must, some future day, cut off the chain by which we are now bound to the inspirations of foreign despotism, and are thus impeded in our growth. heroic war of the people holy which swept from the soil of the Low Countries the firestake of the Spanish Inquisition? Do not all our hearts throb remembering the six years of war for Hellenic Independence which awoke Greece to a second life - an epic poem which still awaits its last canto? Did we not salute with a cry of enthusiasm the battles which attested to us from period to period the immortal life of Poland? You have among you some of my Italian fellowcitizens: not one who is not ready to recommence the struggle against Austria, if Austria were ever to return to invade our Lombardo-Venetian lands. They tell me Garibaldi brings to you his assent: ask him if he does not meditate at this very moment war against the Papal troops. You will salute with a long throb of admiration the presence among you of a man whose friendship honours me, of the head of the American Abolitionists, of William Lloyd Garrison; but will you not remember that the crowning of his apostleship, and the immense conquest of liberty for our black brethren, are due to four years of gigantic battles? And even now, while I write, the equivocation becomes aggravated under the form of spiritual and temporal dualism on the Roman Question, and so impedes its solution. Italy has men without logic and without belief, who assume to tear his crown from the Pontiff, prostrating themselves at the same time before the tiara to conquer Rome with a banner which bears upon it, "the Catholic Apostolic Religion is dominant in Italy"-to drag on to this a Monarchy whose power is derived from the mother authority, and which knows the fate which awaits it when this object is attained. To the windings of these men, who do not scruple to say, "the Papacy has no longer life for itself or for any; Rome belongs to the nation which can and ought to live," - we owe Aspromonte and the strange spectacle of a Chamber which has decreed Rome to be the capital of Italy, and yet stops short in Florence; of a Government which says, "the temporal power is a usurpation," and I repeat it, I do not misunderstand your yet gathers troops on the frontier of that intentions. The battles which you reject contrasted sovereignty to defend it from are not those of which I speak: they are every assault of Italians; of a people who those which, directed by castes or by kings, affirm at every hour their own right over repress Liberty in the bosom of a people, Rome, and who await always with a servile or Justice and Love in international relapatience that Rome, weak, unarmed, with tions. But how will you provide to reject the flower of her sons in prisons or in exile, these? The question of the means is suwith the Damocles sword of Imperial preme. The importance of your work in France suspended over her head, should popular opinion is closely connected with emancipate herself by her own forces. No; in the presence of these repeated lessons, I will not say, from the hope of calling the majority around an innocent banner,-"peace is my object." The majority, lukewarm, timid, void, in its normal conditions, of enthusiasm and of sacrifice, will cling, remembering the assumed obligations, to that banner when, to conquer a decisive victory, you will believe the moment come to veil it and to fight. Now you know it: that inevitable moment will come. Peace cannot become the law of human society until the struggle has been undergone which will establish life and association on the basis of Justice and of Liberty, on the ruins of every Power existing in the name, not of principles, but of dynastic interests. A necessary struggle: a war holy as peace, from whence shall descend the triumph of Good. Were not those European battles holy which saved, some hundreds of years ago, our dogma of Liberty from irruptive Mahometan fatalism? Was not the it. It is necessary, above all, to obtain national disarmament; then to substitute for permanent armies the armed people, the military orders of which Switzerland gives you an example. Do you think you can succeed in this without a Revolution? Permanent armies are now the only protection of existing Govern ments; do you believe you can persuade Governments to commit suicide? And if even in some States, where opinion freely expressed prevails at length over power, you succeed in attaining pacifically the great object you have sought, would you not leave those few States in the power of the vast despotic States, which would continue armed, and among which the law of silence takes from you every means of action? For you a general simultaneous disarmament is necessary. This must be the work of a Congress of the Nations, held by delegates freely and loyally elected, whose decisions shall be ratified by their electors. Will you obtain this without Revolution, without war? I have studied the action of the party of peace in the sphere exterior to power in England. The pacific school of Manchester, the school of Cobden and Bright, obtained from important services rendered to the country in the economical question, a predominant influence. What were the results? England had a programme, often betrayed, but which, however, gave moral encouragement and support to the peoples, whose formula was: "Religious,Civil, Economical Liberty for the whole world; "that school has substituted for this programme a policy of non-intervention which, not being adopted by despotic Governments, has lost every character of principle to become the expression of a fact, of a local abdication, and by announcing the determination of non-intervention for Good - has animated despots to intervene for Evil. It has unnerved, bastardized the moral sense, the humane sense, the sentiment of solidarity which ought to unite all the sons of God under a single banner of common amelioration; it instilled into the mind the egotism which says: "Each within his own confines, each for himself; "it prolonged the duration of the Austrian usurpation, which was only restrained by war, and the duration of the Mahometan usurpation in Europe, which can only be overcome by insurrection and by war. It in fact occasioned the war in the Crimea, by persuading Russia that England would continue always inert, and isolated France recede before the struggle. And when the war burst forth, that school, by limiting it to Sebastopol and hastening the conclusion, prevented the good which might have come out of it, the emancipation of Poland, the lasting enfeeblement of Russia, the stirring up of the European populations subjected to Turkey; and left intact and suspended all the questions which might have been brought to an end for ever. Will not similar results come forth from your apostleship? I fear it. I fear that it will not prevent the war of kings, but dismember and disorder the forces destined for the war of the peoples. upset except by forces of the same kind; that where tyranny, injustice, and arbitrariness reign there is no peace, but long and latent war; that every year of this dissimulated and cowardly war lays a stratum of corruption on the heart of the peoples who have to undergo them; that for this very reason time is precious, duty urgent, war often inevitable and sacred. Among the many who are unnerved, soft, uncertain, your word of peace will descend, there is no doubt, well received and followed out-it does not exact serious sacrifices: but they will turn it against your secret thought. They will preach in your name, under the shadow of the banner raised by you, patience and resignation, trust in the slow, imperceptible work of time. They will crush with the name of imprudence every rising of the people against the reign of evil. They will teach others, not to understand the virtue, the power of any bold initiative; they will substitute for it the worship of a public opinion, which is in substance nothing but the element prepared for action. They will justify with a doctrine, holy in itself, but immature and inopportune at this period, every hesitation dictated by fear, every shameful desertion, every servile concession of those who, among the tempests, seek repose and health for themselves. No, this is not our intention. In a world given to oppression, to moral anarchy, to the corruptions of privilege, to the caprice of individuals, to the brutal force which supports them, the intention which duty points out to us is the triumph of moral law, the suppression of all that opposes its fulfilment, the re-arrangement of Europe, the sovereignty of the nations of free, equal, associated; the assistance of all to all for the emancipation of all who are oppressed, for the amelioration of all who suffer, for the education of all, the independence of all, the armament of all. Our intention is the re-establishment of Poland, the fulfilment of German unity, of Italian unity, of Hellenic unity; a Danubian confederation This day there is a want of the nerve of substituted for the Austrian Empire, an orithe mind, of the energy of convictions, of ental Switzerland substituted for the Turkunity between thought and action, of the ish Empire in Europe; a Scandinavian holy indignation against evil. There is a union, an Iberian union, liberty for France; want of the belief that life is a sacrifice and the Republican United States of Europe; a battle; that we are all, individuals a permanent international Congress above and peoples, pledged for great and noble all. The intention why not avow it ? causes; that this common bond ought to be is a last great, holy crusade, a battle of affirmed by actions, that actions are deter- Marathon in behalf of Europe, for the trimined by the rule of obstacles, that moral umph of the progressive principle over the obstacles ought to be combated by moral principle of retrogression, or of immovaforces, but that material obstacles cannot be bility. This is the intention; do not conceal it, do not mask it; have the courage of Greek faith; inspire with this faith and this courage the peoples who are lulled to sleep. When at the summit of your edifice you shall have substituted justice for arbitrariness, truth for falsehood, duty for egotistical interests, the republic for monarchy, you will then have peace; not sooner. Transform your Congress; let it become a Congress of the men of duty, of liberty, of association. Let it extend over Europe. "The Universal Republican Alliance," whose nucleus exists already in the United States of America. The brief time which remains to me of life shall be consecrated to the development of your work. To-day I remain uncertain, and I esteem you too much not to say it to you openly. Yours, September 6th, 1867. question, what he thought America would The line of Seneca - for Mr. Sumner GIUSEPPE MAZZINI. goes back so far -"Nec sit terris ultima Thule" is only connected with the subject because Columbus quoted it in a letter to Queen Isabella; though that, as well as the suggestion of Strabo, that two inhabited lands might be found "prolonged into the Atlantic Ocean," may serve to indicate the From the London Review, Oct. 5. early period at which the eyes of mankind AMERICAN DESTINY. were turned expectantly westward. "Men shall descry another hemisphere * But see, the sun speeds on his western path THE Hon. Charles Sumner has recently written a monograph, which he calls "Prophetic Voices about America," intended to group together whatever the Old World has prophesied concerning the New, both before and since its discovery. Although the essay has about it a good deal of the American eagle which Mr. Emerson once described as sometimes curiously resembling a peacock - it bears the marks of considerable research, and is a contribution of some importance towards a chapter of history that can only be completely written at a maturer period of American It is rather, however, with the prophecies thought. Some of the earlier prognostica- made concerning the destiny of America tions concerning the future of America are, after it was colonized, that the monograph however, conspicuously absent. It is singu- is concerned. Some of these, it must be lar that the very vague prediction of Tur- admitted, are more quaint than important; got in 1748, that America "would do what notably that of Sir Thomas Browne, who Carthage did". a prediction which the sees America in the future "divided begrowing discontent of the colonies naturally tween great princes," and engaged in "pisuggested-should not have reminded the ratically" assaulting and invading "their senator of the more glowing language in originals"-i.e., the nations of the Old which Montesquieu admonished Europe of World. It is, indeed, plain that the "prophthe strength and greatness of the people ecies" about America only became clear growing up in the woods of America. And when they had facts upon which to base even the good Bishop Berkeley's line, "Westward the course of empire takes its way," is hardly so profound as the omitted expression of Coleridge, in reply to the themselves so long have mankind been acting upon the advice of Hosea Biglow, "Don't never prophecy onless you know." When, under the masterly neglect of the long colonial administration of the Duke of Newcastle, in the first half of the eighteenth century, New England and Virginia had between them matured the forces of an invincible insurrection, it was not wonderful that enthusiasts should arise to believe that America was to be the seat of the Fifth Empire, and the old traveller, Burnaby, was probably justified by the situation in 1775 in writing "an idea, strange as it is visionary, has entered the minds of the generality of mankind, that empire is travelling westward; and every one is looking forward with eager and impatient expectation to that destined moment when America is to give the law to the rest of the world." The elder John Adams wrote that nothing was more ancient in his memory than the observation that arts, sciences, and empire, had travelled westward; and though there is a tradition that there was found drilled in a rock of the old Plymouth shore -it was surmised by the hand of one of the pilgrims : we cannot, in the absence of any authentication of the inscription, fail to recognise a post-fourth-of-July character in the couplet. The extent and particularity of the faith in the great destiny of America, whilst as yet the conflict with England was very critcal, was, however, certainly in some cases remarkable. Thus the Neapolitan, Abbé Galiani, a writer on international law, whose works are still of value, writes to Madame D'Epinay in 1776 - some months before the Declaration of Independence: "The epoch is come of the total fall of Europe and of transmigration into America. All here turns into rottenness-religion, laws, arts, sciences and all hastens to renew itself in America. Therefore do not buy your house in the Chausée d'Antin; you must buy it in Philadelphia. My trouble is that there are no abbeys in America." The only reason given by the Abbé for his faith is, that" for five thousand years genius has turned opposite to the diurnal motion, and travelled from the east to the west." This was in the same year that Adam Smith was representing the slow march of English speculation by concluding that, "in little more than a century" the seat of empire over America would, through the increase of American produce, be transferred across the Atlantic. The "Wealth of Nations," with this opinion in it, was published in England simultaneously with the American Declaration of Independence! Some of the most interesting prophecies collated by Mr. Sumner are those that were inspired by jealousy in the minds of various Governments of the continent of Europe holding colonies in the New World. A Dutch correspondent of John Adams writes in 1780, that he has heard it repeatedly said, – -"If America becomes free it will some day give the law to Europe; it will seize our islands and our colonies of Guiana; it will seize all the West Indies; it will swallow Mexico, even Peru, Chili, and Brazil; it will take from us our freighting commerce; it will pay its benefactors with ingratitude." The Count D'Aranda, the Spanish Ambassador at Paris, even whilst he was entertaining Jay and Franklin, wrote to his king (1783) concerning the danger into which the success of America in her war with England had brought the Spanish possessions in that hemisphere. How," he asks, "can we expect the Americans to respect the kingdom of New Spain, when they shall have the facility of possessing themselves of this rich and beautiful country?" He counsels that three infantas shall be placed in America. -one as King of Mexico, another as King of Peru, and a third as King of the Terra Firma. 66 Mr. Sumner gives a valuable statement concerning the famous "Monroe doctrine," the origination of which he attributes to Mr. Canning. He, with the majority of American writers on this subject, fails to note that a general view of the superior rights of the United States on that continent was expressed by the First Napoleon when he sold to President Jefferson the greater part of the valley of the Mississippi, in terms that acknowledge the "Monroe doctrine." Nevertheless, there seems no doubt that President Monroe received the theory from Canning. Earnestly engaged in resisting the designs of the Holy Alliance, Mr. Canning sought to enlist the United States in the same policy, and to that end represented to the American 'Minister in London, Mr. Rush, that America, equally with Europe, was endangered by the ambitious schemes of the Alliance. It was in almost the very language used by Mr. Canning that Mr. Munroe presently declared that his country would consider any attempt on the part of European Governments "to extend their systems to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety," and that it could not look upon any attempts at oppressing or controlling Governments in America, | but her deadliest enemy could contrive no whose independence they had recognised, surer way of baulking it or of delaying its "in any other light than as a manifestation fulfilment, than to induce her to set about of an unfriendly disposition toward the fulfilling a cut-and-dried plan of developUnited States." There was a burst of ap- ment. The Old World, overcrowded and plause in England when this position was hampered in movement, has naturally protaken; and Mr. Canning, in reviewing the jected its own ideals and hopes upon the course of affairs in 1826, before the House fresh and wide canvas of the New; but it of Commons, said in triumph, "I called were a lame conclusion that America should the New World into existence to redress be fettered by these. The genius who the balance of the Old." planned that continent has, possibly, designs We have omitted many of the "prophe- of his own- designs more magnificent, it cies," especially the modern ones. Some of may be, than those of Berkeley or Galiani. them are hardly more significant than the The sum of nearly all the prophets quoted exclamations which Voltaire describes as by Mr. Sumner is, that America is to blown through bassoons at the distin- extend over North America, to contain guished Monsieur. "How entirely must teeming millions of population, and to excel Monsieur be satisfied with himself! Any the Old World in its own arts and powers. amount of eulogy will leave our relatives But after all it would be but a gigantic across the ocean just what they are. But duplicate of the Old World, and therefore there runs through much of the recent hardly a New World at all. We do not writing and speaking that come to us from believe in this theory of national predestinaAmerica a tone that indicates a recurrence tion. We believe that the destiny of of the old idea of "manifest destiny," which America is to be freshly moulded in the seems to us far from healthy. In the days hearts and brains of her people; that she whose unhappy memory is still fresh, when may be debased by national profligacy, or the American Congress "passed," as Theo- raised by the virtues of her people. A big dore Parker put it," a deliberate lie that country did not imply a noble people when 'war existed by the act of Mexico,"" and the Indians occupied an unlimited America, proceeded to seize Texas and other vast and it will not now; other aims and charregions, which brought all manner of strife acteristics must make good Berkeley's into the Union with them, and have since words been battle-fields, we heard much about "manifest destiny." The rulers and chief politicians of that period did not hesitate to declare that America in that invasion was only fulfilling her destiny of spreading over the North American continent. Fortunately, those who ruled America on such principles proved intolerable to the honest masses of the nation, and have long been superseded. It is discouraging to witness now in any quarter a disposition to revive that lust for mere expansion, and to find the IT is time for the French Government leading senator of New England- the seriously to reconsider its recent Italian polChairman of the Foreign Affairs Commit- icy. The King of ITALY is justified by tee of Congress boasting that one of his common sense in his belief that it will be prophets, a Mexican, opens the door to impossible to continue indefinitely the presAmericans, and asking when will Canada ent arrangements between himself and the be ripe. Nor is this feeling quite removed EMPEROR. That the September Convenwhen Mr. Sumner says, "It is easy to see tion could ever hope to be a permanent sothat empire obtained by force is unrepubli- lution of the Papal question was not even All of the senator's countrymen pretended during the course of the negotia may not share his philosophical opinions in tions which led to it. At the time of the this matter. Is not the area of the United conclusion of the treaty, both contracting States big enough? With one or two mil- Powers had the strongest reasons for desirlions of square miles of uncultured or totally ing that the French occupation of Rome wild lands, is it a worthy aim to be coveting should cease. The chief difficulty was to even the ice-dens of grizzly bears in Wal-devise some colourable plan by which russia? France might withdraw her flag with digniAmerica no doubt has a great destiny, ty, and without the semblance of abandon can." "Time's noblest offspring is the last." From the Saturday Review, Oct. 5. FRANCE AND ITALY. |