Latin League

“ Once again, just as with the League of Nations, the Latin Press betrayed the peculiar power which the great English-speaking community might and could exercise, of putting over broad political ideas to the world at large. There is a natural reciprocity between the mind of the Latin community and ours; it is far more delicately critical and far less rudely creative. We can do much to sustain or destroy its faith. ”

“ The later communion of legal rights and, in some sense, of marriage that subsisted among the Latin communities may perhaps be regarded as an integral part of the primitive law of the league, so that any Latin man could beget lawful children with any Latin woman and acquire landed property and carry on trade in any part of Latium. The league may have also provided a federal tribunal of arbitration for the mutual disputes of the cantons; on the other hand, there is no proof that the league imposed any limitation on the sovereign right of each community to make peace or war. ”

“ It is suggested that all these Latin peoples, who have so much in common, who are so admirably equipped for a common understanding and the achievement of a common destiny, should withdraw from that lamentable cul-de-sac of good intentions, the existing League of Nations, in order to group [Pg 100] themselves together for collective action in the world’s affairs. ”

“ As the nobles had oppressed the commons, so now both these orders united in the oppression of the Latins—the plebeians in their bettered circumstances forgetting the lessons of adversity. The Latin allies demanded a share in the government, and that the lands acquired by conquest should be distributed among them as well as among Roman citizens. The Romans refused. All Latium rose in revolt against the injustice and tyranny of the oppressor. ”

“ As it was, the assemblies came to be dominated by the urban proletariat, a class absolutely unfitted to represent the Roman citizens as a whole.
The allies of Rome in Italy. The Latin and Italian allies, with the exception of such as were punished for their defection in the war with Hannibal, remained in their previous federate relationship with Rome. However, the Romans were no longer careful to adhere strictly to their treaty rights, and began to trespass upon the local independence of their allies. ”

“ The provinces united in nations, the nations would unite in races, and the races would end by uniting in one immortal mankind—mankind at last without frontiers, or possibility of wars, mankind living by just labour amidst an universal commonwealth. Was not this indeed the evolution, the object of the labour progressing everywhere, the finish reserved to History? Might Italy then become a strong and healthy nation, might concord be established between her and France, and might that fraternity of the Latin races become the beginning of universal fraternity! ”

“ If as in the time of the Holy Alliance the theocratic peoples were to ally themselves—Catholic and warlike Austria, Germany, dominated by Prussian feudalism, Russia, mystic and formidable—the whole American continent would be the bulwark of liberty. If Germans and Latins or Latins and Anglo-Saxtons were to fight between themselves the overseas {400} democracies would greatly contribute to the vitality of the Latin race. ”

“ There is no doubt, however, that just before the middle of the century it was in flourishing existence, and that by the end of the century it had reached that acme of its power and influence which it was to maintain for several centuries in spite of the jealousy of the nobility, of certain towns that did not have the same privileges, and even of the authorities of the various countries who resented more and more as time went on the growing freedom and independence of these wealthy cities. The impetus for the formation of the League seems to have been given during the Crusades. ”

“ Surely, this must be the time when we, if we ever intend to do so, must reinforce our Latin brothers. They have done well, they have made progress, but they have gone about as far as they can in the struggle upon the moral resources at their command. Their very progress in education and civilization is widening the breach between them and their former religious teachers. A new life must come in, even the power of the gospel. This alone can save Latin-America from inglorious failure. ”

“ Thus the Roman Republic, from her narrow home between the Apennines, governed the world, as did Great Britain, peopled by a tenacious race, the sea.
To check the advance of the United States the South will lack a political force of the same weight. The conflict between the united Americans of the North and the divided inhabitants of the South will necessarily terminate fatally for the Latin New World. ”

“ Will not a community of interests in America give a new strength to the union of these peoples in Europe? Great political changes would result from these new influences: the American Latins, by entering into the combinations of European politics, would divide Italy, whose interests in the Argentine and Brazil are so great, from the Triple Alliance, and would strengthen the understanding between England and France against Germany, which disputes with them not only the hegemony of Europe but also the preponderance in America. ”

“ In all their internal affairs the Latin cities were sovereign communities, possessing, in addition to their own laws and magistrates, the rights of coinage and census. Their inhabitants constituted the nomen Latinum, and, unlike the Roman cives sine suffragio, did not serve in the Roman legions but formed separate detachments of horse and foot.
The Italian allies. The rest of the peoples of Italy, Italian, Greek, Illyrian and Etruscan, formed the federate allies of Rome—the socii Italici. ”

“ Why was the apposition to the United Front centered in the Latin countries? This has a definite explanation. The Communist parties of the Latin countries have been composed of different elements. We have there few Communist parties which have grown up organically and gradually through the years. In this respect only the Russian Communist Party has such long history. All the others have grown out of the Social-Democratic parties after the war, and some of them have absorbed part of the superstitions of the latter. ”

“ For the story of its origin we [Pg 223] have to go to the narrative, unhappily fragmentary, which Polybios gives of the events which led to the deliverance of Lykia from Rhodian rule; [3] for a full account of its constitution we have only to turn to the description of Strabo. [4] It is specially instructive when the geographer tells us that the League still kept the right of war and peace, though, he adds, in his day that right could not be exercised at all, or could be exercised only as Rome thought fit. ”

“ It must be in the interest of the freedom of all."
"Yes; and for that reason eternal shame fastens upon the League!" exclaimed Serdan. "The Catholic League in France sought for Spanish support in order to exterminate the Protestants, and dethrone Henry IV, who, his vices and deplorable defects notwithstanding, at least represented the French nationality."
"While the League, the Catholic Union, on the contrary, represented the foreigner, the party of Rome, of Spain and of the Inquisition," added Salaun Lebrenn. ”

“ The first step was to break the bonds which made{77} of the Latin people a sort of confederacy. All political communalty, all war on their own account, all rights of commercium and connubium, between the different cities, were taken from them. [185]
The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage. [186] Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory. ”

“ For the administration of their realm a customary code grew up, which, in days when the Latin lordships had waned almost to nothing, was embodied in the Assizes of Jerusalem, more valuable as an ideal picture of a perfect feudal state than as a description of what really prevailed at any one time in Syria. Being an artificial creation, the Latin state was more fully feudal than the kingdoms of the West, where the system had grown up naturally, and where there were still survivals of older forms of polity. ”

“ Such a system is not usually found in conjunction with social conditions as primitive as those which must have prevailed in early Latium; for it tends to disintegrate tribal unity by creating strong centers of population. Now we know that the Latin tribe must have long remained a political unit, for no part of it developed a special dialect, and the worship of Jupiter Latiaris, the deity who dwelt upon Latium's highest hill, was recognized throughout the tribe. ”

“ When the wilderness is peopled by new races, democracies will grow to maturity within this scaffolding, and universal suffrage, individual rights and tolerance will be realities.
In Latin America, above all among the southern nations, one cannot conceive of the restoration of the old social order, or of despotism and religious inquisition. The new continent, whether Saxon or Latin, is democratic and liberal. ”

“ It had taken Rome 120 years to complete the union of the Italian peninsula, broken up as it was by mountain ranges and naturally favoring the formation and preservation of various isolated states. But union it was, rather than a subjugation, and each nation was left to the practical management of its own affairs. Content with self-government, the various communities, for the most part, easily bore the yoke of Roman supremacy. ”

“ With reference to the legislative activity of the assembly under the kings, it is necessary to call attention to the fact that among all peoples in the earlier stages of their growth law is chiefly customary. [1043] At the time of her founding Rome inherited from the Latin stock, to which her people mainly belonged, a mass of private and public customs, which, owing their existence to no legislative power, were the result of gradual evolution. ”

“ Yet each has need of the other, and both must disappear to make way for a new social system and a more comprehensive spirit which, resulting from the fusion of two warring elements, will remain sole victor in this prolonged contest. In Italy, however, the Latin strain always predominates, as we see even in the statutes, wherein Roman law forms the keystone of the whole juridical structure. ”

“ The great corporation designed for the rapid creation of wealth has not found that congenial home on Latin soil which it has on ours, or on German soil. And this fact accounts for the touch of handicraft lingering in the product of Latin industry, for the strength and health individually of their working classes, for their fervor of devotion to the national tradition. The Latin has never forgotten the claims of the individual life: democracy to him is more than the right to vote. ”

“ The economic grouping of nations prepares the way for future confederations. The frequent congresses which unify law and jurisprudence, and bring together politicians, men of letters and scientists, all tend to the same result. To increase the number of these assemblies, to hold them in different capitals of the continent, and to replace the Pan-American Congresses, whose plans are somewhat indefinite, by racial Latin-American Congresses, would be equally to the profit of the economic and intellectual unity of the continent, and the harmony of its politics and its laws. ”

“ It included the full working constitution of a society to be called La Liga Filipina, or Philippine League, of which the objects were declared to be to better economic conditions, to spread education, to advance the Philippine youth, and to defend by legal means [244] persons oppressed, wronged, or unjustly accused. ”

“ As might be expected, all these Leagues failed. The precautions against the tyranny of the leading States only hampered the unity and promptness of action of the League, and did not allay jealousy in the smaller, or ambition in the greater, members. Yet these abortive attempts are important to the historian, as showing the intermediate stages in the history of Confederations between the old Attic Empire and the Achæan League. ”

“ Instead of dreaming of an impossible fusion the Neo-Latin peoples should conserve the traditions which are proper to them. The development of the European influences which enrich and improve them, the purging of the nation from the stain of miscegenation, and immigration of a kind calculated to form centres of resistance against any possibilities of conquest, are the various aspects of this Latin Americanism. ”

“ In the democracies of Latin America the "fundamental revolution" of which politicians boast has been sterile; under the republican mask the Spanish heredity survives, deep-rooted and secular. The forms vary but the soul of the race remains the same. President-autocrats replace the vice-kings; the old struggles between the governors of the State and the bishops persist, for patronage in ecclesiastical affairs, the prestige of the "doctors," and academic titles. ”

“ But whereas everywhere else this political fusion soon stopped, in the Roman world it went on. One after another Italian tribes and Italian towns were not merely overcome but admitted to a share in the political rights and privileges of the victors. By the time this had gone on until the whole Italian peninsula was consolidated under the headship of Rome, the result was a power incomparably greater than any other that the world had yet seen. Never before had so many people been brought under one government without making slaves of most of them. ”