Irredentism

“ They are brought face to face with a spirit which will as little tolerate what we think our good government as our bad, and they have not been trained to manage problems of that difficulty. But though their statesmanship is al. fault, their conscience is at ease, because the rebellion, they think, is not one of grievance or suffering; it is a rebellion for an idea—the idea of nationality. Alas for the self-complacent ignorance of irresponsible rulers, be they monarchs, classes, or nations! ”

“ Let any man then ask himself, Suppose a law is passed by which I am ruined! Have I interest enough to overturn the government of my country? If I have, we still may be a ruined people, and myself ruined among the rest. ”

“ What horror can their mock-tragedies excite in those who have contemplated the Place de la Revolution? or who can smile at a farce in ridicule of monarchy, that beholds the Convention, and knows the characters of the men who compose it?—But in most of these wretched productions the absurdity is luckily not less conspicuous than the immoral intention: their Princes, their Priests, their Nobles, are all tyrannical, vicious, and miserable; yet the common people, living under these same vicious tyrants, are described as models of virtue, hospitality, and happiness. ”

“ With every hand raised against him in the old land and the new, in the land of his hoped-for freedom, what more logical than that his should be turned against society that seems to exist only for his oppression? ”

“ Has it ever occurred to you, sir, that the great enlightened masses not only in America but here in central Europe regard us not with the hatred of half a century ago, but with impatience and contempt; that they look upon us as anomalies, anachronisms, ornamental nuisances, and do not rise to let out our blood on the guillotine only because they are well aware of the peaceful disintegration, the irresistible rising of the tide of independence and liberty? ”

“ One dashingly calls them 'glittering generalities.' Another bluntly calls them 'self-evident lies.' And others insidiously argue that they apply only to 'superior races.' These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the van-guard--the miners and sappers of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. ”

“ While we stand thus, showing our inferiority to the great and mighty dead, showing our inferiority to the high positions which we occupy, the country may be destroyed and ruined; and to the amazement of all the world, the great Republic may fall prostrate and in ruins, carrying with it the very hope of that liberty which we have heretofore enjoyed; carrying with it, in place of the peace we have enjoyed, nothing but revolution and havoc and anarchy. ”

“ When we were at liberty to form a government as we thought best, without regard to that or any theoretical principle we did not approve of, we decisively gave our sentiments against it, being willing to run all the risks of a government to be conducted on the principles then laid as the basis of it. The instance was new in the annals of mankind. No people had ever before deliberately met for so great a purpose. Other governments have been established by chance, caprice, or mere brutal force. ”

“ And if the blood of the Republic, if your own blood, flows from a gaping wound, let it flow. The Republic must be purified, or die! The Republic is virtue. If that virtue be stained, the Republic ceases to exist. ”

“ If such is the tendency towards decay in all human institutions, how jealous ought the people to be of the most trifling privileges, arrogated exclusively by certain classes.
And what species of tyranny is worse than that which attempts to control a man’s private actions, his worship, his domestic arrangements, and his pleasures? What can be more absurd than for a certain class, for the most part not a whit better educated than the rest, to assume the dictatorship in all matters relating to politics, religion, or the arts? ”

“ Our virtues should not be made responsible for our vices.
Is it possible that free institutions tend to the demoralization of men? Is a man dishonest because he is a man and maintains the rights of men? In order to be a moral nation must we be controlled by king or emperor? Is human liberty a mistake? Is it possible that a citizen of the great Republic attacks the liberty of his fellow-citizens? Is he willing to abdicate? Is he willing to admit that his rights are not equal to the rights of others? Is he, for the sake of what he calls morality, willing to become a serf, a servant or a slave? ”

“ If we have voluntarily substituted, for what in other countries results from the exercise of despotic power, an idol of our own creation, and bow to it with the same deference and fealty, what becomes of our claim to the title of independence? ”

“ But the tyranny of custom, like all other tyrannies, when grown quite unbearable—for it is wonderful what people will endure—had already sown the seeds of its own dissolution. Out of the hardship had grown the repining, and to repine at the exercise of an alleged right is soon to question its authority, and the first question asked shakes the whole ancient and time-honoured fabric of privilege. ”

“ But it had, also, like all human institutions, become corrupt, and failed to answer the ends for which it was instituted. It had become an oppressive social despotism; it had widened the distinction between the noble and ignoble classes; it had produced selfishness and arrogance among the nobles, and a mean and cringing sycophancy among the people; it had perpetuated privileges, among the aristocracy, exceedingly unjust, and ruinous to the general welfare of society. ”

“ Is it not strange, thought I, before I had drunk the first glass of champaign, that in a country which more than any other convinces one of the vanity of human pursuits,—in which wealth, honour, and distinction are mere bubbles floating on the surface of society,—men should be more eager after aristocratic distinctions, than where these are founded on an historical basis, and in accordance with the customs of the people? ”

“ Mark how an intolerant democracy completes the work of an intolerant monarchy! The moral aristocracy was mowed down in the name of uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed down in the name of equality. For the second time an abstract principle, and with the same effect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society. ”

“ This despotism, while it was selfish and unwarrantable, still had in view the guardianship of morals and literature,--to restrain men from crimes by working on their fears; but society, while it sought to free itself from hypocritical and oppressive leaders, also sought to remove all social and moral restraints, and to plunge into reckless and dangerous experiments. It was a war between these two social powers,--between unlawful despotism and unsanctified license. ”

“ The windy folly of these advocati diaboli, from whom the bulk of the British nation derived their misconceptions of the German Empire, worked evils of which we have as yet witnessed only the beginning. Those who, like myself, know the country, its institutions, its language, literature, social life, and national strivings, and who continually warned their countrymen of what was coming, were put out of court as croaking prophets of the evil which we ourselves were charged with stirring up. ”

“ Independence, defiance-they don't see it as a principle, only as an expedient. They may make it a cry, they may feel it as their right; but when to insist on it looks like losing a point in the game—then they give up the principle, to become parasites! ”

“ These men of precedents, who believe themselves statesmen, do not understand our social condition; and they throw it into convulsion and trouble by their essays at constitution and law making in direct opposition and contradiction to the manners, instincts and tendencies of our young and vigourous society, which is struggling to develop itself and to attain its maturity, whilst those political quacks are endeavoring to bind it in the awarddling cloths and tinsel of the tottering Monarchism of Europe. ”

“ Why, if the speeches of our fashionable gentlemen were published in Europe, if their estimation of our people and of our institutions were taken as a criterion of the justice and strength of our government, then the state of our country might, indeed, be held up in terrorem to every nation aspiring to liberty. ”

“ In all countries in which there exists an hereditary, wealthy nobility, there exists a sort of good-will towards the inferior classes which leads to the relation of patron and client, and through which many an apparent injustice is smoothed over by liberality and kindness; but the mere moneyed aristocracy which is establishing itself in this country, however you may disguise the fact by cunning and soft speeches, or an hyperbolical affectation of republicanism, hates the industrious masses over whom it strives to elevate itself. ”

“ What is it, on the other hand, but traditions that represent the ignorance and accidents and injustice of former ages,—what is it but authority usurped and then consecrated, social superstitions hardened into political creeds,—that is now proving the weakness and peril of European nationalities, and imperial or monarchical governments? Knowledge, science, literature, progress, truth, liberty, become sooner or later the enemies of all governments, and all social institutions, not founded in abstract justice and equal rights. ”

“ But it is to be presumed, when the effervescence, which now agitates the prejudices of the whole continent, subsides, the justness of the principles brought forward in the declaration of the rights of men and citizens will be generally granted; and that governments, in future, acquiring reason and dignity, feeling for the sufferings of the people, whilst reprobating the sacrilege of tyranny, will make it their principal object, to counteract it’s baneful tendency, by restraining within just bounds the ambition of individuals. ”

“ The test of a political system is not how it operates in a state of equilibrium, but how it shows itself in the face of changes. Condescension and indulgence are no less the marks of tyranny than persecution and confiscation, and its essential nature is revealed when the inferior asks to be permitted to think and act for himself. ”

“ When a man preaches to you that all Noblemen are tyrants, that all Clergymen are hypocrites or liars, that all Capitalists are scoundrels, banded together in an infamous conspiracy to deprive the people of their rights, he creates a wholesome revulsion of feeling in favour of the abused parties, and a sense of fair play leads the generous heart to take a side with the object of unjust oppression. ”

“ These persons became Radicals because they saw immense practical evils existing in the government and social condition of this country, and because the same examination which showed them the evils showed also that the cause of those evils was the aristocratic principle in our government,—the subjection of the many to the control of a comparatively few, who had an interest, or fancied they had an interest, in perpetuating those evils. ”

“ Hence every ecclesiastical, governmental, or social institution which is based on the idea of demanding conformity or likeness in any thing, has ever been, and ever will be, frustrated by the operation of this subtile, all-pervading, principle of individuality. Hence, human society has ever been, and is still, in the turmoil of revolution. The only alternative known has been between revolutions and despotism. Revolutions violently burst the bonds, and explode the foundations [129] of existing institutions. The institution falls before the individual. ”

“ They will have, at first, to disguise their views, to conceal their favourite doctrines, and even to cherish those national prejudices, which, were their real views known, would crush them to atoms. The mass of the people may acquiesce for a time in the new order of things, partly from a vague desire of change and improvement, partly from the passive political habits which a dull and deadening despotism has bred and rooted in the course of ages. ”

“ The matter which now embroils Europe, the presumption of dictating to an independent nation the form of its government, is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation, as well as moral sentiment, enlists all our partialities and prayers in favor of one, and our equal execrations against the other. ”

“ The wise and just subordination of an inferior to a superior race, is rashly confounded with the old systems of oppression and tyranny, which stain the pages of history and have excited the righteous indignation of the world. ”

“ The one unvarying factor of the human mind," he went on, "is the firm, unbiased conviction that I am right, and all opposition necessarily, consciously and wilfully wrong. This belief is the base and foundation of all human institutions, of sectionalism, caste, creeds, par ties, states, of patriotism itself. ”

“ The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity. ”

“ No matter whether they came in search of an asylum for their religious beliefs, or in quest of wealth or adventure—no matter whether kings still claimed this new world as theirs, and whether aristocrats or great proprietaries tried to preserve something like feudal authority—all pretensions adverse to political freedom speedily vanished in this atmosphere. ”

“ Again and again I have said how the refinement of an aristocracy may be precious and educative to a raw nation as a kind of shadow of true refinement; how its serenity and dignified freedom from petty cares may serve as a useful foil to set off the vulgarity and hideousness of that type of life which a hard middle-class tends to establish, and to help people to see this vulgarity and hideousness in their true colours. ”