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1040 TTIE- LEADER. [Saturday ,
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HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. THE MANCHESTER BANQ...
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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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Is Louis Napoleon A Stupid Man ? This Is...
ginal pieces , puffing away the smoke of cannon , the fumes of brandy , and the intellectual co-operation of a thousand dexterous myrmidons , so as to see how much of the success of the whole thing depended on the sheer brain of the dogged brute who sat alone during the massacre , receiving reports through the half-open door , and stirring the fire with the poker which the mob , had it burst in , would have put to another use ? True , in both
cases , the success was his ; and this , at least , we are bound therefore to say , that , whatever was his own share in determining the conditions , he and the conditions suited each other . The suitability of the man for the conditions of the case , this is what , from the evidence afforded , we are certainly constrained to assert . But what if part of this very suitability consisted , not in inteflectual ability , but actually and positively in the reverse—stupidity ?
The social potency of intense stupidity , we repeat , is a thing yet to be investigated . Take a simple case . Have our readers any personal acquaintance with a very stupid man ? We do not mean a silly butterfly kind of imbecile , a creature with small brain of any sort ; but a downright , solid , heavy blockhead , a man with a large quantity of extremely bad brain . If they have , they must know by experience that stupidity is a real power . Just as a very disagreeable man sometimes makes such an impression in society as to become more
considerable , more largely an object of thought , than , persona equally clever and better-conditioned ; so a very stupid man is often a more important personage in the circle of those who know him than a man of mediocre talent . You cannot help thinking about a very stupid man ; his presence is a dull kind of galvanism ; and when he is out of sight , your recollections go breaking against the perpetual image of him , like waves against a rock . Next to the headboys in a class , their schoolfellows retain the most vivid recollection of the dunces : and the
next most powerful thing to a very able man in society is a man surpassingly stupid . But make the case a little more complex . Suppose a case not of ordinary stupidity , or stupidity affecting you passively , but of stupidity with a craze or fanaticism , stupidity with an element of friskiness in it , aggressive stupidity , stupidity that butts at j r ou , and bothers you , and deranges you and others in your daily procedure . Suppose , for example , that the most stupid man of your acquaintance were to take it into his confused head ! , that he was to be the founder of a new religion , and were to go every day to Smithiield to preach his botch of a creed . He would , of course , be laughed at ; ho would become a nuisance ; he would bo taken over
and over again to the police-office ; but if , when he got out , he regularly went back to his post among tho butchers , he would in the end gain adherents , well-to-do-people would drop in among his disciples , and logic itself , in the shapo of some clear-headed individual , would come to his rescue . This is tho history of Mormonism in America . Joe Smith , so far as avc can gather , was a really stupid man ; his doctrines , at any rule , which form the speculative basis of Mormonism , arc , oven if wo set fraud aside , about as stupid a jumble of downright nonsense as the world ever saw ; and yet round this centre of mere intellectual idiotcy have clustered not only elements of social success , but even elements of
social respectability , pith , and virtue . Now , positively , the likost thing that we know of in recent times to the success ol" Joe Smith , the Mormon prophet , is the successor Louis Napoleon , the newest . I'lmperor of . Franco . Both , ho far as we see ground for an opinion , arc ; to be Hot down as essentially stupid men ; and in both tho power of innnto stupidity is to be regarded as qualified by fanaticism . . Nay , of the two , ( joins JNapoleon lias had the easier part to perform . « Joo Smith made bis own fanaticism , and diffused it through society from its first speck
onwards ; Louis . Napoleon s fanaticism is a fanaticism of tradition , a fanaticism related to a , smouldering sentiment deep and vast in the mind of Europe . The most stupid of all the JNapofoonidw , this nephew , or reputed nephew of the JOmporor , seems to have inherited in n greater degree than any other of them , that sense and theory of bin own relation to the rest of the world , which a earoor like that of the elder Napoleon was fitted to infuso into the veins of his descendants . That ho was to perform a great part ; that ho walked over the world with n label
on his breast—a citizen of no country properly , but with a hereditary claim on France ; that he was exempt from all law and rule , save that of force , to obtain what he wanted—these . are feelings with which Louis Napoleon was born . I his Napoleonian fanaticism is visible throughout his whole career . And consider to what a feeling in the heart of France this fanaticism of Napoleon ' s nephew corresponded and kept time . Put the two things adequately together—the Napoleonian fanaticism of the man , and the Napoleonian enthusiasm of the nation , and it will
not seem necessary to allow much intellect as required for any step in the career of Louis Napoleon . It is no disparagement , we should suppose , to the talent of the present Duke of Wellington , to say that he is not nearly so able a man as his father . Yet , were this son of the Duke inspired with the fanatical conviction that he was to be a great general , and were he to go about and make known this fanaticism , and scheme and labour
in its behalf , who can predict the extent ot the commotion he migM make in English aristocratic circles , or the oddity of the social combinations to which his inveterate Wellingtonianism might in the end lead ? " And after all , this , imaginary as it is , is but a faint shadow of the reality in the case of Louis Napoleon . He did not fight his way by intellect and endeavour to his position in France ; he was caught at his first fall on the lap of five millions of votes ; and he * lies there still . " What end he serves by lying there is quite a different question from that which we have been discussing .
1040 Ttie- Leader. [Saturday ,
1040 TTIE- LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Hints To New M.P.'S. The Manchester Banq...
HINTS TO NEW M . P . 'S . THE MANCHESTER BANQUET . Gentlemen , —A few supplementary hints may serve to point usefully the anticipatory moral of the Manchester Banquet , which all of you of the Free-trade side have promised to attend next week . . h Manchester Amphitryons manage those occasions with great cleverness . They do everything well in that town ; and their political gastronomy has been cultivated to seductive perfection . There is nothing incongruous in seeing a Radical a gourmet ; for did not " pieces de resistance" come in with the lieign of Terror ? A public dinner at Manchester is as superior to a public dinner in London as a Parisian restaurant to an Old Bailey boiled-beef house ; and though a feed of 2500 " Manchester men" does not present any idea of that quiet refinement which should characterize a symposium , you gentlemen who will be sitting at the ehampagno table—you lions , to see whom feed will be the object of that intellectual assembly—will experience none of the steamy horrors of the masticatory scuffle below the salt ; with you there Avill be no " ¦ lingering * Lottie , Leaving all claretless the uninoistencd throttle , Which is objectionable with politics on band ;" and at a Manchester dinner , suffering from the animal magnetism of 2500 Manchester men , stern with patriotism and port , there is no knowing what tho contemplated argumentum adgulam , on such an occasion , in favour of cheap broad , may efle-cfc , or to what ( dicers you may commit yourselves . Political debutants were wont to bo
warned of tho pledge given by their presence at Holland or Lansdowno House ; and a Lord ( jiiloseton , who once catches bis prey at bis table , is supposed to own him for ever . . And are you to imagine that a-party at Manchester does not mean the Manchcster ' party V Surely you know that you are going to a , cabinet dinner , given by the president of tho council , Mr . dearie , Wilson ; and that ; Mr . JJright , Hiiro of his accustomed chorus , will speak for all of you P First boy of the first form of the " school , " what can you " fugs" say in opposition to him ? And is your ditto to Mr . Hurlce a matter of course P
IJcfore you set out for Lancashire—thai ; great county , which deserves its pre-eminence , since it in to lOngland what lOnglnnd is to the world—it would be well to inquire what you arc going to do ; and I doubt if there is a man among you who could answer with any distinctness . You are not going to make a . demonstration in favour of . Free-trade , since , us there is no danger to that system , it would be a proceeding akin in valour to the diuuitlossness of Jiox , who , when he ( dearl y HHccrtains that ( h > x never fights , pronounces bis immortal " come on , then ! " You are not going intentionally to oflbr your adhesion to tlio "
Manchester school , " since there is a Cobden as wrti as a Bright in that school , and since uncondi tional " peace" is supposed in that atmosphere to be ih inevitable corollary of " free commerce . " And you are not going to organize a " move ment" or frame a policy , since these things are not inm ™ vised even by suggestive Mr . Cobden , in unr * " served iFree-trade Hall . Then what is the oh iect of this grand feast of British Radicalism ? cannot intimidate
You a Minister who neve meant to face you ; and you cannot purpose to reassure a country which is in no degree alarmed The object in Manchester is clear enough . Ther they want to anticipate the debate on the ad ° dress , and you are needed to make a house , and to keep Speaker Wilson in countenance ; while Mr . Bright , for the amusement of Mr . Disraeli sets up the imaginary paragraphs , and moves t he supererogatory amendments .
Yet it is clear that the new members , who are seeking baptism at Manchester as the radical preliminary to confirmation in Westminster could make this banquet an Olympiad for the party to date from if they would avail themselves of the opportunity to ask their sponsors for an exposition of the creed supposed to be embraced . Manchester has never yet in Manchester been asked , " What do you meanP" and if there is any one among you gentlemen desirous , at the right time , of making a great maiden speech in that ante-room of the Senate—the Free-trade
Hall—I would advise you , after Mr . Bright has delivered his impetuous formula of things to be done , to rise andput that very proper question of the day—" How , Sir , do you propose to wor k out this programme in the House of Commons ?" Of that , be assured , Mr . Bright does not think it incumbent on him to have the least idea , and the ripest scholar of the accomplished school would fail to perceive the absurdity of having a great political banquet the day before Parliament meets , while not one measure has been taken by the guests for converting the well-arranged
pressure from without into a Parliamentary organization . Manchester proposes ; and Westminster disposes . Manchester goes to Parliament as a curious spectator — en philosophe ; and never conceives that it is part of Parliament . JSay , Mr . Bright will think it , in a week or two , an excellent joke to sneer at the compact organization of the Ministerial phalanx , and will be excessively humorous on their clever management at the elections . As if , whatever the villany of the system , it were not insufferably insane to neglect to make the most of that system .
Attend the banquet by all means , gentlemen : but attend it with a thorough comprehension ot what this Manchester party amounts to , and what this new demonstration can tend to . There will bo one hundred or more M . P . ' s seated at the upper table ; and that will be an imposing sight ; for that will be the " people ' s party" of England , and Scotland , and Ireland : and at a political dinner , hope comes in with tho bad walnuts . What may not ono hundred members dof A new M . P . would answer " everything : Mr . Hume would say " much . " And seeing wf . ™ people need a party , would it not bo a greati « ea if some rash and fresh M . P . were , in virtue ot lua irrcenncas , to break through the irregular routine
of guerilla radicalism and suggest tho expemuiy of an enrolmentP Many Manchester banquets and- M anehester conferences have been lieiu i that ]« Yoe-tradc Hall since 1847 : numberless great speeches have boon made , and magnificent rcsofutions have been passed ; but what has i > c < " tho result ? A regidar Parliamentary party lor specific aims has never yet boon organized ; anu consequence , Manchester orators have boon in adorned ! y eloquent altogether in tho nbjti _ The estin . atcs of "A 5 , Peace , Household ™» * K ' I 1 W CN MilIILM'M Ol t ) i > , J CHri ; , i "" " ,, I . btato lI
the Jkllot , Abolition of the Irish ^ ^ Abolition of the Knowledge Taxes--whero »» { these questions been aftertho gas had been iu ofl ' , and the unadorned ones had bookw Euston-sq . mre P The celebrated echo ot tlio would answer with her usual emphasis . Tho Manchester party in ^ " ^ J ^ nlvviiys been a melancholy spectacle oi 1 . and ineflicieney . its motion * , tho resul « * "j ^^ vidual , uriconsnlting impulse , » "itl ltB ,, ! , jyf , mgoodandbad , matters of accident . •*'" -flOf Chester programme includes n clievaux-ao-j ^ " points" of equally warranted f nrli ' * ' j ,, h Manchester presents itself to every M mi * ¦ , „ tho bullying demand—every thing or not ^ that programme arc at loast ft cortain nu
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1852, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30101852/page/12/
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