Conclusion.
In the foregoing chapters, I have endeavored to trace the rise and
progress of the GREAT BRITISH PARTY OF REFORM, which, adopting such
changes in principle and policy as experience may suggest, will live and
grow till every man has a voice in the election of both branches of the
Legislature that governs him--till the burdens of taxation are
impartially distributed among the people--till the sinecure and pension
rolls are destroyed--till the public debt is paid or repudiated--till
the main reliance for home defense rests with an organized militia--till
the marine of a free commerce has chased the "wooden walls" from the
ocean--till traffic in the land is as free as in the wheat it
grows--till labor, fairly paid, becomes labor duly respected--till every
sect supports its own church and clergy, and none other--till common
schools, drawing nourishment from the bosom of the State, nestle in
every valley--till the precepts of the law are made plain, and its
admistration cheap--till Ireland becomes independent, or is allowed her
just share in the national councils--till the dogma that a favored few
are born booted and spurred, to ride the masses "by the grace of God,"
has had its last day, and the England of the times "when George the
Third was King" exists only in the chronicles of History.
Since these Sketches were commenced, Europe has been the theater of a
series of revolutions and counter-revolutions. France rose, overthrew
the Monarchy, and expelled Louis Philippe. In an evil hour, she thrust
aside Lamartine, to make room for Louis Napoleon. Ireland, having made
an attempt to break her chains, has fallen into the arms of despair.
Austria and Prussia kindled a flame which, for a time, gladdened the eye
of Liberty. The expiring embers have been trodden out by the hoof of the
Cossack. Rome expelled her Dictator, and founded a Republic more
glorious and free than that of antiquity. She died under assassin blows
dealt across the Alps by a professedly fraternal hand. Hungary made a
stand for Freedom which electrified the world. Her immortal Kossuth and
Bem have been compelled to flee to the mountains, while the hordes of
Russia lay waste her plains, and Austria, the meanest of despots, rivets
chains on the limbs of her sons. From this dark and dreary prospect, the
eye turns to the Radical Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland. Acting
through institutions comparatively free, they will by slow but sure
advances yet work out for themselves, and, by the aid of kindred spirits
in other countries, for Europe, the great problem of Constitutional
liberty. In the present aspect of Continental affairs, they, with the
Radical Republicans of France, must be regarded as the rallying point,
the forlorn hope of the struggling masses from the Gulf of Finland to
the Straits of Gibraltar.
THE END.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: Obvious punctuation and printer errors have been
silently normalized. Unusual spelling and inconsistent hyphenation have
been left as in the original.