
whine over lost advantages, to fret over lost consideration, and you
generally find it soon plotting more insidiously than before.

So it was with Poland. The beaten factions did what fighting
aristocracies always do when fearful of defeat, or embittered by
it,--the vilest thing they can do, and the most dangerous--_they
intrigued for foreign intervention_.

Of all things, this is most fatal to nationality. Going openly over
to the enemy is bad; but intrigues with foreign powers, hostile by
interest and tradition, are unutterably vile.

Yet there is not a nation where a class pursuing separate and distinct
rights is tolerated, where such intrigues have not been frequent. More
than this, such intrigues have generally been timed with diabolic
sagacity.

The time chosen is generally some national emergency--when the nation
is writhing in domestic misfortunes, or battling desperately against
foreign foes. The Spanish nobles chose their time for intriguing with
the Moors for their intervention, when the Spanish nation were in the
most desperate struggle--not merely for temporal power, but even for
the existence of their religion.

In France, the nobles chose such periods as those when Richelieu was
leading the nation against all Europe and a large part of France. In
Poland, the nobles chose the times when the nation was struggling
against absolute annihilation.[35]

History, to one not blinded by Polish bravery, is clear here. The real
authors of the partition of Poland were not Frederick of Prussia, and
Maria Theresa of Austria, and Catherine of Prussia, but those proud
nobles who drew surrounding nations to intervene in Polish politics.

The _Social_ condition was also affected naturally. Poland went into
the inevitable narcotic phase. Her court during the reigns of its
later Kings was a brothel, and her nobles its worthy tenants.

What followed was natural. When the light of the last century streamed
in upon this corrupt mass, Zamoiski and men like him tried to purify
it,--to enfranchise the subordinate caste,--to work reforms. The
Polish Republic refused. Then Providence began a work radical and
terrible.

It is sad to see those brave citizen-nobles crushed beneath brute
force of Russians, and Austrians, and Prussians. But it was well.
One Alexander the First _would have_ done, one Alexander the Second
_has_ done more good for Poland than ages of citizen serf-masters
flourishing on the Plains of Volo.

The next nation to which I direct you is FRANCE.

Of all modern aristocracies, hers has probably been the most
hated.[36] Guizot, in some respects its apologist, confesses this.
Eugenie de Guerin--the most angelic soul revealed to this age--herself
of noble descent--declares that the sight even of a ruined chateau
made her shudder[37] But all that history, rich as it is in
illustrations of the noxious qualities of an oppressive aristocracy,
I will pass, save as it presents the _dealing of statesmen with it_,
their attempts to thwart it and crush it.

A succession of monarchs and statesmen kept up these attempts during
centuries. Philip Augustus, Louis VI. and Louis VII., Suger, St.
Louis, Philip the Long, all wrought well at this.

The great thing to notice in that mediaeval French statesmanship is
that _they attacked the domineering caste in the right way_. Every
victory over it was followed not merely by setting serfs free, but by
giving them civil rights, and, to some extent, political rights. When
one of the Kings I have named gave a Charter of Community, he did not
merely make the serf a nominal freedman; he also gave him rights, and
thus wrought him into a bulwark between the central power and the rage
of the former master.[38]

So far all was good. The great difficulty was that none of those
monarchs or statesmen obtained physical power enough to enforce this
policy throughout France. It was mainly confined to towns.

But in the middle of the Fifteenth Century came the most persistent
man of all--Louis the Eleventh. He gained power throughout the
kingdom. If a noble became turbulent, he hunted him; if this failed,
he entrapped him. Cages, dungeons, racks, gibbets, he used in
extinguishing this sort of political vermin; and he used them freely
and beneficially.

His policy seems cruel. Our weak women of both sexes, with whom
the tears of a murderer's mistress outweigh the sufferings of a
crime-ridden community, will think so. It was really merciful. Louis
was, probably, a scoundrel; but he was not a fool, and he saw that the
greatest cruelty he could commit would be to make concessions and try
to _win over_ the nobility. His hard, sharp sense showed him--what
all history shows--that an oppressive caste can be crushed, but that
wheedled and persuaded it cannot be.

But Louis forgot one thing, and that the most important. Merely
to _defeat_ an aristocracy was not enough. _He forgot to provide
guarantees for the lower classes_--he forgot to put rights into their
hands which should enable them forever to check and balance the upper
class when his hand was removed. You see that this mistake is just the
reverse of that committed by previous statesmen.

Of course then, after the death of Louis, France relapsed into her
old anarchy. Occasionally a strong King or city put a curb upon the
nobles; but, in the main, it was the old bad history with variations
ever more and more painful.

Over a hundred years more of this sort went by, and the rule of the
nobles became utterly unbearable. The death of Henry the Fourth, in
1610, left on the throne a weak child as King, and behind the throne
a weak woman as Regent. The nobles wrought out their will completely.
They seized fortifications, plundered towns, emptied the treasury,
domineered over the monarch, and impoverished the people. Curiously
enough, too, to one who has not seen the same fact over and over
in history, the nobles, during all these outrages of theirs, were
declaiming, and groaning, and whining over their grievances and want
of rights.[39]

Compromise after compromise was made, and to no purpose. No sooner
were compromises made than they were broken. Finally, a great
statesman, recognizing the futility of compromises, gave the
aristocracy battle. This statesman was Richelieu.

The nobles tried all their modes of working I have shown in other
countries. They tried nullification, secession, disunion. They
intrigued for the intervention of Spain. They preferred caste to
country, and attempted to desert France at the moment of her sorest
need--at the siege of La Rochelle.

But Richelieu was too strong for them. His victories were magnificent.
While he lived France had peace.[40]

Yet he makes the same mistake which Louis XI. had made. He defeats the
upper caste; but he guarantees no rights to the lower caste; therefore
he gives France no barrier against that old flood of evils--save his
own hand, and when death removes that, chaos comes again.

Mazarin now grapples with them. They give him a fearful trial. They
throw France into civil war. They pretend zeal for liberty, and form
an anarchic alliance with the poor old stupid Parliament of Paris.
They make Mazarin miserable. They throw filth upon him, then light him
up with their fireworks of wit, and set the world laughing at him.
Then they drive him out of France; but he is keen and strong, and
finally throws his nets over them, and France has another breathing
time.

But the nobility if quiet are not a whit more beneficial--they are
virulent and cynical as ever. Mazarin commits the same fault which
Louis XI. and Richelieu had committed before him.

His mind was keen always, bold sometimes--yet never keen enough to
see, or bold enough to try the policy of giving France a guarantee
of perpetual peace, by raising up that lower class, and giving
them rights, civil and political, which should attach them to the
legitimate government, and make them a balancing body against the
aristocracy.

It is wonderful! Great men, fighting single-handed against thousands,
clear in foresight and insight, quick in planning, vigorous in
executing, finding every path to advantage, hurling every weighty
missile, seeing everything, daring everything, except that one simple,
broad principle in statesmanship which could have saved France from
anarchy then and from revolution afterwards.

Gentlemen, it is a great lesson and a plain one. Diplomacy
based on knowledge of the ordinary motives of ordinary men is
strong,--statesmanship based on close study of the interests and
aims of states and classes is strong;--but there is a Diplomacy and
a Statesmanship infinitely stronger. Infinitely stronger are the
Diplomacy and Statemanship whose master is a _heart_,--a heart with an
instinct for truth and right;--a heart with a faith that on truth and
right alone can peace be fitly builded.

Your common-place Cavour, with his deep instinct for Italian Liberty
and Unity;--your uncouth Lincoln, with his deep instinct for American
Liberty and Unity, are worth legions of compromise builders and
conciliation mongers.

Mazarin delivered France into the hands of Louis XIV., and Louis
brought them permanently into the narcotic phase. He stupefied them
with sensuality,--attached them to his court,--made his palace the
centre of their ambition,--gave scope to their fancy, by setting
them at powdering and painting and frizzing,--gave scope to their
activity by keeping them at gambling and debauchery,--weaned them from
turbulence by stimulating them to decorate their bodies and to debase
their souls.[41]

The central power was thus saved;--the people went on suffering as
before.

Under the Regency of Louis XV. the nobility went from bad to worse.
Their scorn for labor made them despise not merely those who toiled in
Agriculture and Manufactures--it led them logically to openly neglect,
and secretly despise professions generally thought the most honorable.
When Racine ridiculed lawyers,[42] and when Moliere ridiculed
physicians[43] and scholars,[44] they but yielded to this current.

Wise men saw the danger. Laws were passed declaring that commerce
should not be derogatory to nobility. Abbé Coyer wrote a book to
entice nobles into commerce. It had a captivating frontispiece,
representing a nobleman elegantly dressed going on board a handsome
merchant ship.[45] All in vain. The serf-mastering traditions were too
strong.

The Revolution comes. The nobles stand out against the entreaties
of Louis XVI.--the statesmanship of Turgot, the financial skill of
Necker,--the keenness of Sieyes,--the boldness of Mirabeau. The very
existence of France is threatened; but they have erected, as nobles
always do, their substitute for patriotism. They stand by their order.
Royalty yields to the third estate,--the clergy yield, the nobility
will not.

They are at last scared into momentary submission to right and justice
and the spirit of the age. On the memorable Fourth of August they
renounce their most hideous oppressions.

There is no end of patriotic speeches by these converts to liberty.
The burden of all is the same. They are anxious to give up their
oppressions. It is of no use to struggle longer, they are beaten, they
will yield to save France.[46] Artists illustrate the great event,
some pathetically, some comically.[47] The millennium seems arrived, a
_Te Deum_ is appointed. Yet plain common sense Buchez notes one thing
in all this not so pleasant. In these "transports and outpourings,"
(_transports et l'effusion de sentiments genereux_,) one very
important thing has been forgotten. _The nobles forget to give, and
the people forget to take--guarantees._[48]

Woe to the people who trust merely the word of an upper caste
habituated to oppression! Woe to the statesmen who do not at once
crystallize such promises into constitutional and legislative acts!

These nobles shortly regretted their concessions and sought to evade
them.[49] The aristocrats whom they represented soon denied the right
of their deputies to make these concessions, and soon after repudiated
them.[50]

How could it be otherwise? When you speak of concessions by a caste
habituated to oppression, you do not mean that they give away a
single, simple, tangible thing, and that _that_ is the end of it;--not
at all. You mean that they give up old habits of thought,--habits
of action. You mean that every day of their lives thereafter they
are to give up a habit, or a fancy, or a comfort. No mere promises
of theirs to do this can be trusted. There must be guarantees fixed
immutably, bedded into the constitution,--clamped into the laws. That
same anchoring of liberties, and not "_transports et l'effusion de
sentiments genereux_," is statesmanship.

These concessions were not thus secured. The old habits of oppression
again got the upper hand. The upper class became as hostile to liberty
and peace as ever.

Then thundered through France the Revolution. It _must_ come;--that
great and good French Revolution which did more to advance mankind in
ten years than had been done politically in ten centuries,--which cost
fewer lives to establish great principles than the Grand Monarque had
flung away to gratify his whimsies! The right hand of the Almighty was
behind it.

I refuse at the will of English Tory historians to lament more
over the sufferings that besotted caste of oppressors brought upon
themselves during those three years, than over the sufferings they
brought upon the people during three times three centuries.[51]

The great thing was now partially done which Louis XI. and Richelieu
had left entirely undone. The lower class were not merely freed from
serfdom; they received guarantees of full civil rights.[52]

So far all was well, but at another point the constituent assembly
stumbled. They were not bold enough to give full _political_ rights.
They thought the peasantry too ignorant--too much debased by a long
servitude, to be entrusted with political rights,--therefore they
denied them, and invented for them "passive citizenship."[53]

It was skillfully devised, but none the less fatal. The denial
of political rights to the enfranchised was one of the two great
causes of the destruction of the Constitution of 1791, and of the
inauguration of the Reign of Terror.

Political rights could not be refused long. As they could not be
obtained in peace the freed peasantry never allowed France rest until
it gained them by long years of bloodshed and anarchy. Revolution
after revolution has failed of full results. Dynasty after dynasty has
failed to give quiet until a great statesman in our own time, Napoleon
III., has been bold enough to make suffrage universal.

Whatever the first French Revolution failed to do, it failed to do
mainly by lack of bold faith in giving _political_ rights;--whatever
it succeeded in doing, it succeeded by giving full _civil_ rights.

When Louis XVIII. was brought back by foreign bayonets, the nobility
also came back jubilant; all seemed about to give France over to
her old caste of oppressors. The revolution was gone, its great
theories were gone, its great men were swept away by death and by
discouragement worse than death.

But one barrier stood between France and all her old misery. That
barrier stood firm; it was the enfranchised peasantry--possessing
civil rights and confiscated property in land. Against these the whole
might of the nobility beat in vain.

Peace came, and with peace prosperity. France had been fearfully
shattered by ages of evil administration and false political economy;
she had been devastated by wars without and within; she had been
plundered of an immense indemnity by the allies; the best of her
people had been swept off by conscriptions; but under the distribution
of lands to the former serfs, and the full guarantee of civil rights
and the germs of political rights, the nation showed an energy in
recuperation and a breadth of prosperity never before known in all
her history.

There are other nations which, did time allow, might be summoned
before us to aid our insight into the tendencies of castes habituated
to oppression.

I might show from the annals of Germany how such a caste, having
dragged the country through a thousand years of anarchy, have left
it in chronic disunion,--the loss of all natural consideration, and
oft-recurring civil wars, one of which is now devastating her.[54]

I might show from the history of Russia how the despotism of the
Autocrat has been made necessary to save the empire from a worse
foe--from a serf-mastering aristocracy. And I might go further and
show how the statesmanship which has emancipated the lower class in
Russia has recognized the great truth that the nation is not safe
against the aristocracy--that no barrier can stand against them except
the enfranchised endowed with rights and lands.[55]

But I am aware that an objection to this estimate of the noxious
activity of an Aristocracy may be raised from the history of England.

It may be said that there the course of the nobles has been
different--that some of the hardest battles against tyrants have been
won by combination of nobles, that they have laid the foundations
of free institutions, that, under monarchs who have hated national
liberty, nobles have been among the foremost martyrs.

Let us look candidly at this.

It is true that the Earl of Pembroke and the Barons of England led
the struggle for Magna Charta; it is true that the Earl of Leicester
and his associate barons summoned the first really representative
Parliament;[56] it is true that Surrey and Raleigh and Russell
suffered martyrdom at the hands of tyrants.

It is true, moreover, that English nobles have not generally been so
turbulent in what I have called the Vitriolic period, nor so debased
in the Narcotic period, as most other European Aristocracies. They
were, indeed, very violent in the wars of the Roses,--many of them
were very debased under Charles the Second, and again under the first
and last Georges, and it is quite likely will be again under that very
unpromising ruler, Albert Edward, who seems developing the head of
George the Third and the heart of George the Fourth[57]--but they have
never been quite so violent or debased as the Continental nobles at
similar periods.

But all this, so far from weakening the thesis I support, strengthens
it--nay, clenches it.

For the nobility of England, less than any other in Europe, was based
upon the oppression of a subject class. From the earliest period
when law begins to be established in England we find that the serf
system begins to be extinguished. The courts of law quietly adopted
and steadily maintained the principle that in any question between
lord and serf the presumption was in favor of the inferior's right to
liberty rather than the superior's right to property.[58] The whole
current set that way, and we find growing in England that middle
class, steady and sturdy by the possession of rights, which won
Agincourt and Crecy and Marston Moor and Worcester,--which made her
country a garden and her cities marts for the world.[59]

It is because England had so little of a serf-ruling caste in her
history that she has been saved from so many of the calamities which
have befallen other nations.

And there is another great difference between England and other
nations, a difference of tremendous import. She has not stopped after
making her lower classes nominally free. She has given them full civil
rights and a constantly increasing share of political rights. Thus she
has made them guardians of freedom. This is the great reason why her
nobility have not destroyed her. This enfranchised class has been a
barrier against aristocratic encroachment.

And yet in so far as the upper caste of England have partaken of
traditions and habits of oppression they have deeply injured their
country. Not a single great modern measure which they have not
bitterly opposed.

The Repeal of the Corn Laws, the Abolition of Tests, the Reform Bill,
the improvement of the Universities--these and a score more of great
measures nearly as important, they have fought to the last.[60]

To them is mainly due that grasping of lands which has brought so much
misery on the working class.[61]

To them is due that cold-blooded dealing with Lafayette and Bailly and
other patriots of the French Revolution, which finally resulted in the
Brunswick Manifesto and the Reign of Terror.

To them and their followers is due that most stupid crime which any
nation ever committed in its foreign policy--the bitter, cowardly
injustice toward our own Republic in its recent struggle.

This is what the _remnant_ of caste-spirit in England has
accomplished, and it is only because it has not been habituated to
oppression by serf-owning, and because it was held in check by a lower
class possessing civil and political rights, that it was not frightful
in turbulence and debauchery.

So stands modern history as it bears upon the thesis I have proposed.

It shows a man-mastering caste, even when its man-mastering has passed
from a fact into a tradition, to be the most frequent foe and the most
determined with which nations have to grapple. By its erection of a
substitute for patriotism, it is of all foes the most intractable;
by its erection of a substitute for political morality, the most
deceptive; by its proneness to disunion and disintegration, the most
bewildering; by its habit of calling for the intervention of foreign
powers, the most disheartening; by its morbid sensitiveness over
pretended rights, the most watchful; in its unscrupulousness, the most
determined; by its brilliancy, the most powerful in cheating the world
into sympathy.

But history gives more than this. To the thesis I have advanced it
gives, as you have seen, a corollary. Having shown what foe to right
and liberty is most vigorous and noxious, it shows how alone that foe
can be conquered and permanently dethroned. The lesson of failures and
successes in the world's history points to one course, and to that
alone.

Here conquest cannot do it; spasmodic severity cannot do it; wheedling
of material interests, orating up patriotic interests, cannot do it.
History shows just one course. _First, the oppressive caste must be
put down at no matter what outlay of blood and treasure; next, it
must be kept dethroned by erecting a living, growing barrier against
its return to power, and the only way of erecting that barrier is by
guaranteeing civil rights in full, and political rights at least in
germ, to the subject class._

Herein is written the greatness or littleness of nations--herein
is written the failure or success of their great struggles. In all
history, those be the great nations which have boldly grappled with
political dragons, and not only put them down but _kept_ them down.

The work of saving a nation from an oligarchy then is two fold. It
is not finished until both parts are completed. Nations forget this
at their peril. Nearly every great modern revolution wherein has
been gain to liberty has had to be fought over a second time. So it
was with the English Revolution of 1642. So it was with the French
Revolutions of 1789 and 1830. What has been gained by bravery has
been lost by treachery. Nations have forgotten that vigorous fighting
to gain liberty must be followed by sound planning to secure it.

What is this sound planning? Is it superiority in duplicity? Not at
all; it is the only planning which insists on frank dealing. Is it
based on cupidity? Not at all; it is based on Right. Is it centered
in Revenge? Not at all; its centre is Mercy and its circumference
is Justice. It may say to the discomfited oppressor, you shall have
Mercy; but it must say to the enfranchised, you shall have Justice.

Acknowledging this, Suger and the great mediaeval statesmen succeeded;
ignoring this, Louis. XI., Richelieu, and a host of great modern
statesmen failed.

To keep the haughty and turbulent caste of oppressors in their proper
relations, the central authority in every nation has been obliged to
form a close alliance with the down-trodden caste of workers. If these
have been ignorant it has had to instruct them; if they have been
wretched, it has had to raise them; and the simple way--nay, the only
way to instruct and raise them has been to give them rights, civil and
political, which will force them to raise and instruct themselves.

But it may be said that some subject classes are _too low_ thus to be
lifted--that there are some races too weak to be thus wrought into a
barrier against aristocracy. I deny it. For history denies it. The
race is not yet discovered in which the average man is not better and
safer with rights than without them.

Think you that _your_ ancestors were so much better than _other_
subject classes? Look into any town directory. The names show an
overwhelming majority of us descendants of European serfs and
peasantry. I defy you to find any body of men more degraded and stupid
than our ancestors.

Do you boast Anglo-Saxon ancestry?--look at Charles Kingsley's picture
in Hereward of the great banquet, the apotheosis of wolfishness and
piggishness; or look at Walter Scott's delineation in Ivanhoe of Gurth
the swine-herd, dressed in skins, the brass collar soldered about his
neck like the collar of a dog, and upon it the inscription, "Gurth
the born thrall of Cedric."

Do you boast French ancestry?--look into Orderic Vital, or Froissart,
or De Comines, and see what manner of man was your ancestor, "_Jacques
Bonhomme_"--kicked, cuffed, plundered, murdered, robbed of the honor
of his wife and the custody of his children, not allowed to wear good
clothing,[62] not recognized as a man and a brother,[63] not indeed in
early times recognized as a man at all.[64]

Do you boast German ancestry?--look at Luther's letters and see how
the unutterable stupidity of your ancestors vexed him.

Yet from these progenitors of yours, kept besotted and degraded
through centuries by oppression, have, by comparatively a few years of
freedom, been developed the barriers which have saved modern states.

Is it said that this bestowal of rights on the oppressed is dangerous?
History is full of proofs that the faith in Heaven's justice which has
led statesmen to solve great difficulties by _bestowing_ rights has
proved far more safe than the attempt to evade great difficulties by
_withholding_ rights.[65]

Is it said that the anarchic tendencies of an oppressive caste can be
overcome by compromise and barter? History shows that the chances in
trickery and barter are immensely in their favor.

Is it said that the era of such dangers is past--that _civilization_
will modify the nature of oppressive castes? That is the most
dangerous delusion of all. In all annals, a class, whether rough
citizens as in Poland, or smooth gentlemen as in France, based on
traditions or habits of oppression, has proved a _reptile caste_.
Its coat may be mottled with romance, and smooth with sophistry, and
glossy with civilization;--it may wind itself gracefully in chivalric
courses; but its fangs will be found none the less venomous, its
attacks none the less cruel, its skill in prolonging its reptile life,
even after seeming death wounds, none the less deceitful.

Is it said that to grapple with such a reptile caste is dangerous?
History shows not one example where the plain, hardy people have
boldly faced it and throttled it and not conquered it.

The course is plain, and there it but one. Strike until the reptile
caste spirit is scotched; then pile upon it a new fabric of civil and
political rights until its whole organism of evil is crushed forever.

For this policy alone speaks the whole history of man,--to this policy
alone stand pledged all the attributes of God.

       *       *       *       *       *




FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: History of Civilization in Europe. Third Lecture.]

[Footnote 2: Sempere, _Histoire des Cortes d'Espagne_, Chap. 6.]

[Footnote 3: Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella. Introduction, p. 48.]

[Footnote 4: Hallam's Hist. of Middle Ages, Vol. 2, p. 30.]

[Footnote 5: Robertson's Introduction to Life of Charles V., Section
3d; also Prescott.]

[Footnote 6: What an effect this early liberty had in stimulating
thought can be seen in a few moments by glancing over the pages of
Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature.]

[Footnote 7: For some statements as to hardy characteristics of
Spanish peasantry, see Doblado's Letters from Spain. Letter 2.]

[Footnote 8: Sempere, p. 205.]

[Footnote 9: Mariana Hist. of Spain.]

[Footnote 10: Mariana, History of Spain.]

[Footnote 11: Mariana, History of Spain, XIII., 11.]

[Footnote 12: "There probably never lived a prince who, during so long
a period, was adored by his subjects as Philip II. was." Buckle, Vol.
II., page 21. This explains the popularity of Henry VIII. of England
better than all Froude's volumes, able as they are.]

[Footnote 13: All this examination into Aristocratic agency in
Spanish decline is left out of Buckle's Summary. He passes at once to
Ecclesiasticism and Despotism; but the unprejudiced reader will, I
think, see that this statement is supplementary to that. In no other
way can any man explain the fatuity of the Spaniards in throwing away
these old liberties.]

[Footnote 14: _Grandeur et Décadence des Romains_; English translation
of 1784; pp. 109-10. Compare also _L'Esprit des Lois_, liv. xiv.,
chap. 1.]

[Footnote 15: Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, chap. 2.]

[Footnote 16: Fall of Roman Empire, last part of chap. 1.]

[Footnote 17: _Histoire de la Civilisation en France_, 2mc Leçon.]

[Footnote 18: History of Roman Republic, Book III., chap. 1.]

[Footnote 19: Schlosser, _Weltgeshichte für das Deutsche Volk_; vol.
iv., xiv., 1.]

[Footnote 20: Essay on the Fall of Rome; Essays, vol. iii., p. 445.]

[Footnote 21: History of the Romans, vol. vii., pp. 480-81.]

[Footnote 22: Bancroft's Miscellanies.]

[Footnote 23: The Roman and the Teuton--Lectures delivered before the
University of Cambridge, p. 20.]

[Footnote 24: Guizot, _Civilisation en Europe, 10me Leçon_; also
Trollope's History of Florence, vol. 1., chap. 2.]

[Footnote 25: Trollope's History of Florence, as above.]

[Footnote 26: Any historical student can easily satisfy himself of the
truth of this statement by comparing the cases given by Barante in
his _Hist. des Ducs de Bourgogne_ with those given by Sismondi in the
_Hist. des Républiques Italiennes_.]

[Footnote 27: _Inferno_; canto xii., 138.]

[Footnote 28: _Ibid_; canto vi., 60.]

[Footnote 29: _Histoire des Républiques Italiennes_, vol. x.]

[Footnote 30: For the working out of this principle by French and
English nobilities into cruelties more frightful and inexcusable than
any known to the Inquisition, see Orderic Vital Liv. XII. and XIII.,
also Barante's _Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne_.]

[Footnote 31: For examples of the brilliant side of Polish history
presented, and dark side forgotten, see Chodzko _La Pologne Historique
Monumentale et Pittoresque_. For fair summaries, see Alison's Essay,
and his chapter on Poland, in the History of Europe--the best chapter
in the book. The main authorities I have followed are Rulhière and
Salvandy.]

[Footnote 32: This statement is based upon my own observations in
Poland in the years 1855-6.]

[Footnote 33: Rulhière, _Anarchie de Pologne_. Vol. I., page 47.]

[Footnote 34: Salvandy, _Vie de Jean Sobieski_. Vol. I., page 115.]

[Footnote 35: The effects of Polish anarchy at home and intrigue
abroad are pictured fully in a few simple touches in the "_Journal du
Voyage de Boyard Chérémétieff_." (_Bibliotheque Russe et Polonaise._)
Vol. IV., page 13.]

[Footnote 36: To understand the causes of this deep hatred, see
Monteil, _Histoire des Français des divers Etats, Epitre 22_.]

[Footnote 37: St. Beuve, _Causeries de Lundi_. Also Matthew Arnold's
Essays.]

[Footnote 38: Guizot, _Civilisation en France, 19me Leçon_; also
_Hüllman's, Staedtewesen des Mittelalters_. Vol. III., Chapter 1.]

[Footnote 39: For these preposterous complaints and claims see the
_Cahiers de doléances_ quoted in Sir James Stephens' Lectures.]

[Footnote 40: Some details of Richelieu's grapple with the aristocracy
I have given in the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. ix., page 611.]

[Footnote 41: For samples of the _mental_ calibre of French nobility
under this regime, see case of Baron de Breteuil, who believed that
Moses wrote the Lord's Prayer. Bayle St. John's translation of St.
Simon, Vol. I., p. 179. For sample of their _moral_ debasement, see
case of M. de Vendome. _Ibid._, Vol. I., p. 187.]

[Footnote 42: In _Les Plaideurs_.]

[Footnote 43: _In Le Médecin Malgré lui_, and other plays.]

[Footnote 44: _In Le Marriage Forcé._]

[Footnote 45: _La Noblesse Commerçante._ London, 1756.]

[Footnote 46: For general account, see _Mignet_, or _Louis Blanc_,
or _Thiers_. For speeches in detail, see _Buchez et Roux, Histoire
Parlémentaire_, Vol. II., pp. 224-243.]

[Footnote 47: _Challamel Histoire-Musée de la République Française_,
Vol. I., pp. 72-75, where some of these illustrations can be found.]

[Footnote 48: _Buchez and Roux_, Vol. II., p. 231.]

[Footnote 49: _Mignet_, Vol. I.]

[Footnote 50: _Histoire de la Révolution Française par Deux Amis de la
Liberté_, Vol. II., p. 228.]

[Footnote 51: Any American, whose ideas have been wrested Torywise by
Alison, can satisfy himself of the utter inability of an English Tory
to write any history involving questions of liberty, by simply looking
at Chancellor Kent's notes attached to the chapter on America in the
American reprint of Alison's History of Europe.]

[Footnote 52: _Constitution de 1791, Titre Premier._]

[Footnote 53: _Constitution de 1791_, Titre III., Sect. 2, Art. 1.]

[Footnote 54: Any one wishing to see how that inevitable moral
debasement came upon the German aristocracy, and in general what the
oppressive caste came to finally, can find enough in the 2d vol. of
Menzel's History of Germany.]

[Footnote 55: Gerbertzoff, _Hist. de la Civilisation en Russie_.
Haxthausen, _Etudes sur la Russie_. A full sketch of the Rise and
Decline of the serf system in Russia I have attempted in the Atlantic
Monthly, Vol. X., page 538.]

[Footnote 56: _Creasy's History of English Constitution_;--but Hume
says of Leicester's Parliament, that it was in the intention of
reducing forever both the King and the people under the arbitrary
power of a very narrow tyranny, which must have terminated either in
anarchy or in violent usurpation and tyranny. Hist. of England, Chap.
XII.]

[Footnote 57: I perhaps do the last two Georges injustice. Neither of
them would have publicly insulted men of letters and science as the
Prince of Wales has several times done recently.]

[Footnote 58: Creasy, Chap. IX.]

[Footnote 59: Fischel on English Constitution, Chap. I., pp. 9, 11.
Also Stephens' Edition of De Lolme.]

[Footnote 60: For best account of this, see May's Constitutional
History.]

[Footnote 61: See Kay's Social Condition of English People.]

[Footnote 62: Among the grievances put forth by the nobles at the
States General of 1614, one was that the wives of the common people
wore too good clothing; another was that an orator of the third
estate had dared call the nobles their brothers. Sir James Stephens'
Lectures.]

[Footnote 63: Among the grievances put forth by the nobles at the
States General of 1614, one was that the wives of the common people
wore too good clothing; another was that an orator of the third
estate had dared call the nobles their brothers. Sir James Stephens'
Lectures.]

[Footnote 64: For a very striking summary of this see Henri Martin's
_Hist. de France_, vol. v., p. 193.]

[Footnote 65: I know of but one plausible exception to this rule--that
of the failure of Joseph II. in his dealings with the Rhine provinces.
The case of Louis XVI. is no exception, for he was always taking back
secretly what he had given openly.]

       *       *       *       *       *


Transcriber's Notes


Minor punctuation errors have been silently corrected. Footnotes have
been reindexed with numbers and moved to the end of the document.

In Footnote 17: "2mc" is a possible typo for "2me."
  (Orig: _Histoire de la Civilisation en France_, 2mc Leçon.)

In Footnote 18: Changed "Boook" to "Book."
  (Orig: History of Roman Republic, Boook III., chap. 1.)










