Produced by David Widger
LIBERTY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
By Frederic May Holland
1899
BY
PREFACE
THIS book is a result of having studied the development of political
and religious liberty for forty years. How well I have selected
my authorities the reader can judge. I will merely say that I have
mentioned no writer whom I have not studied carefully. The sun-dial has
been so far my model that victories in the cause of freedom are more
prominent than defeats in the pages that follow. It did not seem
necessary to give much space to familiar authors, though I should have
liked to do justice to Buckle, George Eliot, and Swinburne.
I regret that I have been unable to tell at any adequate length how the
Republic which was proclaimed at Paris in 1870 has survived longer than
any other government set up in France during the century. Its enemies
have been voted down repeatedly everywhere; the schools have been made
free from ecclesiastical control; and the hostility of the clergy has
been suppressed by the Pope. The French are still too fond of military
glory, and too ignorant of the value of personal liberty and local
self-government; but rapid advance in freedom is already possible under
the Constitution of 1884. Not only France, but also Great Britain,
Canada, and Australia, give proof that the time has gone by when
Americans had any right to claim, as they did in my boyhood, to be the
only people able to govern themselves.
If any nation can maintain a free press, just laws, and elections of
local magistrates, it ought to enjoy these rights, however slight may
be its fitness for becoming a real republic; and the suppression of such
rights by Cromwell and Napoleon cannot be pardoned consistently by any
friend to liberty. Napoleon's chief guilt, as I must here mention,
was in ordering the expulsion from office by soldiers, in 1797, of
representatives of the people who were striving to maintain liberty at
home and establish peace abroad. If there were any necessity for his
usurpation two years later, it was largely of his own making. Despotism
had already been made tolerable, however, even during the first
Republic, by the national fondness for war. This is according to a
principle which is taught by Herbert Spencer, and which is illustrated
in the following pages by many instances from the history of France
and other nations. The horrors of the Reign of Terror may be explained,
though not excused, by the greatness of the danger from invaders as well
as rebels. And there were very few cases of punishing differences merely
about religion by the guillotine.
I have also tried to show how the centralising tendencies of a
government are strengthened by the wish of its citizens to gain private
advantages by state aid. John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer have
published timely warnings against the danger of checking the development
of individual energy and ability by meddlesome laws. Whether the power
of the government ought to be reduced to the narrow limits proposed by
these great thinkers, is a question which has been discussed at some
length in my last chapter. It is there suggested that such a reduction
would be much more practicable in the case of national than of local
governments. It is not likely to be made anywhere at present; but
it might be well for reformers to try to restrict the operations of
governments according to the following rule: nothing to be undertaken by
a national government which can be done as well by municipalities; and
nothing to be attempted by either a local or central government which
can be done as well by private citizens, acting singly or in voluntary
associations. This rule would justify towns and cities in taking such
care of roads, streets, and schools as is not sanctioned by Spencer; but
it would leave municipalities free to decide the question whether
they ought to carry on gas- and water-works, electric roads, and other
enterprises according to the merits of each special case. Here in
America internal improvements seem to be the proper charge of the State,
rather than of the nation; but whether the former has any right to
enforce Sunday laws, and the latter to impose protective tariffs, are
questions which I have taken the liberty of discussing thoroughly.
Herbert Spencer should not be held responsible for any opinions not
printed plainly as his. Most of the instances of the working of Sunday
statutes were taken from a religious newspaper entitled The American
Sentinel. Among very recent cases are these. A Georgian was sentenced on
May 16, 1899, to pay a fine of twenty dollars or spend six months in the
chain-gang for working on his farm. That same month a clergyman was
arrested in Mississippi, merely for taking a little exercise with a hoe
in his garden. In 1898, a farmer in the State of New York was arrested
for picking a few apples from one of his own trees. The total number of
Sabbath-breakers arrested that year in New York City is estimated at a
thousand; and there were nearly four thousand arrests for Sunday trading
in England and Wales in 1897.
The principle of giving each citizen every opportunity of development
compatible with the general welfare, is so plainly irreconcilable with
Socialism, that I have thought it well to give several instances of the
fact that a man seldom does his best work except for his own benefit and
that of his family. Even the exceptionally energetic and conscientious
founders of New England did not raise food enough until it was agreed
that "They should set corne, every man for his own particular." Another
difficulty in the way of state Socialism is that the requisite number
of competent managers could not be found after the abolition of the
competitive system. It is that which brings forward men of unusual
ability and energy, though scarcely in sufficient numbers. Socialism
would increase the demand, but lessen the supply. Spencer calls it "the
coming slavery." It might better be called a slavery which is becoming
obsolete. Our existing system of industry certainly needs improvement;
but this will have to be made by following the laws of social science.
Their action has done much during the present century to improve the
condition of the poor; and we may trust that it will do more hereafter.
The nineteenth might be called the philanthropic century, if that title
did not belong also to the eighteenth.
The latter has the peculiar merit of doing so much to abolish
persecution that there have been comparatively few instances during the
period covered by this book. Much more has been done during the last
hundred years to extend political than religious liberty; but I have not
neglected to mention the most active champions of the great principle,
that human rights ought not to be affected by individual differences
about theology. If there is too little agitation at present for
this principle in the United States, it is largely on account of an
unfortunate occurrence of which I have written at some length in the
last chapter but one. Here I had the valuable assistance of Francis E.
Abbot, Ph.D., author of _Scientific Theism_, and Benjamin F. Underwood.
If the words, "militant liberals," had been used in this chapter, they
would express my meaning more plainly than the term "aggressive."
The least pleasant part of my work has been the pointing out defects in
a system of philosophy, ethics, and theology which I once delighted to
honour. As valuable results may have been reached by the metaphysical
method as by the scientific; but if the latter is right the former
is certainly wrong. When we find so consistent and warmhearted a
Transcendentalist as Miss Cobbe placing pantheism and scepticism among
"the greatest of sins" (see her _Religious Duty_, pp. 19, 65, and 100),
we may suspect that this philosophy aggravated Carlyle's natural
bitterness against opponents. There has been comparatively little
intolerance among American intuitionalists, thanks to the genial
influence of Emerson.
F. M. H.
August, 1899.
LIBERTY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER I. NAPOLEON AND HIS WORK
I. France had been freed by the Revolution from many ghosts of kingly,
feudal, and priestly privileges; but she was still the prey of the most
deadly of vampires,--military glory. The followers of this fatal guide
had driven the party of peace and liberty from power by force and fraud,
and found a ruler after their own hearts in the conqueror who, in 1804,
became the Emperor Napoleon.
Thus was established what some metaphysicians suppose to be the best
form of government,--an enlightened despotism. The autocrat knew that he
had risen to power as the most popular champion of political equality;
and he gave this democratic principle such additional authority that it
has continued supreme in France. Her sons are still equals before the
law, owners of the land they till, exempt from taxes levied for the
benefit of any privileged class, and free to choose their own career and
mode of worship. This is due in great part to the usurper who reduced
representative government to an empty shell, and who centralised the
administration of schools, police, streets, roads, and bridges, and all
other local concerns even more completely than had ever been done before
the Revolution.
He knew the real needs of France well enough to give her peace with all
her enemies; but scarcely had he signed the last treaty when he took
possession of Switzerland, and continued to annex territory, in defiance
of the protests of the British ministers that he was making peace
impossible. War was declared by them in 1803 and kept up against him
for eleven years continuously, with occasional assistance from Russia,
Austria, Prussia, Spain, and other countries. This was a period of
great glory for France, but also of great suffering. Her boundaries were
enlarged; but her most patriotic citizens were slaughtered in foreign
lands; her shipping was swept away by British cruisers; her people
were hindered in obtaining American grain, British cloth, and other
necessaries of life, in exchange for wine, silk, lace, and other
luxuries; the Emperor could not supervise the prefects who managed,
or mismanaged, all internal interests, and who were responsible to him
alone; freedom of the press was prohibited; and all the arts of peace
decayed.
This was the price which France paid for Auster-litz, Jena, and other
famous victories over Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which in 1807
brought peace with every enemy but England, and made Napoleon master,
either directly through his prefects, or indirectly through tributary
kings, not only of France but of the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland,
Spain, Venice with the rest of Italy, and about three-fourths of
Germany, including one-half of what had formerly been Prussian
territory. Eight years from the usurpation in 1799 brought him to his
zenith: eight years later, he was at Saint Helena.
His German, Swiss, and Italian subjects gained political equality, and
also the permanent advantage of the code which bears his name. It had
really been made by his lawyers, on foundations laid by the Convention.
Throughout his dominions, Jew, Catholic, and Protestant became equals
before the law. The fact that these reforms survived his authority
proves that they could have been established without it. They were
unavoidable results of the eighteenth century.
How little he was influenced by philanthropy is shown by his driving
into exile a statesman named Stein, who had abolished serfdom in
Prussia, and made it equally possible for the members of all classes
to buy land and choose occupations. The establishment of the Empire had
been preceded by the revival of slavery in several colonies where it
had been abolished by the Convention. It was for helping the Haytians
preserve their independence by heroic resistance, that Toussaint was
sent by Napoleon to die in prison. The conquered nations in Europe were
handed over from one master to another, without being even invited to
consent; but what was still more oppressive was inability to exchange
their own products for cloth and hardware from England, grain from the
United States, coffee and sugar from the West Indies, and many other
articles whose lack was keenly felt. This trouble was largely due to the
blockade kept up by British Ships; but Napoleon was so ignorant of the
advantage of commerce to both parties engaged in it as to suppose he
could conquer England by a plan which really injured only himself and
his subjects. He forbade all importation from Great Britain and her
colonies wherever he had power or even influence; and many of the
prohibited goods were taken from merchants and destroyed without
compensation. Germany suffered also from having her manufactures
forbidden to compete with the French. The latter asked in vain for
freer trade, and were told by Napoleon that he understood their business
better than they did. Countless outrages on prominent individuals helped
the growth of disaffection.
II. The British ministry retaliated against Napoleon's attack on the
right to trade freely, with a success which led to a great outrage on
individual liberty in the United States. The war with Europe gave much
of the world's commerce to American ships; but they were forbidden
by Great Britain, in 1806, to trade with some of their best customers
unless they stopped to pay tribute in her ports. The seizures for
disobedience increased the anger which had been long felt against
the British for impressing sailors on board of American ships. Three
thousand citizens of the United States had been forced into a hostile
navy before the refusal of our frigate, _Chesapeake_, in 1807, to submit
to a search brought on a bloody contest.
Napoleon was then at the height of his power; and Great Britain was
fighting against him single-handed. It was an unusually good time for
declaring a war which soon proved inevitable in defence of merchants'
and sailors' rights. Jefferson preferred to violate those rights
himself, as had been done by the Federalists in 1794, and Congress aided
him in forbidding American ships to sail for foreign ports. This embargo
was so plainly unnecessary that every captain who was able to get out
of New York harbour did so at once without caring what crew, cargo, or
papers he had on board. Fifty million dollars' worth of shipping was
kept idle for more than a year; a hundred thousand sailors and mechanics
were thrown out of work; farms and plantations ceased to be profitable;
clothing and tools became ruinously dear; thirteen hundred New Yorkers,
who had been ruined by the embargo, were imprisoned for debt; and laws
for protection against creditors were passed by the Southern and Western
States. No one gained by the embargo except the smugglers; and attempts
to suppress them called out dangerous manifestations of popular
discontent. No one suffered less than the British merchants.
III. Meantime, Napoleon took the first step towards ruin in placing his
brother on the throne of Spain. The Spaniards had borne patiently the
loss of ships, commerce, and colonies; but this fresh wrong stirred up
insurrection. The new King was brought to Madrid by French troops; but
not a single Spaniard would enter his service; and he was soon obliged
to leave the city. He said to his brother, "Your glory will be wrecked
in Spain"; but Napoleon kept on sending in armies, whose victories made
him hated, but not obeyed. He offered to abolish feudal privileges, the
inquisition, and the tariffs which separated province from province. The
only result was to make reform odious to a people which cared much more
for nationality than progress. The clergy encouraged the peasants to
keep up a guerilla war, in which his veterans perished ignominiously;
and British auxiliaries won victories which made Wellington famous.
Austria took advantage of the situation to try to reconquer the lost
provinces. The Tyrolese had been made subjects of the King of Bavaria;
but they rose at the call of Hofer, and gained glorious victories over
French and Bavarian soldiers. Other defeats were suffered by Napoleon;
but he soon succeeded in forcing Austria to grant him, not only much
more of her territory, but the hand of a young princess, who had never
thought of him but with abhorrence. This involved his divorce from the
loving Josephine. He pleaded desire for a son who might succeed him; but
he was not likely to live until any child who might be born after this
would be old enough to keep together an empire whose basis was conquest.
The Austrian princess had been demanded before Napoleon's application
for a Russian one had been answered decisively; his plans for restoring
Poland had given additional offence to the Czar; and the welfare of
Russia demanded freedom to use the products of her forests, fields, and
mines in buying British goods. This right was insisted upon by the Czar;
and Napoleon had only abuse for the friends who warned him that defeat
in Russia would call all Germany to arms against him. He was already so
unpopular at Paris, that he had to remove with his Court.
The enormous army with which he invaded Russia might easily have taken
possession of her Polish provinces, where the people were friendly.
He preferred to march a thousand miles, through a hostile and barren
country, to Moscow. The city was set on fire at his arrival; but he
wasted so much time there, that winter helped the Russians turn
his retreat into a rout. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers perished
miserably.
The Prussians flew to arms; and Austria demanded restoration of her
provinces. He replied that he should not yield an inch, and cared
nothing for the loss of a million lives. He was driven out of Germany by
"the Battle of the Nations," which was won at Leipsic, in October,
1813, by zealous cooperation of the Russians with Prussians, Austrians,
Bavarians, and other Germans.
One result was described by saying that "The Dutch have taken Holland."
Need of a strong government in time of war had given a power almost
monarchical to the successors of that Prince of Orange who had saved
his republic from Philip II. One of these princes was driven out by
a democratic rebellion in 1787, but restored by a Prussian army. The
French Revolution enabled Holland to return to republicanism; but
alliance with the Directory meant continual spoliation; and there were
grievous conscriptions under Napoleon, whose rule was extremely
unpopular in a nation which lived by commerce. When the Dutch heard of
his defeat at Leipsic, they rose against him without waiting for
auxiliaries; and the French garrisons were soon driven out by the help
of soldiers from Russia, Prussia, and England. The rulers of these
countries sanctioned the desire of the Orange faction to make the prince
a king. The people were not consulted, but were reconciled by a
constitution, under which there was a legislature with some power, local
self-government, freedom of worship, political equality, and liberty in
commerce.
Napoleon might have remained emperor; but he refused to make any
concessions, and kept on fighting until his generals abandoned him, and
his deposition was voted by the Senate. The people would not rise for
him, as they had done for the Republic; and the Parisians refused to
cry "Vive l'Empereur" as he returned from Elba, to be overthrown at
Waterloo. Three million Frenchmen perished in his wars; and he left
France smaller than he found her. His restrictions on commerce were
removed so suddenly as to destroy the industries which he had tried to
foster; and the proportion of paupers to the population was three times
as great as in 1880.
France was still desirous that the press should be free, and that
taxation should be controlled by representatives of the people. Louis
XVIII. had to promise that he would respect these rights which his
predecessors had violated. Toleration continued; and the peasants kept
the property and equality which the Revolution had given them, and which
no sovereign could take away.
Napoleon is the most famous of generals; but his greatness as a
statesman would have been plainer if he had not undertaken so many showy
enterprises which had little chance of success. He failed signally in
founding a dynasty, in making France the greatest of manufacturers, and
in giving her an invincible navy, though he might have gained the first
of these objects by peace, and the last by free trade. He could not even
leave to his successor the territory which had been conquered by the
Revolution. Yet these were his dearest purposes, except the wild dream
of humbling England. Was he the greatest of architects, every one of
whose colossal structures fell under their own weight before they could
be used? Greater is he who builds what lasts for ages.
Napoleon made the twenty years ending with 1815 more glorious than any
later period, and much more wretched. Western Europe was afflicted by
bloody wars, and impoverished by restrictions on commerce. If his reign
had been peaceable, he might have deprived France much more completely
of what liberty she had enjoyed under the Directory. Every despot,
however enlightened and benevolent, must necessarily interfere so much
with the liberty of his subjects as to hinder their making themselves
happy. France and Germany lost nothing in freedom and gained much in
prosperity by his defeat; for it gave the world many years of peace.
What he brought of political and religious equality to Prussia,
Western Germany, and Switzerland survived him; for it was part of his
inheritance from the Revolution which he closed treacherously. France
had received her legacy without his help; and she retained much of it in
spite of his interference. His victories over hereditary monarchs were
so suggestive that books about him are still prohibited in Russia; but
no people lost much by his overthrow except the Italians.
IV. Waterloo might have been called a "of the Nations" as well as
Leipsic; but the best fighting was under the British flag. The English
had suffered much from Napoleon, in spite of his never succeeding in
making an invasion. The worst injury he did was in forcing them to
remain in that absorption in war which had checked the growth of
toleration, democracy, and prosperity in 1793. George III. was
personally popular; but his weak, unprincipled successor was merely a
figurehead. Two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons in 1815
had been appointed by the Ministry, or by some nobleman, and most of
the others owned or rented some pocket-borough almost destitute of
inhabitants. The House of Lords was overwhelmingly opposed to government
by the people; and no Tories were more consistent than those sons or
proteges of noblemen, the bishops. The successors of the apostles had
no sympathy with the struggle of the Cross against the Crescent in lands
where Paul had preached. They helped to vote down propagation of the
Gospel in India, as well as enfranchisement of Roman Catholics, and
mitigation of laws which punished pilfering with death. They tried in
vain to save the slave-trade from prohibition; and most of the clerical
and lay members of both Houses were in league to keep the tax on
importation of wheat heavy enough to give them large incomes from their
real estate.
This tariff and the depreciation of currency made food excessively dear.
The country labourer was often unable to earn more than the price of a
loaf a day. Employers agreed on wages so low that the peasants had to
ask continually for parochial relief, and could not afford to go out of
the parish to seek higher pay. Their degradation was increased by
their almost universal illiteracy; and their misdemeanours, especially
poaching, were punished cruelly; for the rural magistrate was either the
squire or his ally, the parson. There was little chance of justice for
the poor against the rich; the rural labourer could seldom improve his
position; and the bad harvests of 1816, 1817, and 1818 helped to make
him worse off than ever before or since.
The operatives had higher wages, but suffered under the friction of an
industrial revolution, which has done more than any political convulsion
for human happiness. The factory had been enabled by the invention of
the steam-engine and other machines, shortly before 1800, to take the
place of the cottages in making cloth. British goods were in great
demand abroad during the war, and had to be carried in British ships.
Improved roads and canals led merchants and manufacturers to opulence.
The rich grew richer, as has usually been the case; but there were some
exceptional years during which the poor really grew poorer. One man
could make as much cotton cloth in a day as two hundred could have done
before; but what was to become of the one hundred and ninety-nine?
Demand for factory labour kept increasing until 1815; but population
grew faster still. Wages were already falling; the return of peace
lessened the demand abroad; and hundreds of thousands of discharged
soldiers and sailors were added to the multitude of unemployed.
Labourers were forbidden either to emigrate or to combine in order to
keep up wages; and their earnings were lowest at the time when bread was
the highest. Meat, sugar, foreign fruit, and many other articles now in
common use were almost unattainable by the poor until late in the
century. There was much more intelligence in the towns than in the
country; but there were no opportunities of education in 1818 in England
for one-half of the children.
Boys and girls entered the factory at the age of six, and often from the
poor-house, where they had been sold into slavery. The regular time was
fourteen hours a day; sitting down was seldom permitted; food was scanty
and bad; punishment was constant and cruel; deformity and disease were
frequent; and the death-rate was unusually high. Terrible cases occurred
of pauper children, kept sixteen hours at a stretch without rest or
food, driven by hunger to rob the troughs in the pig-sty, tortured
merely for amusement by the overseer, and even advertised for sale with
the mill.
The middle class differed much more widely than at present, both from
the masses on one hand and from the aristocracy on the other, as regards
food, dress, culture, amusements, and political liberty. Taxation
was heavy and vexatious; representation in Parliament was notoriously
inadequate; and honest men and women were still liable to imprisonment
for debt. No one but an Episcopalian had a right to study at a
university, enter Parliament, or hold any civil, naval, or military
office in England; and neither Dissenters nor Catholics could marry
without going through ceremonies which conscience forbade. The press
was fettered by laws which kept Leigh Hunt imprisoned for two years,
on account of an article acknowledging the unpopularity of the Prince
Regent. Cobbett underwent an equally long imprisonment in Newgate for
blaming the cruelty of sentencing insubordinate militiamen to be flogged
five hundred lashes. No plays could be performed in London in 1814 until
they had been read and licensed by the Lord Chamberlain's deputy.
As soon as a strong government ceased to be needed for protection
against Napoleon, there broke out much agitation for relief of the
disfranchised as well as of the destitute. There was an unprecedented
circulation of the cheap pamphlets in which Cobbett advised the
discontented to abstain from lawless violence, which could only give
them another Robespierre, and devote themselves to striving peaceably
for their political rights. Among these he asserted that of every man
who paid taxes to vote for members of Parliament. The serious riots
which took place in many parts of Great Britain, even London, made
the aristocracy consider all opportunities of addressing the people
dangerous. The ministry were empowered in 1817 to arrest speakers and
authors without any warrant, and keep them in prison without a trial.
Prohibition of public meetings was made possible by an act which
extended to reading-rooms, debating societies, even among students at
Cambridge, and scientific lectures.
The mounted militia was sent to disperse a meeting of fifty thousand
unarmed men and women at Manchester, on August 16, 1819, in behalf of
parliamentary reform. The people were packed together so closely that
they were unable to separate quickly. Fear that some of the young
gentlemen who had ridden into the throng might get hurt led the
magistrates to order several hundred hussars to charge, without notice,
into the dense crowd. The meeting was soon reduced to heaps of fallen
men and women, who had been overthrown in the general struggle to escape
or cut down by the soldiers; and the field was covered with bloody hats,
shawls, and bonnets. Six people were killed, and more than thirty others
wounded severely. There was indignation everywhere against this wanton
cruelty; and the Common Council of London voted their censure; but
Parliament passed laws that same year which made public meetings
almost impossible, and put cheap pamphlets under a prohibitory tax, by
requiring that they must have such an expensive stamp as kept newspapers
beyond the reach of people generally. Arrests for printing and selling
unstamped publications were thenceforward frequent. There were many
bloody riots; and a conspiracy for assassinating the Ministry was
organised in 1820. A dangerous revolution might then have broken out, if
food had not been made plenty by abundant harvests.
Roman Catholics were still forbidden to hold any office under the
British Government. They could not sit in either House of Parliament,
or be married legally in Ireland, where they formed four-fifths of the
population, and almost all the offices on that island were filled by
Protestants who had been sent over from England, or else elected by
close corporations containing scarcely any Catholics. The disfranchised
nation was all the more indignant on account of such facts as
that two-thirds of the soil of Ireland had been taken away without
compensation by English invaders before 1700, and that the share of the
Irish in 1800 was only one-tenth. This was held mostly in great estates,
as was the rest of the island. Rents were everywhere high and wages low,
for population was superabundant; manufactures had been crushed by laws
to protect British interests; the people were left ignorant, even of
agriculture; and there were frequent famines. Both the land and the
government were mismanaged by an anti-Irish minority which took little
pains to keep its own partisans from lawless violence, but did its
utmost to extort money for a legion of priests, who were merely servants
of oppression to nine-tenths of the people. How little they cared
about their professed duty may be judged from the case mentioned by a
traveller named Inglis (vol. i., p. 349), of a bishop who drew four or
five hundred pounds a year for calling himself rector of a parish
where there was no pretence of any public worship but the Catholic.
Indignation of Irish Presbyterians had been one main cause of the bloody
rebellion of 1798; and all patriotic Irishmen were exasperated at the
oppression of the poor by the rich. Removal of religious disabilities
was urgently demanded, and most of the men were members in 1825 of an
independent association, which could easily have turned the island into
one vast camp.
V. Germany had been devastated by twenty years of battles; and many
thousand Germans had perished, either in defending their homes against
Napoleon, or in serving under him in Russia. His overthrow left them in
deeper subjection than ever to a league of despots, who differed in pomp
of title and extent of territory, but agreed in obstinately denying any
political liberty to the people. The servitude of Germany was confirmed
by the agreement of clergymen and philosophers, that absolute monarchy
was "ordained of God." The ban of church and university was on the
revolutionary rationalism which had inspired the eighteenth century. The
predominant philosophy during the first half of the nineteenth century
insisted on the infallibility of what was called intuition, but was
often merely tradition. This was already the case in Germany, where
moribund ideas of politics and theology were worshipped as the loftiest
revelations of pure reason.
Devout disciples still hold that all established institutions are
justified and all knowledge revealed by Hegel's method of deduction
from his own peculiar definition of the Infinite. That definition
seems self-contradictory; but this is only a trifle, compared with the
method's permitting the master to prefer absolute monarchy, and forcing
him to deny that any nation, not extremely limited in area, can long
remain a democracy. Hegel's indifference to the existence of the United
States was like his asserting, after the discovery of Ceres, that the
place where it had been found, and where hundreds of other planets are
now known to exist, must be empty. Among other results of his system
were a denial that lightning is electricity, and an assertion that rain
is merely a change of air into water. Neither liberty nor knowledge
gains by disregard of experience in favour of deductions from imaginary
intuitions.
Unfortunately, the experience of Europe under Napoleon, as well as
during the Revolution, seemed to justify restoration of old institutions
as well as of former boundaries. The latter purpose was ostensibly that
for which the conquerors of Napoleon met at Vienna, soon after he had
retired to Elba; but their real object was to divide the spoils among
themselves. The Emperors of Russia and Austria had the assistance, or
opposition, of five kings, and of so many princes and nobles that three
hundred carriages of state were kept in constant readiness. Lovely
ladies of high rank came from many lands; and it seemed to the
uninitiated as if nothing was going on but masked balls, private
theatricals, hunting parties, stately dinners, and concerts. Beethoven
was among the musicians. There was no general meeting of the monarchs
and ambassadors; but there were frequent conferences of those most
interested in one point or another; and the name of Congress of Vienna
was amply justified by the number of bargains and compromises. The only
persons never consulted were the thirty millions whose masters were thus
selected.
Belgium, for instance, was forced into a union with Holland, which
led to civil war; and the Norwegians were put under subjection to the
Swedes, against whom they had just been fighting. Ten millions more
of Poles were made subjects of the Czar; and his original wish to rule
mildly was frustrated by their rebellion. The Italians had been brought
by Napoleon into such unity and sense of nationality as they had not
felt for many centuries. Offers of greater liberty made Lombardy and
Venice take sides against him; they were rewarded by being put under the
most hated of rulers, the Austrians; and the latter were made virtually
masters of all Italy. When all the plunder had been divided, the
royal robbers united in a declaration, acknowledging Jesus as the only
sovereign and recommending the daily and universal practice of religion.
The only sovereign who kept his promise, that he would give his subjects
a new constitution if they would help him conquer Napoleon, was Goethe's
patron at Weimar. He presided over the University of Jena, which
Schiller, Fichte, and other professors had made the centre of democratic
influence in Germany. A secret political society was formed by students
who had fought at Waterloo; and all the universities were invited to
help celebrate, on October 18, 1817, the anniversary, not only of the
victory at Leipsic, but of the opening of the Protestant Reformation.
Five hundred students from various parts of Germany met in the Wartburg,
the castle where Luther found refuge after bidding defiance at Worms to
both Pope and Emperor. It was agreed that the new society should extend
through all the universities, and should have banners of black, red, and
yellow. These henceforth were the colours of liberty in Germany.
Napoleon had reduced Prussia's army to a minimum; among the preparations
for breaking his yoke had been the practice of such gymnastics as are
still kept up by the Turners; and a public exhibition was given that
evening near the castle, before an immense bonfire. Reference was made
there to kings who broke their word; and as the audience broke up, some
of the students fed the blaze with various emblems of despotism, such
as the canes with which soldiers were flogged by corporals. Then
they burned a number of blank books, with titles copied from those of
pamphlets recently published in opposition to progress.
The King of Prussia had taken some steps towards constitutional liberty,
but these boyish freaks brought him completely under the influence
of Prince Metternich. This crafty but kind-hearted Austrian worked
steadily, from 1814 to 1848, at much sacrifice of ease and pleasure, in
hope of preserving civilisation and religion from being destroyed by
any new revolution. He was now the real Emperor of Germany; the British
Ministry was in sympathy; and the Czar, who had at first been an admirer
of parliamentary government, was converted by an outrage in the name of
liberty on the right of free speech. One of the literary champions
of Russian autocracy, Kotzebue, was assassinated, early in 1819, by
a divinity student who had been at the Wartburg. That same year the
representatives of the leading German states met at Carlsbad, and
agreed, with the Czar's approval, that all German journals and
universities should be under strict supervision, that political
offenders should be tried by a special central tribunal, and that the
new colours should be prohibited.
VI. Louis XVIII. cared as little as Charles II. of England about
promises, but was quite as unwilling to have to travel abroad. He
dissolved a legislature which was too reactionary; subsequent elections
returned liberal candidates, though only one man in a hundred could
vote; the National Guard was revived; and progressive ideas were
expressed freely. France was moving forwards until February 13, 1820,
when a Bonapartist murdered the King's nephew, in hope of cutting off
the succession. The legislature was obliged, two days later, to let the
press be muzzled; sanctions of individual liberty were thrown aside; and
a law was passed to give rich men two votes apiece. The Liberal Ministry
was dismissed; and its successor put all education under control of
the priests, forbade Cousin and Guizot to lecture, and sent Beranger to
prison for publishing incendiary songs. Louis XVIII., like Charles II.,
left the crown to a bigoted brother, who had been taught by the Jesuits
to care much more for religion than human rights, or the duty of
chastity; and Charles X. did his utmost to make himself an absolute
monarch. Still worse results of assassination in the name of liberty had
already been suffered in Spain and Italy.
No people had really lost much by the overthrow of Napoleon except the
Italians. They were learning how to love each other as fellow-citizens
of one common country, and how to care more for the welfare of the
people than for that of the priests. The Congress of Vienna restored
the supremacy of the clergy, and cut up Italy once more into little
principalities, whose stupid and cruel despots were guided by
Metternich. The people were already conscious of the tie of nationality,
desirous to be governed with some regard to their own welfare, and
destitute of faith in the divine right of kings. Few of them have been
so plainly not "ordained of God" as Ferdinand of Naples and Sicily. He
had run away basely from the invaders, and been brought back to promise
amnesty, and to massacre men, women, and children by thousands. No
criminals but patriots were watched closely; and brigands defied the
government. There was no pretence of liberty, even on the stage; and the
Jesuits kept literature and education down to merely nominal existence.
The only refuge of freedom was among the Carbonari, or members of a
secret society, half a million strong. Their flags of black, red, and
blue were hoisted in many towns and villages on July 2, 1820, when the
army led the revolt. The King swore on the Bible, and after hearing
mass, that he would establish a constitution like the French one of
1791, and then asked help from Metternich. The latter brought the
Austrian, Russian, and Prussian monarchs together at Troppau, Silesia,
where they agreed, on December 8, 1820, to put down all rebels,
especially in Italy. An Austrian army won a decisive victory next March
over the Neapolitans, whose best troops were fighting against an attempt
at secession in Sicily.
Austria took part, a month later, in suppressing a revolt which had just
broken out against the petty despot nicknamed "King of Sardines." His
first step on his restoration, in 1814, had been to reappoint every man
who had been in office in 1798; and Napoleon's code gave way to ancient
statutes which, for instance, forbade the Piedmontese to send wheat they
could not use themselves to the Savoyards, who were starving. He was
forced to abdicate by a revolt of citizens who wanted a constitution and
of soldiers who wished to free Lombardy from Austria. Her help enabled
his successor to keep the monarchy absolute; and her influence became
paramount in Sardinia, as elsewhere in Italy.
VII. The month of April, 1821, brought an end of rebellion in Italy, and
the outbreak of a ferocious revolution in Greece. The Turkish rule
was intolerant, and intentionally oppressive. Exportation of food and
clothing, for instance, was forbidden in hope of keeping down prices;
and the result was to check production. The country was full of
brigands; and the worst of wrongs were inflicted on unbelievers by
the officials. Priests and rulers in other lands refused to help their
fellow-Christians against Moslem tyrants; and the famous victory won by
Bozzaris was over Roman Catholics. The new republic had only nominal
authority. Independent bands of patriots fought desperately; and the
Crescent soon gave place to the Cross in the Archipelago as well as
in the Morea, once famous as the Peloponnesus; but the cause was
continually disgraced by pillage, perfidy, massacre, and civil war.
Several millions of contributions, mainly English, were squandered by
the captains. Byron sacrificed his life in a vain attempt to create
military discipline; and lack of any permitted the Morea to be conquered
in 1825 by the regular army sent over by the Pasha of Egypt.
All resistance, north of the Isthmus of Corinth, was soon suppressed
by the co-operation of Egyptians and Turks; and the islanders could do
nothing better than ask help from foreigners. The only government which
had thus far aided Greece was the American; and Congress had done much
less than the people to relieve distress. An alliance between Great
Britain, France, and Russia, for preventing extermination of the Greeks,
was brought about by Canning. The sovereigns of Turkey and Egypt were
so obstinate that their ships were destroyed by the allied fleet at
Navarino, Messenia, on October 20, 1827. The Egyptians were driven out
of the Morea by French soldiers; and Northern Greece rose against the
Turks with a success which secured the present boundary. The Greeks were
not permitted to establish a republic; but the monarchy finally became
constitutional under the pressure of insurrection.
VIII. No nation had been less capable than the Spanish of appreciating
the advantage, either of a vigorous government, or of toleration,
freedom of the press, political equality, and personal liberty.
All the time-honoured abuses abolished by Napoleon had been at once
restored with the help of the populace; but nothing effective was done
to suppress the insurrections which had broken out, during the war, in
Mexico and South America. Up to that time, the Indians were serfs
and the negroes were slaves. All political power was monopolised by
officials sent over from Spain. Spanish interests were protected so
thoroughly that all domestic industries were crippled, and goods often
cost six times as much as in Europe. Schools and newspapers were almost
unknown; no books but religious ones could be bought; and heresy was
punished pitilessly.
The invasion of Spain by Napoleon gave opportunity for several
simultaneous insurrections. That in Venezuela was crushed by a great
earthquake, which was accepted as a sign of divine wrath. Among the
leaders was Bolivar, who retreated to Colombia. A Spanish version of
Paine's _Rights of Man_ had been circulated there, and the patriots
were fighting gallantly. There were many bloody battles in Venezuela
and Colombia; but both countries were finally made free by the battle of
Carabolo, won on June 24, 1821, by Bolivar.
On July 28th, in that same year, the independence of Peru was proclaimed
by General San Martin, who had liberated Chili, three years previously,
with an army which he led from the Argentine Republic across the Andes
by paths never used thus before. His decisive victories were won by the
help of emancipated slaves. Chili would have made him her ruler; but
he asked only her help against the Spaniards, who were concentrated
in Peru. There he found such disorder as led him to declare himself
Protector; but this made him so unpopular that he resigned his power and
left the continent which he had done more than anyone else to liberate.
The war went on until the hold of Spain on America was broken forever
by a battle fought, 12,000 feet above the sea, on December 9, 1826, at
Ayacucho, a name given long before by Indians who had fought there among
themselves, and meaning "the Corner of Death." Constitutions like that
of the United States had already been proclaimed; too much power was
held by Bolivar and other despots; but they did not keep the people
in such poverty, ignorance, and apathy as had been inflicted by Spain.
Paraguay, however, had a tyrant who dressed himself after a caricature
of Napoleon, and tried to imitate his despotism, but had nothing of his
genius. Francia was one of Carlyle's model rulers, perhaps because he
allowed no elections, juries, public meetings, or newspapers, and sent
everyone who talked politics to prison. Men who would not take off
their hats to him were cut down by his guards; and timid boys were seen
running through the streets with no other article of dress. There were
no imports or exports, except by special permission; and goods cost
ten times as much as at Buenos Ayres. Equality of races was sought by
degrading the whites; but Francia's reign had the one merit of peace.
IX. Intelligent Spaniards were provoked at their king's failure to
suppress the rebellion; and the soldiers who were called together for
this purpose in 1819 had been so badly paid that they plotted with the
friends of progress. A revolt broke out in the camp on the first day of
1820; and it was soon followed by one at Madrid, where the dungeon of
the Inquisition was broken open. The King was forced to restore the
Constitution which had been framed by the patriots in 1812, after the
model of the French instrument of 1791. The prospect of freedom in
religion made the clergy and peasantry mutinous. The reactionists in
France and Spain found favour with the sovereigns of Russia, Austria,
and Prussia. The Liberal Government was overthrown in April, 1823, by
a French army. The peasants took sides with the invaders, and many
patriots were massacred by the populace. Absolute monarchy and other
ancient iniquities were restored, but not the Inquisition. France would
have gone on to subdue the rebels in South America for her own benefit;
but this was prevented by the British Ministry, which was now showing
the liberalising influence of peace.
Napoleon's despotism had the awful and baneful grandeur of an eruption
of Vesuvius; but his despicable enemies merely kept up the oppression of
his empire without its glory. Their work completed his, as the last
of the petty emperors at Rome and Constantinople showed the legitimate
tendency of the political system of the mighty founder. Caesar and
Napoleon had much in common as conquerors; but it showed far more
greatness to found an empire which endured for fifteen centuries, than
one which held together for scarcely as many years. Even that length of
despotism was sadly too long for the welfare of mankind.