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1048 Uttyt &*&&**? [Saturday,
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TO JOSEPH MAZZINI. London, October 27, L...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Homoeopathy A 1iumhug. Liverpool, Octobo...
A few weeks since , the renowned chemist Liebig , being at a dinner party in Liverpool , his opinion of Hahnemann ' s doctrines was asked ; and his replywas : — " Sir , we have no word in the German language sufficiently expressive ; but there is one in English most suitable : it is humbug !" Well , it is proposed to found in this country a college for its students ! Truly , the names of its appointed professors would be immortal ; but who would enviously desire to share their future celebrity ? Your always very attentive reader and subscriber , Video .
1048 Uttyt &*&&**? [Saturday,
1048 Uttyt &*&&**? [ Saturday ,
To Joseph Mazzini. London, October 27, L...
TO JOSEPH MAZZINI . London , October 27 , L 851 . Fkiend and Brother , —A nation , like a man , is only responsible for its own deeds . It is free will alone that constitutes the ground of morality . Ihe slave can do no wrong . It is very true that , whether we speak of men or aggregates of men , the world has none but willing slaves . None need serve but such as deserve it . It is certainly no man ' s fault but our own , or of our fathers , if we Italians live in a state of division and thraldom . A little more wisdom on their part , a little more daring on our own , would either have
placed us above all need of revolution , or would render it a very short and easy work . As matters stand , however , we have lost the privilege of judging and acting for ourselves . If , for instance , we think we had enough of the Pope , and turn him out , up start the Catholic powers , up , if need be , start the schismatic and heretic also , and force him down our throats . It is for a cessation of this humiliating state of things that an Italian would give his life . For my own part , were it possible to rid Italy of her foreign rulers , and so to strengthen her by any bond of union or unity as to screen her from future outrage on their part , I should deem rebellion or conspiracy in Italy the most unnatural of crimes .
Give me a country , and my very love for it will make me a Conservative . I do not mean by that that I would sit down and put up with brutalizing despotism or arrogant aristocracy , but henceforth all opposition should be pacific and legal . I would only trust the unerring instincts of human progress , the omnipotence and incomprehensibility of opinion . I think that all political problems , with the exception of the sacred principle of nationality , are so many-sided and
complicated that they can only admit of calm and deliberate solution ; a recourse to violent means , an appeal to the sword , is only likely to lead to the establishment of the right of the strongest . This is as much as to say that , warmly as I advocate revolution in Italy , in Poland , in Hungary , earnestly would I deprecate and abhor it in France , England , or America ; and much as I find to love and admire in you , I can feel no sympathy with Ledru Rollin or with other French agitators with whom you associate . Their cause is not our cause . The French have been their
own masters since the days of Louis XI . Surely it cannot be supposed that a weak bigot like that king , a sickly voluptuary like his successor , a stagehumbug like the " Grand Monarch , " or any other of their Valois or Bourbons , or that Louis Philippe or Louis Napoleon , could keep so many millions in check , if the vast majority of those millions were not at heart little Valois or Bourbons , Louis Philippes and Louis Napoleons in miniature . Have not the
French for the last sixty years tried ull that revolution can do for them ? and has not every successive attempt carried them a step further from what men understand to be rational freedom ? ia not every idol they have set up a thousand times more helpless , more hideous , more contemptible , and yet more powerful , more successful in his liberticide attempts , then hia predecessor ? Napoleon , Louis Philippe , Louis Napoleon 1 Truly a pitiable climax !
But you will eay , " " What blinds the people to their own interests , what makes them forgetful of their dignity , their honour , their manhood , is their helpless ignorance , their inexperience of public life , the thousand religious and political trammels with which the long prevalence of abuse and conventionality has cumbered them . It is only by violence thut such fetters can be shaken off . The whole edilicc is rotten . Total demolition must precede all attempts at reconstruction . "
It may be ho , though I do not think so . Let it be grunted that the majority are wrong and the minority right , what can be gained by a plot or n riot , by a coup de main , which may , for a moment , give the minority the helm of the state ? On the morrow of a buccchhIuI revolution , the people will . lie found not ripe . " It will not understand the iujw thcor ic » ; for , most assuredly , the morrow of ji popular strife is not the jitteBt season for their calm examination ; mid the very dread of innovation , surprise , and indignation , will eauily bring the stolid multitude to countenance the blindest reuction .
Wherever the law is of indigenous growth , it is well to train the people in the religion of it ; to tench them to rely on legal means alone for its revision and improvement . The law ahould be the fate of a nation up to the very eve of itB revocation . It is by dint of tampering with it that tho French havo brought
themselves to a state of incurable anarchy , and that a constitution is for them a lucus a non lucendo , so called from its instability . I repeat it , Mazzini , there is nothing common between the French democrats and yourself , nothing common between France and Italy . We , are urging forward claims to what is most indisputably our own , the land of our forefathers , our own control over our destinies . We do not , as the French , make our own laws ; not we , not even our princes and rulers . Every opposition , even that of the smuggler , outlaw , and bandit , is patriotism in Italy .
As there is nothing common between us and France or other nations placed in the same autonomic situation , so there is little to be hoped , nothing to be expected , from their sympathy or fraternity . There might be some sense in joining our fellow-sufferers of Poland , Hungary , and perhaps Germany , though the events of 1848 have satisfied us that national selfishness developes itself even before the establishment of well defined nationality . We , Italians , have no friends beyond the Alps or the sea , as that poor Charles Albert had it , ' * Italy must act for itself , and by itself alone ; " and I do not thank you , Mazzini , for clinging closer and closer to
your foreign democratic confederates , in proportion as love of conciliation , and a spirit of just moderation estrange some of your most honest compatriots from you . You have made the cause of Italy a secondary matter , subservient to what you call the great cause of humanity . But this cause , that is , the solution of the great democratic and social problems , is in France , in England , and in America , a subject of home debate , to be decided by free discussion in those countries where such freedom exists ; a subject on which , if I am not much mistaken , mere recourse to physical force will have but little influence , and should have none .
As a man , no doubt , your voice will be heard with deference by , your new associates ; but as an Italian , and speaking in the name of Italy , you will only be laughed at if you meddle in questions that , for the present , concern us not . Italy has , as yet , no vote in the great community of nations ; she should never open her lips until she has indicated her rights to speak . The negro in the United States must first secure the success of emancipation , ere he settles in his own mind whether Whig or Locofoco politics are more to his taste .
It is possible that the Whigs or the Locofoci will try to enlist the negro in their respective causes by holding out false hopes , and by leading him to believe that the cause of abolition is wound up in that of their party ; but I only pity the poor slave if he gives in to their suggestions , for I know that for what concerns him all parties are equally indifferent , if not actually hostile . Now , I think this is precisely our case with respect to Ledru Rollin and the minority in France , no matter what party it may belong to . They are liberal enough of their promises whilst out of power . But put Ledru Rollin in Louis Napoleon ' s place , reassure him from all fears on the part of Austria and Russia , and you will see what becomes of the solidarity of Peoples and brotherhood of nations .
Mazzini , ours is an honest causo ; theirs—if they expect anything in France from plot or riot—is n dishonest one . All revolution is unhallowed , save only where its object is the vindication of national rights . Against all other evils , persuasion , legal and peaceful agitation , must afford sufficient remedy . The good citizen in a self-governing country steps before his ruler , even the worst of rulers , and cries , ' Strike , but hear ! " lie expects no permanent good from a subversion of order and violation of the law .
He looks upon civil strife as the worst of evils ; he wishes for no bloodshed except his own , if he thinks that his cause is in need of a martyr . There can be no harm in being a Republican in France or in England . But that is matter of opinion , and opinion can only prevail by force of reasoning . We must talk or write about it till , like the Reform Bill or tho Free Trade Bill , it becomes the will of the nation when kings will be gracious enough to make their bow and carry with them into private life the thanks and respect of their people .
But I have too long discoursed about what concerns us not ; only we must conclude that beyond our boundaries we may make individual friendships , but can expect no help , or even sympathy , from any country or party . 'JLhis is a favourite conclusion with me , and I never come to it without thanking and praising God that he has so ordained . God enables us , as he enables all other nations , to sufHce to ourselves , if we rely on ourselves iilone , if we find our own resources merely in our unanimity and determination .
But you will nsk me , " How ia this concord and resolution amongst Italians to be brought about ?" My answer will be the subject of the next letter , the last 1 shall address you . Meanwhile , us a first ineaiiH of establishing a good understanding amongst us , Mazzini , I advine you , as you love your country , depart from your present associates ! Separate your cause from that of France , no mutter whether Republican or otlinrwiue . You havo had enough of French experience . It was for thut People , it was
for men like those who are now flattering von TiT " in 1848 you broke off from those of your countrvm with whom you had but lately joined hands at th * universal reconciliation of parties in the month nf January of that year , and came back in March a frondeur at Milan , looking on what you called a " Royal war , " as if it we ' re no concern of yours , as if the blood of those Royal soldiers , and of their Kin himself , were not sacred Italian blood spilt for the dear 6 ake of our national redemption ! Truly , Mazzini , you had your reward . " The French , " you said , " could only be expected to come forward to the rescue of a republic . " At the head of a republic you placed yourself at Rome ; and before you uttered a cry of distress—before you were in any need of them as friends—down the French came upon you as enemies ! Surely that republican fratricide will stand forth in history as the greatest of
human enormities . But , you insist , Louis Napoleon was not France nor his Ministers , nor the National Assembly , it may suit your purpose to say that Ledru Rollin alone is France . For myself , I remember the time when by a covp de main , Ledru Rollin put himself at the head of the French nation , and the nation chose , and chooses still , to bow down to other idols . What would you ? The French have long been , and are , governing themselves on the broadest popular basis . In fact , it was only a Government so constituted that
could thus act in the teeth of all sense and justice Such a degree of irresponsibility to God and man can only be attained by a sovereign People . I contend that the taking of Rome , the disenfranchisement of numbers of electors , the expulsion of exiles , the refusal of a short refuge to Kossuth—all that is most hideous and odious in Louis Napoleon ' s career—all is done in compliance with the will of the French people : " not of the whole of the people , " you -will say ; " not of its soundest part . " Of that part of it , I answer , which wields the power and gives it .
" But , " again you say , " the French are only feeling their way towards real freedom . Every revolution brings about the disenchantment of some fond predilection , the demolition of some popular idol . The education of the People is ever advancing , though only by fits and starts . Its regeneration will require the baptism of endless successive revolutions . Louis Napoleon , too , will pass away , and with him the prestige of his uncle's name . The French will be cured of Bonapartism as they are of Bourbonism . Men must be levelled with the ground that the cause of mankind may prevailed . "
I will not contend that it may not be so . But if it really be so . would it be wise on our part to build our hopes in a country that is yet at the A B C of its political existence ; a country in a state of perpetual transition ? I defy any man to s tate what positive , permanent tendency the French have developed during these last sixty years of popular commotions- Riots without an end we have seen , but nothing like revolution , nothing like progress towards the reign of reason and justice , nothing like the foundation of a law , nothing like the establishment of personal freedom .
Truly , were I Frenchman—and I thank God I am not—1 would not be a Ledru-Rollinian . I should say , " enough of riots , enough of ill-lavished civil blood . ' In spite of fine or imprisonment the Word is free in that country . Seizures , arrests , ba nishments , can only give it all the importance and dignity of martyrdom . With all fines and imprisonments either is the Word omnipotent , or else mankind is incurable . Truly , there is enough—and not in France merely —that would lead us to despair of the human race . What has freedom of institutions , and holiness of religious creed , done in America towards the mitigation ot the evils of slavery—or towards prevention of its
aggravation ? Go and inquire of the bleeding negro , or ol untrodden Mexicans , what they think of " republican solidarity of Peoples . " What has an unsnackieu press , tho most unbounded freedom of inquiry , | . towards curing the Irish , the French , Swiss , or 1 Mgians of the most disgusting , degrading practices Roman Catholicism ? How did mere reason dejen j Switzerland from Jesuitic intrigues , or JuiB' »» from Pupal Aggressions ? Behold in this counuy , in the teeth of its law * of its truth-sifting hccW ,
, its millions of millions of Bibles , at every step y < ^ stumble on a new convent or nunnery . 1 ^ nothing more humbling or disheartening . i > i » - ^ we , for nil this , give up persuasion and r «»" violent means ? No , a thousand tunes no I . tion , like tyrunnical oppression , persuades no in . ^ only embitters and maddens many . AgiU 1 . ]( 1 ( 1 > moral evila there is no remedy save the hall-uxi inefficient , yet only remedy , of an incessant aW
reason . , ) Ut a Luckily for us , in Italy it is not » " *• „ wc physical evil we have to contend with . Qi h mar our good , tangible cause by mixing H extraneouH questions , question * that have w 1 I b driven ma < l the most upright and indefatigable of mankind . , A natrium * ' No ! the- Mword alono can rid u » of the Ausi ^ but we will leave it to tho tongue or P ™ J ^ c » . other political or social , moral or reh ^ ouB d » P '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 1, 1851, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01111851/page/20/
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