Political exile

“ It is evident that the lamentable effects of the political state of the country, and the constant struggle between parties for mastery, are felt throughout the whole structure of society. There is no frankness and no forgiveness between those who are for the moment in power, and those who have in any way shown favour to another modification of the constitution, or abetted other rulers. The instant that the struggle is at an end by the defeat of one party the other takes advantage of its victory to crush its humble adversary by confiscation, exile, and domestic oppression. ”

“ Even at the present moment, when we should have thought this despotism would be more cautious, it remains the same and continues the political persecution of the democracy, and of all subject nationalities. To-day all Socialist journals are stopped, all working class organizations are disbanded, many hundreds of members are arrested, and our brave comrades are sent to exile just as before. ”

“ If, in addition, we consider the political excitement of the moment,—the restoration of one body of men from exile, and the departure of another body into exile,—the outpouring of long-suppressed hatred, partly against these very forms, by the corruption of which the despot had reigned,—we shall see that prudence as well as patriotism dictated the adoption of an enlarged scheme of government. ”

“ While some among them looked for relief to a happy issue of the struggle which had been going on in Parliament, and resigned themselves to await and aid the slow progress of a political and religious reformation in the kingdom, numbers, less confident or less patient, pondered on exile as their best resource, and turned their view to a new home on the Western continent. ”

“ In twenty-five years of almost ceaseless Liberal government, and carrying out the principles, social and political, of the Political Economists, 260 the number of persons driven into exile had increased fifteen-fold. ”

“ All this is the direct result of the abnormal conditions under which exile compels an intellectually cultivated person to live. There has not yet been a single case where a man, suspected with good reason of political untrust worthiness and exiled by administrative process, has returned from such banishment reconciled to the Government, convinced of his error, and changed into a useful member of society and a faithful servant of the Throne. ”

“ An exile belonging to a cultured family, and convicted, for instance, on political grounds, cries out under the torture of such a journey, and is fully justified in depicting it in the blackest possible colours from his own point of view; but if we take into account the local conditions, and the customs of the country, we must at least acquit the directors of these forced journeyings from the charge of cruelty under which they lie. ”

“ In a recent official report to the Minister of the Interior, Major-General Nicolái Baránof, the governor of the province of Archangel, in discussing the subject of administrative exile says:
From the experience of previous years, and from my own personal observation, I have come to the conclusion that administrative exile for political reasons is much more likely to spoil the character of a man than to reform it. ”

“ There is, of course, some danger that they will meet political exiles, but they seem already to be strongly prejudiced against such offenders, and we will prejudice them still further by giving them a letter of introduction to Mr. ”

“ With the lights before us, and in view of the facts that these men have resided for the past six or seven months in a population greatly excited on political issues, and among whom sundry disloyal practices have been rife, in which they have had ample opportunities to have partaken if they had been so inclined, and yet our observation has not been sufficient to detect them as aiders or abettors in these disloyal practices; we feel free, therefore, to declare emphatically our convictions that the interests of the Government will not be advanced by a longer continuance of their exile ”

“ The political exiles sought America, bringing their liberalism in politics and religion, and forming with their descendants in American cities an intellectual aristocracy. They sprang from the middle classes of Germany, and latterly, when the wars with Austria and France had provoked the spirit of militarism, thousands of peasants looked to emigration for escape from military service. ”

“ I have come to the conclusion that all government is but giving the monopoly of opportunity to one set of robbers in order to save the nation from the ravages of most others. It is worse for the higher natures of the governing than for those of the governed; and I have recanted my heresies.
“How weary I grew of the pomp and show of the court, of the dreary round of war and dissipation! I would have given the world for exile into solitude; and yet I dared not secede from the monarch and his following. I had shown myself too resourceful to be allowed to go free in the island. ”

“ You have heard of her as the great leader of the advanced reformers—they who would strip the nation of everything to clothe it in rags of their own pattern. Come with me there; I will present you as a young friend from the provinces, or better still, an exile fled from Italian tyranny. You will meet the most distinguished men of that extreme party; you will hear their sentiments and their hopes. A stray phrase about despotism, a passing word of execration on kingly rule, will be enough to make you free of the guild, and you will not fail to glean information from them. ”

“ No man could be more thoroughly ruined; baffled in theory, undone in practice—an exile from his country, a fugitive from his troops—overwhelmed by the hopelessness of giving a constitution to France, and with nothing but the dungeon before him, and the crash of the guillotine behind. ”

“ For, I maintain that a set of men, who, like the leaders of this rebellion, would destroy a government like ours, upon pretexts such as theirs, could not be negotiated with, without war. And until their pride is humbled, their power broken, until they have been made to endure somewhat of the bitterness of that suffering they pour out so overwhelmingly upon others, until their arrogance and haughtiness are utterly abased in exile or on the scaffold, there can be no peace upon this continent. ”

“ It must, however be observed, that though the fate of most of the exiles is forlorn and miserable in the extreme; others of higher rank, and banished for slight political offences, are allowed comparative freedom, on their arrival at their place of destination. ”

“ But the dispersion was wide, the yoke of oppression was a spiked torture as well as a load; the exile was forced afar among brutish people, where the consciousness of his race was no clearer to him than the light of the sun to our fathers in the Roman persecution, who had their hiding-place in a cave, and knew not that it was day save by the dimmer burning of their candles. What wonder that multitudes of our people are ignorant, narrow, superstitious? ”

“ The exile is sure to find shelter and security here, without encountering suspicion, whether necessity or choice induced him to abandon his country.
Honoured be the land which offers to the stranger a free participation, on equal terms, of all it holds dearest! Hallowed be the institutions which hold out to talent a free field, and where honest ambition knows no limit save the equal law! ”

“ Art thou ignorant of that most ancient law of this thy country, whereby it is decreed that no one whatsoever, who hath chosen to fix there his dwelling, may be sent into exile? For truly there is no fear that one who is encompassed by its ramparts and defences should deserve to be exiled. ”

“ The rebellion is not the work of a few ambitious or reckless leaders, but of the people, and the responsibility of the crime, whether civil or military, is not individual, but common to the whole territorial people engaged in it; and seven millions, or the half of them, are too many to ban to exile, or even to disfranchise Their defeat and the failure of their cause must be their punishment. ”

“ Then the long hopeless line of exiles marching from the prison to the port, crowded on the transport ships, watched like caged animals, forbidden to speak, the cannon always threatening above them, and so drifted away, away to exile lands, to barren islands and fever shores—there to waste away in loneliness, in uselessness, in futile dreams of freedom that ended in chains upon the ankles or death on the coral reefs—all this was the Mercy and the Wisdom shown by the national government to the rebel city whose works are the glory of France, and whose beauty is the Beauty of the World. ”

“ But if I despaired of successful resistance, I would certainly remove myself from under such a 'government's' actual authority; that I do not exile myself is a proof that I hope to witness the overthrow, and assist in the overthrow, of the most abominable tyranny the world now groans under—the British Imperial system. ”

“ Is it probable that we are meditating the subversion of kingdoms?—we, who were never heard to utter a factious word, whose lives were ever known to be peaceable and honest while We lived under your government, and who, even now in our exile, cease not to pray for all prosperity to attend yourself and your kingdom! Is it probable that we are seeking an unlimited license to commit crimes with impunity? ”

“ The refinements of civilization in all countries alter the sincerity of character, but when a sovereign possesses the unlimited power of exile, imprisonment, sending to Siberia, &c. &c. it is something too strong for human nature. We may meet with men independent enough to disdain favor, but heroism is required to brave persecution, and heroism cannot be an universal quality.
None of these reflections, we know, apply to the present government, its head being, as emperor, perfectly just, and as a man, singularly generous. ”

“ Who thereupon decreed these laws:—
That brawls and blood-shed to prevent,
All into exile must be sent
Who civil war and strife foment;
And never more should lions come
Within his realms to make their home. ”

“ Thrice shall you go into exile: you shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and your race; and you shall return home over half a million of human corpses, that have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as great as the greatest of your family. ”

“ In proportion, however, to the thirst of power in one class was the love of freedom and independence in the other, so that the process of encroachment and resistance, of tyranny and rebellion, of usurpation and punishment, was carried on perpetually,—the oligarchy now predominating, and cutting off or sending into exile the popular leaders, while the democratic party, triumphing in its turn, inflicted similar sufferings on its enemies. ”

“ What a medley of inconsistent accusations has been made use of to blacken a poor exiled people, and make them odious to the Queen and nation ! Fifteen years ago, to render them equally the objects of public aversion and contempt, they were represented as a people born and bred in slavery, always ready to be the instruments of the unlimited power of princes, and consequently dangerous in a government where the legislative power is mixed. ”

“ That one word outweighed my whole education.
III.--Before the Exile
It was not until the writer saw, in 1848, the triumph of all the enemies of progress that he knew in the depths of his heart that he belonged, not to the conquerors, but to the vanquished. The Republic lay inanimate; but, gazing on her form, he saw that she was liberty, and not even the sure fore-knowledge of the ruin and exile that must follow could prevent his espousal with the dead. On June 15 he made his protest from the tribune, and from that day he fought relentless battle for liberty and the republic. ”

“ Till lately the restless and energetic man who dissented from the faith or disapproved the government of his country has known that if he is driven into exile he may begin life again in a new country, not indeed without some loss, but without let or hindrance from law. ”

“ First alighting at an inn, I next took a room in a boarding-house in which were staying planters from San Domingo and Frenchmen who had emigrated with other ideas than mine. A land of liberty offered an asylum to those who were fleeing from liberty: nothing better proves the high value of generous institutions than this voluntary exile of the partisans of absolute power in a pure democracy. ”

“ I have come into exile rather than submit to the yoke of the oppressors of my country; but I have never thought of attributing aught of blame or censure to those true men who, after having nobly done their duty in the dreadful struggle through which we passed, now, that it has gone against us, remain to share the misfortunes of their people, and to aid and comfort them in their trials ”

“ It would carry us too far from our subject to recount in detail the extravagancies and follies with which the triumphant Liberals invited the cruel reaction that awaited them. Moderation, perhaps, was scarce to be expected of men, smarting under the persecution of the last six years, and suddenly brought from fortresses and presidios, or from exile, to take charge of the Government, and to frame laws for the nation. ”

“ They desired nothing but to live under the protection of laws you yourself had confirmed; and they repaid that protection by the most hearty zeal for your service. Yet these did you force, by the most inhuman severities, either to quit the religion in which they were bred, and which their consciences still retained, or to leave their native land, and endure all the woes of a perpetual exile. If the rules of policy could not hinder you from thus depopulating your kingdom, and transferring to foreign countries its manufactures and commerce, I am surprised that your heart itself did not stop you. ”