Recent European Events

Brownson's Quarterly Review, July, 1848

Art. V. - 1. The French Revolution of 1848, - its Causes, Actors, Events, and Influences. By G. G. Foster and Thomas Dun English. Philadelphia : Zieber & Co. 1848.    8vo.   pp.221.
2. The Falcon Family, or Young Ireland. By the Author of " The Bachelor of the Albany." Boston ; T. Wiley, Jr. 1848.    8vo.   pp. 90.

An extemporary history of the French revolution, intended to reach the public before the events which it narrates have lost their interest, and an ephemeral novel, designed, by gross ex­aggeration and caricature, to prevent a revolution in Ireland, have seemed to us not unsuitable productions to be placed at the head of some remarks on the events in progress, or just accomplished, in Europe. The history is a fitting type of the recent revolutionary movements, extemporary, irregular, passionate, frothy; and the novel, of the wisdom, judgment, and energy of the party opposed to them.
Our views of revolutions in general are well known to our readers, and we have at present no occasion to repeat them. We have seen nothing in the recent events in Europe that seems to us to call for any modification of the doctrines which we have uniformly contended for, however unpalatable they may be to the visionary politicians of the day. Of course, we, in common with every man worthy of the name of man, abhor despotism ; but we abhor the despotism of mobs more than that of kings. The king may be licentious, wicked, and de­light to oppress his subjects ; but nature ordinarily sets some limits to his power, and the principal weight of his oppression falls upon the higher classes rather than upon the lower. There is for the great body of the people in general such a thing as living under his government. There are nooks and corners where his eye cannot penetrate and his arm cannot reach. But under the mob, unless you join it, and urge it on to harass and oppress, there is no living for you.    It is resistless and remorseless. Its eyes penetrate every cranny, and its power finds out and uncovers every hiding-place. It leaves a covert for none, - shelter for neither soul nor body, - and is well termed, in our strong old Anglo-Saxon phrase, "Hell broke loose." We confess, therefore, that we have a lively horror of mobs, and not even a polite Parisian mob, courteously and with inimitable grace and delicacy begging us just to permit it to fusilade us or to cut our throats, is able to inspire us with confidence in them. If we must die under the operation of drugs administered to restore us to health, let them be pre­scribed by the mediciner with a diploma in his pocket, and a gold-headed cane to his nose, -¦ not by the unauthorized quack. If the regular practitioner kills us, it is his affair and he must answer for it; but if the quack kills us, our death is a sort of suicide, for which we are ourselves responsible. So, if we must be stripped of our rights, robbed of our manhood, and reduced to abject slavery, let it be by the crowned head and the sceptred hand, not by the untitled multitude.

As mobs at best are despots, and as kings can be only des­pots at worst, we are not prepared to raise the shout of joy  merely because a mob in its wrath has deposed a king, burnt    I a throne, put an end to a dynasty, and resolved the state into its original elements.    We judge it prudent to wait a little and see what is likely to follow,- whether any thing for real political and social well-being is likely to be gained.  We are no apologists for kings in general, and certainly not for the late king of the French in particular.    We have never admired Louis    Philippe as a man ; we have never admitted his right to the throne he occupied, and we have seen much in his policy to censure, and but little to approve.    A mob made him king, and it was not unfitting that a mob should unmake him.   Never­theless, France did exist under his reign, - in some respects even prospered, and began to show symptoms of returning san­ity, common sense, faith, and piety.    If she could have loyally accepted the Orleans dynasty, and cordially cooperated with it in correcting and improving the administration, instead of exerting herself to embarrass the government, or collecting and concentrating her energies for one bold and vigorous effort to change its constitution, it seems to us that she might have found her condition tolerable, have gradually recovered from the dis­astrous effects of her previous revolutions, and resumed her place at the head of modern civilization.    The very worst way in the world to improve the temper or to facilitate the beneficial operations of a government is to keep it in constant ap­prehension for its own safety. Assuredly, we have little sym­pathy with Louis Philippe ; but worse kings have been borne with, and we sincerely hope that France, who in a moment of delirium made him king, may never have cause to regret that in another moment of delirium she has unmade him.
We may be told that the abolition of royalty is in itself a great gain, and that, as friends of liberty, we ought to rejoice in the triumphs of democracy. We trust that it is not neces­sary for us at this late day to proclaim our love of liberty, or our devotion to the cause of the people. Let those of our countrymen who have more steadily devoted themselves to that cause than we have, or at a greater sacrifice claimed and exer-\ cised the highest of all freedoms, reproach us if they will. We | are stanch republicans,- for our own country. Not, indeed, because we believe the American people, in civilization, intelli­gence, morals, religion, to be in advance of the European na­tions ; but because republicanism is the form of government which Almighty God in his providence has established for us ; because it is here the legal and the only legal form ; and because it has its roots in our national life, and is the only government to which our national habits, manners, and usages are adapted. It is coeval with our national existence, has grown up with us, and is a part of our concrete selves. We are, so to speak, natural-born republicans, and instinctively, without deliberation, adopt republican modes, and act to republican ends. But while these are good and sufficient reasons for maintaining re­publicanism at home, they are not good and sufficient reasons for asserting its superiority over all other forms for other na­tions, whose training has been different from ours. The French people, for instance, may even surpass us in religion, morals, intelligence, and refined civilization ; but, trained as they have been under the centralized monarchical system of modern Europe, they are necessarily destitute of those forms of interior life essential to republicanism, and without which it must be something foreign and unnatural. There is a wide dif­ference between their case and ours. We, in order to support and carry on our government, have little else to do but to fall into the established routine ; we are not required to make any effort, to change or do violence to any of our habits of life or modes of activity. All follows in the ordinary course of things. But it is not so with a nation that throws off an old monarchi­cal government, and seeks to establish the republican order.  The new order imposes a new language, new forms of interior as well as exterior life, unwonted modes of action. Nothing flows on spontaneously. All is strange, and no one feels him­self at home. You can conform to the new order only as you deliberate, make an effort, force your activity into new chan­nels. All your indeliberate and instinctive action takes a wrong direction. You must be constantly on your guard, and can allow yourself no relaxation, no abandon. All your faculties must be strained taught, and every man must be a profound po­litical philosopher and a thoroughly accomplished statesman, or be liable to blunder, and to blunder, perhaps, fatally. It is not the change of one king, or one dynasty, for another, but it is the destruction of the old nation, and the attempt to mould a new nation out of its ashes. It is a fearful change. It re­quires the whole past life of the nation to be stricken out, and reduces the great body of the people to political infancy, sends them back to the cradle or the nurse's arms, just at the moment when they have the most need to be full-grown men. May we not, then, without forfeiting our claim to be reckoned among the friends of liberty, when we see a great nation trying this change, pause awhile before concluding it to be necessarily the triumph of the popular cause ?

There are, indeed, politicians among us, and not without influence on public affairs, who will tell us that no danger is to be apprehended ; that all is safe as soon as kings are got rid of, and the people take the management of affairs into their own hands ; but these politicians will excuse us for saying that their appropriate place is in the nursery, not in the professor's chair, the halls of legislation, or the cabinets of ministers. As long as they consider it a proof of their wisdom to turn up their little noses at the bare idea of an infallible Church, they must not expect us to swallow an infallible people, and especially, if such as they can be its leaders. The people are, no doubt, in general, honest in their aims, but they lack discrimination and forecast, and are, for the most part, the dupes of their lead­ers or of their own passions. Rarely in what they approve or in what they oppose do they distinguish between the good and the evil they find mingled together, - between the essential and the accidental, the use and the abuse. They know, of course, that such distinction exists and should be made ; but they do not know how or where to make it. If a system has worked ill in consequence of its having been abused, or in con­sequence of matters accidentally connected with it, but not springing from it, their approved and usual remedy is to sweep it away. The remains of the barbarism which preceded its establishment, and sprang from other sources, disturbed the workings of feudalism, and they cried out, Down with feudal­ism ! Corrupt and courtly prelates basked in the sunshine of royalty, forgot their flocks, and failed to denounce the tyrant, and they exclaimed, Down with the Church! The king abused his powers and oppressed his subjects, and they screamed out, Down with monarchy, and up with democracy ! In their eager­ness to throw off the evil, they almost invariably throw away the good in juxtaposition with which they find it, - just as your modern philanthropists, in pursuing some special object, tram­ple down more good by the way than they could possibly re­move of evil by gaining the end they seek. There is no use in denying or in seeking to disguise this fact, which is obvious to every one who has studied popular movements with the least attention.

Where republicanism is already constituted, as it is with us, and has grown up with the life of the nation, we have no lack of confidence in the capacity of the people, through their repre­sentatives, to administer the government as wisely and as bene­ficially as human governments can be administered ; but we have yet to be convinced that wise and good government is |sure to follow, the moment the people have thrown oft' royalty, and taken upon themselves the task of reconstituting the state, and of administering the public affairs. In point of fact, what­ever the form of government established or proposed, the great body of the people count for little or nothing in determining its character or its policy. The questions which arise are decided by the few, and the many have simply the liberty to grumble, or acquiesce in silence. The action of the government, whether monarchical or democratical, is determined by the natural or artificial chiefs of the people, and will be wise and beneficial for the public good, in proportion to the intelligence, wisdom, firmness, and disinterestedness of these chiefs. If these chiefs are able and disposed to administer the government for the public good, it will be so administered, and if not able and so disposed, it will not be so administered, whatever its form. The reliance is always on the few, frequently on one man alone ; as is evinced by the manner in which moderate republicans now speak of Lamartine, and the radicals of Ledru-Rollin. Save in a sentimental point of view, universal suffrage counts for far less tha,n is commonly supposed.   The real constituency of the government is never the numerical majority of the people, but the numerical minority composed of the active politicians of the country. Viewed in the abstract, we con­fess, the question as to which is the best form of government is not in our judgment of primary importance. Forms of gov­ernment, as somebody says, are like the forms of shoes, - those are best which best fit the feet that are to wear them. The motives which should decide us in favor of one form or another are extrinsic, not intrinsic. Any form is good, if adapted to the people for whom it is designed ; and any form is bad, if not so adapted. The existing form is always the best; and we consider it a capital mistake for a people to look upon the form of government to which it is wedded as a thing that can be changed. The nation should always look upon its es­tablished form of government as immutable ; as every married couple should always look upon their marriage as indissoluble. If, whenever something unpleasant occurs in their mutual rela­tions, instead of taking each a charitable view of it, and cooper­ating with the other to overcome it and restore the sunshine of domestic peace, a married couple contemplate and threaten a separation and a change of partners, their union is henceforth constrained and unnatural ; love and confidence take their de­parture ; each suspects the other ; each magnifies the slightest imperfections or errors of the other into enormous faults or crimes, and both find their condition intolerable. So is it with a nation. The moment the people once get their heads filled with the notion, that their marriage to the state is dissoluble at their will, and that the remedy for their real or imaginary griev­ances is in throwing off the existing form and adopting a dif­ferent one, they place themselves out of the condition of being well governed. They have no longer the moral state to judge properly of the acts of the government, or to be satisfied with a single measure it can adopt. The first law of every govern­ment, as well as of the individual, is self-preservation ; and how can a government improve its administration, redress griev­ances, and lighten the burdens of its subjects, if it is obliged to use all its resources solely for the preservation of its own existence ? The people themselves, by demanding political instead of administrative changes, by seeking the destruction of the government instead of loyally cooperating with it for the pub­lic good, create the necessity for those repressive measures of which they complain, and which become to them new motives for the change they seek or threaten.

We certainly have no admiration for that centralized monar­chical system of government which sprang up in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which culminated in Louis the Fourteenth of France, but which has lingered on as the dominant regime to our own times. Under it the European populations have suffered immense evils, and have received comparatively few of the benefits which it is the purpose of the state to secure for all her subjects, whatever their rank or con­dition in life. But whence came that system ? Was it due solely to the ambition of the kings themselves ? And after its establishment, was it the wisest course for the people to seek to exchange it for democracy ? Let us dwell for a few moments on these questions.

Europe, after the destruction of the Roman empire, was gradually reorganized on the feudal principle, under the modera-torship of the Church. The constituent elements of the state were the king, the barons, the clergy, and the communes, or free cities. The mutual relations of nations, of estates, and of princes and their subjects, were placed under the safeguard of the Papacy, which, as having the special interests of none, but the good of all, in view, was, even humanly considered, natural­ly an impartial judge, and a wise and just moderator. Such, in a word, was the feudal system, and, theoretically considered, perhaps as perfect a political system as the world has ever witnessed or ever will witness. But, unhappily for its satis­factory practical workings, the populations placed under it, and the kings and barons constituent elements of it, personally retained no small share of the barbarism into which all Europe, except the Church, was plunged by the destruction of the Roman empire and its civilization. The barbarians who in­vaded and overthrew the empire were gradually converted, indeed, and they received from the Church, with the faith, the germs of her generous and noble civilization ; but they for a long lime retained but too many traces of their old barbaric habits and dispositions. To overcome these, and bring the populations into personal conformity to Christian civilization, demanded generations of peaceful and continued training. The Church labored for it with supernatural energy and astonishing success ; but her labors were repeatedly interrupted by the in­vasion of new hordes of barbarians and infidels, which continued, with brief intervals, till the eleventh century. The Huns in the East and the Centre, the Saracens in the South and South-west, the Saxons in Germany, the Danes in England and Ireland, the Normans in France and parts of Italy, prove to the historical reader how long pagan and infidel barbarians con­tinued to invade Christian Europe, and how often the labors of the Church were broken ofF, how frequently the slow gains of years were destroyed in a moment, and she was compelled to begin her work of civilization anew. The Saxons were not converted till the ninth century ; the Prussians, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, were pagans in the eleventh century, and the greater part of them in the twelfth. The Saracenic power was not fairly checked till the invasion of Asia by the Cru­saders, nor broken till the celebrated battle of Lepanto, in the sixteenth century.
These facts should lead us to expect in the feudal ages no little of unredeemed barbarism alongside of the generous and noble forms of Christian civilization, as the grotesque in juxta­position with the beautiful; and we, in fact, do find in them the most wonderful developments of intellectual and moral energy, miracles of Christian meekness, gentleness, love, mani­festing themselves in all their sublime beauty in the cathedrals, the public worship, the religious and charitable establishments, and the piety, fervor, and devotedness of individuals of all ranks, from the prince to the peasant, along with an unmitigated per­sonal barbarism that an Attila, an Alaric, a Genseric, a Caled, a Ralph the Ganger, would not have disdained. The huge form of the barbarian was oftener revealed than concealed by the ample folds of the toga. The tiger from the forest or the jungle was but half domesticated, and resumed all his native ferocity at the first lap of blood. Throughout are the feudal ages marked by huge disproportions, by the sublimest virtues and the darkest crimes ; the most winning gentleness and the most brutal vio­lence ; Christian charity in all its supernatural beauty, and savage humanity in all its hideous deformity, brought together in fearful contrast and mortal combat. On their Christian side, we cannot exaggerate their merit; on their barbaric side, it is hard to say too much against them.

But this barbarism, which disfigured the feudal ages, and which no admirer of feudalism denies or palliates, was not in­herent in the system itself. It did not grow out of feudalism, for the tribes possessed it before they came under the influence of that political order ; it did not spring from the Church, be­cause they possessed it prior to their conversion ; it did not spring from both united, for the same reason, and because it yielded in time to their joint action and influence.    It was, therefore, not in the political and ecclesiastical order of the feudal ages, but in the people not as yet brought into harmony wilh Christianity. The barbarism was in the persons, not in the order. So every one who is able to discriminate and is willing to be just knows, admits, or contends. But the Northern nations converted, the Saracens held in check by the Crusaders, the Church found herself in comparative peace. She resumed and continued her civilizing labors, and by the end of the fourteenth century succeeded in bringing the European populations, very generally into comparative harmony with her own civilization. But just at this period, when the ecclesiastical and political order of the feudal times had overcome its chief obstacles, when it had so humanized the persons as to make them see and blush at their former barbarism, the people with their usual dis­crimination turned round and charged that barbarism to the very order which had so long struggled against it, and which had in good measure delivered them from it. Did not that barbarism for centuries coexist with feudalism and Catholicity ? Certain­ly it did. Then feudalism and Catholicity caused it, and are responsible for it. Then down with Catholicity and feudalism ! So began the people to reason, with their characteristic logic, in the fifteenth century, and aided in the sixteenth by the Lu­theran insurrection, they were able to strike a death-blow at feudalism, and would have done the same to Catholicity, had she not been an Immortality.

The mistake of the people in confounding with the feudal order the personal barbarism which, in feudal times, existed under it, or rather in spite of it, led to the destruction of feudal­ism. Feudalism destroyed, centralism necessarily followed. All power was concentrated in the hands of the monarchy, - the principle of Oriental despotism. The people, at the time, had no fear of the royal tyranny and oppression. Between them and the king had stood the barons and the prelates, who had felt the principal weight of royal violence, and from whom the people in turn had suffered the grievances, real or imaginary, they complained of. Their resentments were against these, and not against the king. The barons oppress us, and the prelates do not restrain them. Down, then, with them both, and oppression will cease, all our wrongs will be righted, and we shall be happy, live in clover, under our father the king! Unsupported, but opposed, by the peo­ple, the barons could make only a feeble resistance, and feudalism, after a comparatively short struggle, was obliged to succumb to centralism. The clergy, for the same reason, were unable to maintain their independence, and the Church be­came enslaved to the temporal power, - in Russia by schism; in England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, by heresy ; in France, and finally in Austria, Spain, and Portugal, by practical Gallicanism. There was then no longer any inter­mediate power between the king and the people, and the people found, when it was too late, that they had exchanged feudalism for despotism, the rods of Solomon for the scorpions of his son.
It is remarkable, how, after the Reformation, every thing conspired to enlarge and render absolute the monarchy, which in the original reorganization of Europe had been only one element out of four. In Protestant countries monarchy was extolled, because it was the bulwark of heresy. In Catholic countries, for a time, it was opposed, and the old doctrines of liberty were maintained, in the schools and universities. The " divine right of kings " was a Protestant doctrine, and it was against the Catholic Cardinal Du Perron that James the First of England wrote his famous Remonstrance in its defence ; and hence the first republican reaction against monarchy appears in England, and more than a hundred years before it manifests itself in France. But gradually Catholic kings became ardent defenders of the faith, and even Catholics turned monarchists, and courtly bishops were found to advocate and justify royal absolutism, as a protection against schism and heresy,-. hop­ing, no doubt, by their spiritual action on the monarch's con­science, to restrain him from abusing his powers, - a sad mis­take, for he could banish them at will from court, and deprive them of their revenues.

It was not wholly the fault of the kings that feudalism became converted into centralism, and the estates succumbed to the despot. It was still more the fault of the people, who, when they had emerged from barbarism, and at the very moment when the political and ecclesiastic order, by means of which they had emerged, could begin to operate, free from the causes which previously disturbed it, rejected it on account of the bar­barism which had been accidentally connected with it, and wished for a different constitution of the state. If the people had resisted, or not been ready to assent, the kings could never have suppressed the barons, enslaved the Church, and monopo­lized all power in their own hands. They succeeded, not in spite of the people, but by their cooperation ; and the people, if disappointed, had themselves principally to blame.    Whatever the faults or defects of modern centralism, there can be no doubt that it was popular in its origin, and had, if not the formal, at least the virtual, assent of the European populations.

That the people should have been dissatisfied with this new system is nothing strange. They had in their folly and mad­ness thrown off the best, and obtained the worst, of all possible systems of government, and, of course, must have found them­selves in no enviable condition. But were they wise in oppos­ing the government of their own choice, and in seeking to re­place it by democracy ?

To go back to feudalism with its barbarism was out of the question ; to go back to it even without its barbarism was im­practicable. Restorations are rarely successful, even when the order restored, in itself considered, is better than any other order likely to be obtained. Feudalism, if it had continued, if it existed now, with our advanced personal civilization and re­finement, would, in our judgment, be the perfection of govern­ment. But having been thrown off, and the ideas of the peo­ple all turned against it, its restoration is impracticable and undesirable. With its evils we must give up its good, unless we can secure it by some other method. We blame not, therefore, the people for not going back, or attempting to go back, to feudalism, when they found their new system fail. But had they no alternative but either to remain slaves to mo­narchical centralism, or to try the experiment of democracy ?

The new order established was, briefly characterized, the king on the one side, and the mob on the other. The local organizations which limited and tempered the general sovereign­ty were swept away, and the people, outside of the monarchy, had no organization, and therefore were not a power. The king was the state, and besides him there was no state. The people out of the state, without political organization, can act only as the mob. What they needed was an organization between them as simple individuals and the monarchy, which should shelter them from its despotism, restrain the exercise of its authority within the limits of justice, and prevent it from in­fringing the natural liberty of the subject. This, it strikes us, was obtainable without any essential political change, if the peo­ple had accepted the new system in good faith. It might have been easily effected by simply emancipating the Church from her thraldom to the state, and suffering her to enjoy her right­ful independence of the temporal order; and this could have been effected without atly revolution or violent struggle, by the simple return of the people to their active faith as Christians. Each bishop in his diocese, each priest in his parish, receiving his mission, and exercising his functions, without any interven­tion, direct or indirect, of the civil government, would have been, though without one particle of political power, a moral sovereign, competent to protect his flock from the oppressions of the monarch, and to secure them against all encroachments upon their rights as men. No king ever was or ever can be powerful enough to resist the clergy in his dominions, if they are independent of him, and are backed by the faith and con­science of the people. The people, then, might, if they had chosen, have compelled their kings to reign wisely and justly, without any political changes, and even without troubling their heads in the least about politics or the constitution of the state, - simply by attending to their faith and duties as Christians.

But this was too simple and easy a method. The people hailed with joy the subjection of the spiritual order to the tem­poral, the Church to the state, and then denounced the Church because she did not protect them from its tyranny ; they in­sisted on her subjection, and then demanded of her what she could not do unless independent. But as she did not do it, they arrayed themselves against both the Church and the gov­ernment, swore the destruction of both throne and altar, and thus compelled the Church and the monarchy, as the condition of continuing to exist, to make common cause against the pop­ular demands, and to postpone to more settled times the re­dress of political grievances. But the more the Church and the government resisted the popular movement, the more deter­mined and menacing it became ; and from the early part of the eighteenth century, the mob, seconded by the philosophers, a cause and an effect of the popular movement, became every day stronger and more exasperated, and before the close of that century succeeded in overthrowing monarchy, as, led on by the kings, it had succeeded in overthrowing feudalism, and if it failed to overthrow the Church, it was only because she is upheld by a Divine hand. Anarchy, of course, followed, the reign of terror, and military despotism ; reaction, and an in­sane restoration, which left matters worse than they were at the beginning.
Now the error in all this was not in seeking to get rid of evils, or to ameliorate the social condition. We know no law, hu­man or divine, which sanctions misrule and oppression, or which forbids an oppressed people to labor for liberty and justice. The error was not here, not as to the end sought, but solely as to the means, - in supposing a fundamental political change, or a political revolution in favor of republicanism or of any other form of government, to be the only practicable remedy, or a practicable remedy at all. We do not maintain that wrongs are not to be redressed, that the people may not demand justice from the hands of their rulers ; nor do we go so far as to main­tain that individual kings may not be deposed, and dynasties changed, for good and sufficient reasons ; for these are not the government, but its administrators, and they may abuse their trusts and forfeit their rights ; but we do maintain that it is always a capital error to seek reform or redress by changing the form of government, the fundamental constitu­tion of the state. That should be held sacred and inviolable, whether a feudal, a monarchical, an aristocratical, or a demo-cratical constitution ; for each is alike legitimate, where it is the established order. The man who dares attack it is guilty of sacrilege. He who advises its destruction, or its exchange for another, draws his counsel from hell, and the people who drink in his infernal advice, and prepare to act on it, are mad, and rush to their own destruction ; for, whether they know it or not, the principle they adopt and the spirit they follow are, at bottom, opposed to all government, render government, in any form, impracticable ; and without govern­ment, there is and can be no society, no people, nothing but isolated individuals or the mob.

We must not lose sight of this fact. It is because the tendency to redress evils by changing the form of the govern­ment is, at bottom, no-governmentism, that no popular revolu­tion is ever final, or able to satisfy those who make it. Every popular revolution, if left to itself, necessarily develops in a series of revolutions, each removing society farther and farther from government. Thus, in the old French Revolution, we had first a revolution that brought up the notables, then another that brought up the respectables, and then still another that brought up the sans-culottes,- Mirabeau and Lafayette, Ver-gniaud and Roland, Danton and Robespierre ; and what we should have had next, if the series had not been cut short by the reaction, it is impossible to say, but some lower form of anarchy and terror is certain ; for already, before his downfall, had Robespierre become too aristocratic and conservative for the mob. For the same reason, the policy of concession sel­dom avails to appease the revolutionary spirit, and to reestablish order and content. The demands of the people, when made in a loyal spirit, without any thought of attacking the con­stitution of the state, may often be conceded with advantage both to them and to the government ; but even when just, if they are prompted by the revolutionary spirit, or made under the conviction that the people have the right to overthrow the constitution when they please, and to institute a new govern­ment after their own ideas or fancies, the concession is useless, and even worse, if you mean to preserve the constitution un­impaired. Concessions then only stimulate new and greater demands, and weaken the government. The people, after them, if the shadow of government remains, find the same dis­proportion as ever between their actual and their ideal. They are still restrained, cramped, confined, and are not free in their sense of freedom. They have not reached Utopia, nor recov­ered the lost Eden. You must yield all the revolutionary spirit demands, grant each new demand as quick as it is made, or else resist it in the outset. Whoso goes an inch with the mob is a lost man, if he goes not with it whithersoever it will. You might as well undertake to guide or stay the tempest, as to attempt to direct or resist the mob, when once you have yielded to it. Who, that suffers himself to be drawn within its vortex, can hope to recover himself and escape from the Maelstrom ?

The great difficulty arises at all times, in our view of the case, from the revolutionary spirit, the tendency to redress grievances by seeking to subvert the political constitution. The evils, however great, can always be remedied, as far as in their nature remediable, without any thing of the sort,- simply by the people accepting the government in good faith, and loyally laboring with it for improvement. But when the revolutionary spirit has once possessed a nation, and all har­mony, all sympathy, between the people and the government are destroyed, and the government can sustain itself against its own subjects only by means of the military, there is perhaps little use in its attempting to sustain itself at all. It is no longer in a condition, if this state of things is to become permanent, to perform the legitimate functions of government. It, in fact, has ceased to be government, and is only the slave-master driv­ing his miserable gang of wretched slaves. And such had be­come the governments throughout the more civilized part of Europe, before the recent events. There had ceased to be any harmony between them and the people.    Authority and the people were antagonistical, and could not work togeth­er ; the state was almost universally dissolved, and the mon-archs retained their crowns only by means of large standing armies, kept on the war footing, not by any means to defend them against one another, but against their own subjects. The expense of these immense armies, and of the various establish­ments connected with them, had become enormous, and the people were finding themselves obliged to part with nearly all their substance to pay for being governed, and yet not be gov­erned after all. The governments, instead of stimulating and aiding industry, were crippling it, and large portions of the population were reduced to poverty, to the starving point, and many even below it. Gaunt want was staring the millions in the face. How could matters be worse ? The government, having no strength'in the affections or convictions of the peo­ple, no moral support in the nation, could hardly do any thing for the public good, however well disposed, and the people, debauched by revolutionary ideas, would do nothing for them­selves. Was such a state of things, growing worse every day, to last for ever ?

Now we believe the fault of this state of things to be far more due to the disloyalty of the people than to the govern­ments themselves. We cannot discover any period since the beginning of the last century, when the European governments had even the power to prevent or to remedy it. But how­ever this may be, it seems to us certain that things could not long remain as they were. Matters had come to such a pass, that an attempt to right them, in some way, was necessary and inevitable ; and taking the people as they were, perverted by demagogues, sophists, and the malign influence of secret socie­ties, with the revolutionary fever burning in their veins, and longing for democratic institutions, we see not what better could have been attempted than the fearful revolutions which have actually taken place, or are now taking place. If the people had been loyal, Christian, sober, something better would have been possible ; but as they were, we see not what else was practicable. Monarchy had become anti-national, had ceased to be popular, and could not continue to exist. With­out, then, abating any thing of our condemnation of the revolu­tionary ideas and spirit, without countenancing for a moment the absurd doctrine, that the people have always a natural right to democratic institutions, and that monarchy is in itself an illegitimate form of .government, an encroachment upon natural liberty, or the still more absurd doctrine, that the republican order had become inevitable in consequence of the progress of man and society, we are, upon the whole, not sorry that these recent revolutions have been effected, and we accept, without reserve, the New Era they promise to usher in. Only give to the old order honorable burial, and you may, if you can, dig its grave so deep, that no one will think of disinterring its fleshless remains, and dressing them up anew in the robes of state.

We do not applaud the mob for what it has done, we will not consent to call a kw thousands of the Parisian rabble " the glorious French people " ; but we accept their work, now it is done, and are ready to resist all attempts to undo it and return to the monarchical centralism which has been de­throned and exiled. Believing, also, that the principal nations of Europe, unless we except Great Britain and Russia, will be discontented and restless, torn and agitated, out of the condi­tion to be well governed, till they obtain substantially republi­can institutions, we wish the work to continue till such insti­tutions are secured. It is in vain to attempt to change, by any human means, the ideas and tendencies of the people, to arrest the present current of political thought, or to roll back the rev­olutionary tide. Europe, it seems to us, can be settled here­after only on a republican basis ; and since republicanism must come, sooner or later, we say the sooner the better. Half­way measures and feeble temporizing will avail nothing. Now that the hand is in, let the work be done, wherever it needs to be done, and so done that there will, in our day at least, be no occasion for doing it over again.

And this seems to be the view taken by the friends of order and religion in France. The bishops and clergy, as far as we have seen, without a single dissentient voice, have given in their adhesion to the republican order, resolved to give it a fair and honest trial, and to live or die with it. The politicians of all parties seem also to have clone the same. The conviction appears to be universal, that if France is ever to find good government, and be restored to domestic tranquillity and peace, it must be as a republic. This requires no sacrifice of prin­ciple or consistency. Government is for the public good. When circumstances no longer controllable by human means have disabled an existing government from securing that good, and rendered constitutional changes necessary and inevitable, a new regime the only practicable one, it is the part of wisdom, of all sound politics, as well as of duty, to accept it, and to make the best of it. The wise and consistent statesman, when he cannot control circumstances, conforms to them, - for government is an affair of human prudence, - and takes care never to ruin himself or his country for the sake of an abstrac­tion.

It is because we judge it the part of wisdom to accept this republican order, and to labor to render it permanent and bene­ficial, that we have begun our remarks on the recent events in Europe by condemning the causes which have made them necessary and inevitable. If we are not much mistaken, Eu­ropean society can hereafter be settled only on the republican basis. Whether it can be settled even on that may be regard­ed as problematical ; but if not on that, it can on none. Re­publicanism is now the last hope of Europe. If that fails her, her civilization must go backward, and she become ere long the counterpart of Asia. For the reason that, in the fifteenth century, we would have sustained feudalism against the ten­dency to centralism, and in the seventeenth century and the be­ginning of the eighteenth, centralism against the democratic tendency, we would now sustain republicanism against any ten­dency to overthrow it, whether in favor of socialism or aristoc­racy. Our principle is, to sustain the existing constitution of the state, whether it conforms to our abstract notions or not; because in politics every thing is to be taken in the concrete, nothing in the abstract.

But if we maintain in principle that the change from feudal­ism to democracy is a progress, - if we say, with the beardless philosophers of the day, that the people, in seeking it, have been obeying a divine instinct, and declare the revolutionary spirit which has been followed throughout wise and sacred,- we cannot with any consistency maintain this new order, or resist the tendencies that may be manifested for additional changes. Moreover, a people filled with the revolutionary spirit, holding, as a sound maxim in politics, that the evils they may have to endure in the social state are to be remedied by the subversion of the existing government, whether by vio­lence or peaceful agitation, and the substitution of some other form, is incapable of sustaining a good and permanent govern­ment, whatever its constitution ; for no government can prevent or redress all evils, and at best there will be much that can be overcome only by the Christian virtues of resignation and pa­tience.    Every government, if government, must sometimes restrain, must make its authority felt, and compel submission ; for in every society, as long as the world stands, there will be turbulent and rebellious spirits, whom authority must tame. Men's views, too, of the policy the government should adopt will often conflict, and it will be impossible for the government to satisfy them all. Impossible, therefore, must it always be to maintain a fixed and permanent government, if its subjects feel that it is right and proper for them to overthrow it when­ever they choose. The old governments have fallen, not for the want of physical force, but because they no longer had any moral support in their subjects. No matter what is the physi­cal force at the command of the government, it cannot long sustain itself, at least in a condition to perform its proper func­tions, unless it has the moral force of the nation with it. This is even more true of republican government than of any other. The virtue of loyalty is far more essential to a democracy than to a monarchy, -though a democracy is less fitted to inspire it. In vain will you labor to sustain your republic, if the peo­ple are disloyal, if they hold themselves under no moral obliga­tion to support it, and free to abolish it whenever they fancy it will be for their interest or their pleasure to do so. It has then no moral support; and the moment the people find, or imagine they find, themselves a little incommoded by it, they will begin to agitate for a change, and force it to take measures of re­pression or concession, which, sooner or later, must prove its ruin. The brief history of our own governments, especially of the government of the State of New York, would confirm this conclusion, if it needed confirmation.

It is true, that our popular politicians tell us that mere hu­manitarian principles will be always a sufficient guaranty against frequent and unnecessary revolutions. The people, they say, will always, from affection and interest, sustain the government of their choice, and we may always rely on their vis inertim and indisposition to change. For, add they, in the words of Mr. Jefferson, " All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer evils, while they are suf-ferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." But times have altered since 1776. When Mr. Jefferson drew up the Declaration of Amer­ican Independence, his appeal to experience was warranted ; for up to that lime mankind had very generally held the doctrine, that to support the constitution of the state is a sacred duty bind­ing upon all the citizens, and that to labor in any way to subvert or abolish it is a crime, and a high crime. But from the fact, that mankind have shown under this doctrine the disposition asserted, we cannot safely conclude that they will continue to show it under the contrary doctrine. Mr. Jefferson could appeal only to the experience of mankind under the moral op­eration of the anti-revolutionary doctrine. Since his time, the revolutionary doctrine has been in vogue, and very widely re­ceived, and we do not find the people now so indisposed to change as they were then. They have, in fact, become greedy of change, and ready to embrace every novelty that is pro­posed with a little earnestness and eloquence. Mr. Jefferson, perhaps, did not sufficiently reflect that the prevalence of the revolutionary doctrine would very naturally tend to weaken, if not destroy, that indisposition of the people to abolish the forms to which they were accustomed, on which he relied as a protection against its dangerousness.

Affection and interest are great words. But affection, when not founded in principle, and sustained by a sense of duty, is mere steam from the marsh ; and what is or is not interest is a matter not always easy to determine. If it be a duty to sustain the existing constitution, there is no difficulty in determining the questions of duty which may come up. But interests are the hardest things in the world to settle. Men often mistake their own interests, and after it is too late find out that they have blundered. Their views of what is or is not their inter­est vary, too, with their age, with their pursuits, or their social position. The Haves and the Have-nots are far from agreeing as to their respective interests. No man will believe his inter­est is consulted, when he finds himself thwarted, or his neighbour succeeding, and his own plans miscarrying. Interests them­selves do often really conflict, and it is impossible for the gov­ernment to harmonize all so as to satisfy each. The wise statesman, therefore, can never rely on the mere sense of inter­est ; but must, while he seeks as far as possible to promote all interests, make his appeal to the sense of duty, - to loyalty.
But no people, holding themselves free to abolish their ex­isting form of government whenever they think proper, can re­gard themselves as under a moral obligation to sustain it. An obligation from which we may absolve ourselves whenever we choose is no moral obligation, and, indeed, no obligation at all. The obligation to support the government and the right to abol­ish it are not compatible, the one with the other, and no soph­istry can make them so.    The revolutionary spirit and doctrine to which we owe the recent events in Europe are, then, incom­patible with the existence of government itself, and therefore as incompatible with the existence of republican government as of monarchical government. This is wherefore we have opposed them, and venture, even in the moment of their victory, to de­nounce them. We accept the victory as un fait accompli, and wish the people to reap from it the fruits of real social and political well-being. But to applaud the forces which have won it, to sanction the spirit and doctrine which made it neces­sary, although they have gained it, would be to render the victory barren of good fruits, - nay, worse, prolific in new disorders. The work of demolition must cease, and that of construction must begin, and the principles which must govern the builders cannot be those which governed the destroyers. If you knock away the foundation as you raise your super­structure, you raise - a castle in the air.

But we have dwelt long enough on general considerations. What is likely to be the result of the recent events in Europe ? France is now decidedly a republic. Will she be able to establish and maintain the authority of the state and the freedom of the subject ? This is a matter about which we do not wish to speculate. We have found nothing in our historical reading which leads us to augur her success. The historical precedents are all against her. But we cannot pretend to fathom the de­signs of Almighty God, to whom belong the ordering of all events and the determination of their issues. Whether he has designed the revolution in mercy or in judgment to the nations,, we can know only as he himself is pleased to make it manifest; but whichever it be, it is ours to be silent and adore, for his judg­ments are as adorable as his mercies. That the French peo­ple will find it an easy task to reconstitute the state, which the revolution of February dissolved, and reestablish and maintain order, the indispensable condition of liberty, we presume nobody with a grain of political philosophy or experience will pretend. The ideas and passions, the schemes and wishes, which have destroyed the old government, and reduced French society to its original elements, are opposed to all government, and if not abandoned, must be as fatal to the republic as they have been to the monarchy. The revolutionary party is in pursuit of Utopia, and has no stopping-place within the limits of practica­ble government. It must be arrested, or it will subvert the new institutions before they get fairly into operation. But to attempt to arrest them by physical force, by measures of repression, will only renew between them and the new govern­ment the very relations which rendered the old government im­potent for good, and its longer existence impracticable. Under Providence, then, the solution of the problem must turn on the fact, whether the radicals, represented by such men as Ledru-Rollin, that second edition of Danton, Louis Blanc, Blanqui, Albert, and company, are a large, or only a small, minority of the French nation, and on the courage, firmness, and energy of the party opposed to them. If they are only a small minority, confined principally to a few localities, and the friends of order show them from the outset that their opposition is disregarded, and their advice will not be asked, they may be held in subjec­tion till the new government is so firmly established as to render their attempts to subvert it impotent and ridiculous. But if they are a large minority, - absolutely so, by their numbers, or effectively so, by their organization and concentration, or by the uncertainty, hesitation, fears, and anxieties of their opponents,- they will have little difficulty in defeating all attempts to recon­stitute the state, and in prolonging the reign of anarchy. How the case actually stands in France we have no certain means of knowing, and cannot pretend to decide.
The majority of the National Assembly appear to be well disposed, and to entertain moderate views ; but they evidently lack experience, and have marked out to themselves no clear and definite line of policy. They are apparently trusting for their success to the chapter of accidents. Their determination is, indeed, to give France a republican government; but they are evidently afraid that the sincerity of their attachment to re­publicanism will be suspected. This renders them uneasy, de­prives them of that calmness, sobriety, and independence, that naturalness and at-home feeling, so essential to their success, and gives the radical minority an immense advantage over them. The radicals have no fears of this sort. Strong in the fact that they represent the revolution, embody its spirit, and obey its tendencies, they march with a bold and confident step in the path of destruction. In settled times, when the revolu­tionary spirit has not penetrated the body of the people, when the subversion of an old government is looked upon as an exceptional measure, to be justified only on the ground of invincible necessity, the party adopting moderate counsels and cherishing a conciliatory spirit is sure to rally around it the great body of the nation. But when the principle of revolution aspires to obtain a legal recognition, and is held by the great body of the people to be the proper basis of the state, - when all old ideas are confounded, and the general wish is to erect the social fabric, not only after a new fashion, but on a new and un­tried foundation,-extreme counsels are most likely to prevail, and the party in favor of carrying out the revolution is pretty sure to succeed. We shall, therefore, by no means be disappointed, if Ledru-Rollin turns out to be a stronger man than Lamar-tine. The Mountain triumphed over the Girondists, the sans­culottes over the respectables, in the former revolution, and why shall they not do the same in this ? They assuredly will, unless the moderate party take their ground at once, declare boldly that the revolution must be arrested, and that a contrary set of maxims from those which prepared and effected it must now be adopted and acted on. The state cannot be constituted on the revolutionary principle, nor recognize the right of the people to abolish the government; for every state must have as its basis the right of the state to command, and the duty of the citizen to obey. Whether the moderate party have the courage to face the revolution in the moment of its victory, and recog­nize a solid basis for authority, the event must determine. We fear, however, that, captivated by fine phrases about fra­ternity, they will attempt to conciliate the revolutionary party by compromise, and thus destroy themselves, and prepare the triumph of disorder or of despotism.

The moderate party will certainly not be able to succeed, unless they recognize and secure the absolute freedom of re­ligion, and that, too, not in the sense of radicals, who consider religion to be free where every body is free to despise it and nobody is free to profess and practise it. The spirit of radical­ism is the spirit of despotism, and seeks always, by an effective majority, which for its purpose need be only a small numerical minority of the whole population, to rule as absolutely as did the centralized monarchy just overthrown. It simply substitutes the despotism of the effective majority for the despotism of the monarch. It demands an absolute government, and all absolute governments are despotisms, and seek to sweep away, or to subject to themselves, whatever interposes or is capable of in­terposing an obstacle to their governing according to their own arbitrary will. Radicals out of place are revolutionists, and seek to overthrow all authority ; in place, they are despots, and seek to suppress all freedom. In making the revolution, they have aimed, not at guaranties for liberty against the abuses of power, but to get possession of power for themselves, in order to use it for their own interest, plans, purposes, or theories. They will, therefore, seek to reconstitute the state so that none but themselves can get into power, and so that, when they are once in power, they can use it as they please, without any restriction on their own will.
Now we may be certain, that, as far as depends on them, the radicals will establish the sovereignty of infidelity, and the sub­jection of religion ; the latter, because they wish to rule accord­ing to arbitrary will, which they know they cannot do where religion is free and independent, - and the former, because they are themselves infidel, and because the subjection of religion to the state is itself the sovereignty of infidelity. This they will assuredly attempt, and this the moderate republicans must de­feat, or fail in establishing a free government. A free govern­ment is a government of law, not of mere will or arbitrariness. Where the government is one of mere will, whether of one, of the few, or of the many, there is not one particle of liberty. The will of the people has no more right to prevail than the will of the monarch, when it is not just ; and it never is just, when not subjected to religion ; and it never is subjected to religion, when it subjects religion to itself. It is therefore absolutely necessary that religion should be free-and independent, if the government is intended to be a free government. Do the moderate repub­licans understand this ? They are, unquestionably, determined to maintain order against the radicals; are they equally deter­mined to maintain liberty against them ? They must not look upon radicalism as dangerous only by its tendency to an excess of freedom, for it is still more dangerous by its tendency to des­potism ; not, indeed, the despotism of one man, but of the ruling faction, or what we call the effective majority.

We are not now pleading the cause of religion for her own sake. We are addressing politicians, who, whether moderates or ultras, cannot be expected, in these days, to have any re­spect for religion on her own account. But this, though a terrible misfortune for them, cannot harm religion herself. The Church of God does not depend on the French National As­sembly, and is safe, let them take what course they please. Men may wage war against her, if they choose ; they may sup­press her religious orders, invade her pious retreats, break up her establishments of charity and mercy ; desecrate her altars, burn her temples, and insult her virgins ; exile or behead her Sovereign Pontiff, slaughter her bishops and priests ; drive her from the face of day, and compel her to offer up the Most Holy Sacrifice in caverns, crypts, and catacombs. Such things have been, and may be again. But in the very moment when the maddened multitude shall fancy her dead, and begin to sing and dance over what they imagine her grave, she shall step forth from her hiding-place, plant her foot on the tyrant's neck, give the word to the nations, and resume the empire of the world. We are quite at our ease, so far as she is concerned. We fear only for those who shall dare do her violence. The nation that restrains her freedom is smitten with the curse of God, and nothing it can do shall prosper, except only to its own confusion and ruin.

But it is not precisely this consideration we wish to press upon our French republicans. The government they are about to establish is likely to be a centralized democracy. They are, whether aware of it or not, merely substituting one form of centralism for another. For the same reason that the free­dom and independence of the Church was necessary under the monarchical centralism, will it be necessary under the demo­cratic. It was needed under the former as a moral barrier to the encroachments of power on the natural liberty of the sub­ject ; it will be equally essential for this purpose under the latter ; lor the danger to be apprehended from this democratic central­ism is less a danger to the authority of the state than to the lib­erty of the citizens. The citizen has no liberty, where the sov­ereignty of the state is not limited ; and under a centralized democracy, the only possible limitation of the political sovereign is the freedom and independence of the Church. The imme­diate danger to be guarded against is not the weakness, but the strength, of the state ; for the weakness of the state is to be apprehended only from its too great strength. The republic will fail, if it fails, from its tyranny, by attempting to rule ac­cording to mere will, by interfering will) too many of the rela­tions of life, and leaving too little space for the free movements of the individual. The danger is of its attempting too much, and of its becoming an all-pervading despotism, which no people can endure. The only possible protection against this, in the actual state of France, is in the absolute freedom and independence of the entire spiritual order, which neces­sarily restricts the government to matters of simple human prudence.

The subjection of the spiritual order to the temporal was not only the capital crime, but the capital blunder, of the old mo­narchical regime.    The prince, by subjecting the Church in his dominions, obtained, indeed, free scope for his arbitrary will; but, ruling by arbitrary will, he provoked the opposilion of his subjects, and could derive from her no aid in reducing them 1.0 obedience. By depriving her of power to resist, he de­prived her of power to assist him ; by rendering her unable to protect the people in their obedience, he rendered her unable to restrain them in their disobedience. In his strength he despised her, in his weakness she could not come to his aid. The same was it with the people. They had aided in her subjec­tion, that she might not resist their revolutionary movements ; and when they felt the weight of the tyranny they had helped to create, she had no power to relieve them. On either hand, the policy was suicidal, as in the long run must be all unjust policy. Let the National Assembly of France look to it, that the republic does not repeat the capital blunder of the mon­archy.

There are several stanch Catholics in the National Assem­bly, men of sterling worth, patriotic and religious, the enemies of all despotism. These, we know, will do all they can to secure the freedom of religion ; but we fear their exertions will end in a bold and manly protest. The tendency is now to do by the state a large portion of the work which is properly and legitimately the work of the spiritual order. The enemies of the freedom of religion are undeniably in the ascendency. The infidel party have every member of the Executive Committee, not excepting Lamartine, who, unless we are misinformed, has latterly fraternized with the enemies of Christianity. They have, in the Minister of Instruction and Worship, M. Carnot, a man after their own heart, and one who has proved himself the insidious enemy of religious liberty by denying the freedom of education. We confess, therefore, that the chance of re­ligion being suffered to remain free in France, free as she is here, which is all we ask, appears to us exceedingly small. Yet there are men whose judgments are entitled to far more respect than ours, who think differently, - men who believe that these popular revolutions are designed by Providence to eventuate in the entire emancipation of the Church throughout Europe. That many worthy people have acquiesced in or aided the popular movements in the hope of such a result is no doubt the fact. Perhaps they have been right, and we are wrong. We hope it is so. Hope is sometimes a better coun­sellor than fear ; and it may be that Almighty God has designed these revolutions in mercy to the nations, to be a judgment upon the infidel governments which oppressed his Church, and the means of operating her entire freedom and independence,- of securing to her, for the first time in the world's history, an open field and fair play for the exertion of her divine energies. O, if so, then indeed will they usher in a new era, an era the most glorious in the annals of mankind. Reassure us on this point, guaranty us for Europe that freedom of the Church which she has in our own country, and we will join the sympa­thizers, and our exultant shouts shall rise loudest among the loud.

The movements of the Italian people seem likely to result in the independence of Italy, and the retreat of the Austrians over the Alps. This, we hope, will be the case ; for, except­ing Russia, Austria, since the days of Joseph II., has been the most cruel enemy of the freedom and independence of the Church. Nominally Catholic, she has been hardly less hostile to religious freedom than was the French Convention, and right glad shall we be to see her pride humbled and her power diminished. But how far the Italian people will gain any thing by their movements, beyond certain sentimental advantages, is not yet quite clear to our dim and conservative vision. An Italian confederacy is talked of, but it appears to us a dream that will soon dissolve. The Italian people are not one peo­ple, nor are they united by one and the same national feeling. Since the fall of the Western Empire, they have never really existed as a single state, consolidated or federative, and we cannot see what is to serve as the basis of the confederacy pro­posed, if it is to be any thing more than a mere mutual alli­ance, or mutual league offensive and defensive, between the several Italian states. We demand for the foundation of a federative state some common bond of nationality, of national habits, associations, or recollections, and where we find no such bond, we conclude the federation to be impracticable. If brought about in a moment of enthusiasm, or of patriotic exaltation, it may last till the enthusiasm subsides ; but will hardly remain after the collapse, and the people have resumed their wonted feelings, and fallen into the old routine of affairs.

Then who is to be at the head of this confederacy ? Charles Albert ? Yes, if he chooses, so long as the work of driving out the Austrian remains to be done. But after that work is completed ? You have then republican jealousy and animosity, Tuscan, Lombard, Venetian, Sicilian, Neapolitan, and Roman jealousies and ambitions against him, and not easy to be conciliated with Piedmontese supremacy. The Pope ? He refuses ; and if he did not, would the other nations of Europe consent that the common Father of the Faithful should add to his authority as Pontiff that of temporal president or prince of one of the most powerful European nations ? If they did consent, how long could he maintain his position, if his parliament or con­gress should insist on his adopting some measure, as temporal prince, which he could not approve, or which would be incom­patible with his relations, as Sovereign Pontiff? If his tempo­ral authority is absolute, we know that his subjects will be con­stantly rebelling ; if it is limited, the recent conduct of the Roman people teaches us what he would have to expect, if he should cross their wishes. Some Mamiani or Cicerouachio would be preferred to him as leader, and exile, imprisonment, or death would await him, unless he humored and complied with what might be the crotchet in their heads for the moment. If the Italians can form a federative state and maintain it,- a state which secures order and liberty, - we shall be glad ; but we have seen nothing in their recent or past conduct to assure us that this is possible. Instead of manifesting due regard for the Holy Father, however much they may scream, Evviva Pio Nono! the tendency, as far as we can see, is to subject the Church to the state. We refer not now to their clamor against the Jesuits, - although their scandalous persecution of that illus­trious Order is sufficient to make all reasonable men distrust them, - but to the recent measures proposed by the liberal ministry of Sardinia, which are in open violation of the concor­dat with the Church, and would bring, if adopted, the whole body of the clergy of both orders under the surveillance of a lay commission, and subject every pastoral of a bishop to a lay cen­sorship. Only one step more needs to be taken, - that is, appoint a number of infidel laymen to write the pastorals of the bishops and the sermons to be preached by the clergy, and you have the Church in the condilion desired by your Michelets and Quinets. The Italians may be firm Catholics at bottom, but some of them have, we must confess, a queer way of manifest­ing their faith and piety. We say frankly, that the aspect of affairs in Italy seems to us even less promising than in France. But the revolutions in Germany strike us more favorably than those of either France or Italy. The Germans seem to us, after Pius IX., to be the only Europeans who in these days have retained their senses and given proofs of a little states­manship.    Lamartine is a poet and an orator, a master of fine sentiments and fine phrases, - a great and well-meaning man, if you will ; but tbat be is a statesman, that be com pre­bends the problems of the state and the proper constitution of its powers, he has yet to prove. The other Frenchmen whose names the revolution has brought up are, as statesmen, too insignificant to command a second thought. But there have certainly been some sound heads at work in Germany, and we shall be somewhat disappointed, if "tbe thick-headed Dutch­men," as we call them, do not redeem tbe political character of the nineteenth century.
The Germanic revolutions have stopped short with a modi­fied constitutionalism, somewhat after the English model, it is true ; but this is not the feature in them we most admire. The great thing, and which, we think, will turn out to be the great event of the age, is the reconstruction of the German Em­pire, destroyed by Napoleon in 1806, or the reconstitution, on an improved plan, of the whole of Germany into one grand federative state. The important feature in the movement is the adoption of federalism as the counterpoise of centralism, the characteristic principle of feudalism, and that which has made and still makes the glory of our American government. Tbe French may fancy that they are adopting, in substance, the American system; but they are mistaken. They do not adopt it all. Their system is democratic centralism. They merely exchange their centralized monarchy for a centralized democracy, - one form of despotism for another, -and thus, as we say, only "jump from the frying-pan into the fire." But, although there is a tendency amongst us - resulting from foreign influences - to this centralized democracy, our po­litical system is a federative democracy, dividing the powers of government -betweent he general government and the sev­eral Stale governments. It is this division that gives to our government all its strength and permanence, and its admirable practical workings. Destroy this division, break up your Fed­eral Union, and restore to each State all the powers of gov­ernment, or absorb all tbe powers in one grand central gov­ernment, and order and freedom would not remain a week ; anarchy or despotism would instantly ensue. This is where­fore we look for no good results from the French revolution. Their old revolution effaced tbe provinces, and destroyed the conditions of a federal republic ; and a centralized democracy is a despotism, except where tbe great body of tbe people are Catholic, really Catholic, and the Church is independent.
But the Germans, having providentially the requisite condi­tions of a federative state, adopt all the essential features of our American system. The plan proposed by the Diet at Frankfort unites all Germany in one federative stale, dividing the powers of government between the federal government, or empire, and the several particular states already existing, and guaranties through the empire to the people of the several states certain rights or liberties in face of the local governments. The idea is grand and sound, and when adopted and perfected in detail, as we doubt not it will be, it will, after ours, be the most perfect system of government, in our judgment, that is now practicable. It will secure order and efficiency, on the one hand, and the freedom of the subject, on the other, - plac­ing the nation at once under shelter from despotism and from anarchy. It appears to us practicable ; for the empire still lives in the traditions and recollections of the German people, and its introduction requires no violent change in their habits, and no sharp separation of their present and future from their past. We permit ourselves to hope that something will be gained for European politics by this Germanic movement, and if it succeeds as well as it ought to succeed, we may expect great results from it. The restoration of Polish nationality, and the reconstitution of the Polish kingdom or republic, must follow ; the farther advance of Russia will be effectually checked ; Hungary will gain her independence of Austria, and, if she re­tains her faith, take possession of the East of Europe, compel the Turks to raise their camp and depart, plant the cross anew on St. Sophia, and re-consecrate the city of Constantine.

We intended to offer some reflections on Irish affairs ; but we have exceeded our limits, and must seek for that another occasion.
In what we have said, we have aimed to settle certain prin­ciples, which should guide us in judging of the recent events in Europe, and in our efforts to turn them to the account of lib­erty and social well-being. These are stirring events, and it were easy to grow eloquent over them, - quite easy for us, for we should have only to repeat the phrases our young en­thusiasm supplied us with eighteen years ago, on the occasion of the French revolution of July, 1830. But mere words can­not charm us as they did then ; and we look now to things, and not to fine phrases, though the fine phrases of a Lamartine. We have heard many a time the big words, " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."    Nay, we have sometimes pronounced them. They are not difficult words to pronounce ; to secure their true import is the difficult thing. The European populations have proved themselves able to pronounce them; whether they are able to understand and realize their meaning, time must show. If these recent events secure an increase of political and social well-being, - if they secure to the people, the great body of the toiling, and suffering, and uncomplaining people, some alleviation of their burdens, and some chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor in peace, - we shall be thankful for them, and half ready to pardon the miserable demagogues and phrasemongers who have brought them about.
The views we have presented we have deemed worthy of the consideration of our own countrymen. This country is in a position to exert great influence on the reorganization of Eu­rope, and it is important that it should exert an influence in favor of true freedom. To do this, we must let foreigners un­derstand that the democracy of our newspapers is not the de­mocracy of our institutions, but the democracy which we keep for electioneering purposes ; and that they must beware how they take it to be the principle of our national growth and pros­perity. If they imitate us in that, they will only imitate us in what we have borrowed from them, and which only serves to disturb the working of our own indigenous system,-to peril its existence.
And not for foreigners only are these views necessary. Foreigners do not comprehend our American system of politics, and they almost invariably imagine that the democratic element is the only legitimate element that we recognize, that in which our whole political order takes its rise, and in accordance with which it is to be interpreted. Consequently, all the influences which operate upon us from abroad tend directly to convert our mixed government into pure democratic centralism, which is to genuine republicanism what despotism is to monarchy. Moreover, the same influence is exerted by our thousands of fanatics and philanthropists, in great part home-born and home­bred, who no sooner get a crotchet into their heads than they agitate to transfer it, forthwith, to the statute-books. It is necessary, then, that we be on our guard. Our fathers estab­lished no system of absolutism, democratic or monarchical. They divided the powers of government between the general government and the State governments, and, by dividing, lim­ited them ; which made liberty possible. All power, indeed, emanates from the people, and is exercised by them, through their representatives, but only in a legally fixed and deter­minate mode, as binding on the people themselves as on their public servants. The people exist and can exercise their power only according to law ; and thus our government is a government of law, and not of mere will, and therefore a free government. Let us look well to it, that, in our admiration of European revolutionists and French centralism, we do not suf­fer this admirable system of government to be corrupted, to grow into a centralized democracy, and we, ere we apprehend danger, find ourselves in a worse condition than that from which the Old World is now making such terrible efforts to redeem itself, and, we fear, making them in vain.