Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

WE Constantly hear it affirmed in Europe, and particularly when the conversation turns upon the subject of the United States, that no Republic has ever yet existed, and that none will ever be able to exist, for any length of time. In order to support this assertion, the ancient Republics of Greece and Rome, and the more modern ones of Italy and Holland, are quoted as examples; and it follows as a natural deduction that monarchy, either limited or absolute, is the only sort of government that can or ought to exist.

6

Now, in the first place, I beg leave to observe, that if the duration of a government be taken as a proof of its excellence, we should do well to adopt the paternal despotism of the celestial empire of China But however that may be, I may remind the lovers of antiquity, that the Republic of the United States has already lasted, without any material alteration, for half a century; and as every government may be considered stable, when the mass of the people is in the full enjoyment of liberty, and when all those have perished who recollected a different one, the United States may bid defiance to those friends of "Social Order" who would rejoice in seeing the country swimming in

[ocr errors]

blood, if it would but tend to establish a tyranny like their own.

In the next place I must observe, that there never yet has been a Republic similar to that of the United States. I talk not of names, but of things. The government of Great Britain is called a Monarchy, and so is that of Morocco; but I presume no one will be so disloyal a subject, as to compare the mild sway of his Britannic Majesty to the cruel tyranny of the Moorish Emperor. Yet I am disposed to maintain, that there is as much resemblance between these two most opposite governments, as between the Republic of the United States and any of those of ancient or modern times. I shall therefore now say a few words about these self-styled Republics; and I hope the reader will pardon the length of the digression when he considers the importance of the subject.

I begin with Athens, that most ungrateful and capricious of States! But shall a turbulent and factious democracy, composed of the most heterogeneous elements, and liable to commit whatever atrocious action might be advised by a corrupt orator, be compared to the steady and regular administration of a Representative government? It is amusing indeed to consider, that these Athenians, the inhabitants of a territory which absolutely vanishes as compared to the United States, apparently considered themselves as the greatest of nations, and were constantly involved in wars, by

inattention to their own affairs, and an absurd desire of regulating those of their neighbours.

Yet the Athenians had certainly better pretensions to the noble title of Republicans than their barbarous rivals of Sparta. The laws of Lycurgus, which it has been the fashion to admire, were only adapted to keep the people in ignorance, and to prevent civilization. In our modern acceptation of the word Freedom, no people were less free than the Spartans. They could not leave their country without permission; they were not allowed to devote themselves to elegant literature, or to the cultivation of the fine arts; and as they could not educate their own children, or take their dinner in private, or even visit their wives except by stealth; all domestic enjoyment, and, in short, all that makes life valuable, was prohibited. Truly that was an excellent government, which encouraged stealing, and thus destroyed the reverence for the meum and tuum, which it is one of the principal objects of all reasonable governments to maintain.

[ocr errors]

That the liberty of the Spartans, like that of all the ancients, was perfectly egotistical, is sufficiently proved by their wish to prevent the re-construction of the walls of Athens; and it is surely enough to brand the name of these jealous barbarians with eternal infamy, that they were the first of all the Greeks who submitted to the yoke of Rome.

I may remark of all the Grecian Republics, that they were constantly quarrelling among themselves,

and that they were alternately exposed to the most severe despotism and the most licentious democracy. Nothing indeed enabled these ill-governed States to retain their independence so long as they did, but that their neighbours wanted the skill and knowledge, requisite for subduing nations somewhat, though very little, their superiors.re

Modern research has destroyed all the splendid fables of Thermopyla, Salamis, and Marathon; and though almost sorry to give them up, the unprejudiced inquirer after truth is obliged to place them by the side of the equally authentic accounts of the hone-cutting razor and the vinegar-melted Alps of the Roman historian.

But let us pass over these insignificant little Grecian hordes, who, notwithstanding the know ledge some of them possessed in poetry, architec ture, &c., inspire me with less esteem than my friends of the Six Nations-men of less superstition, equal eloquence, and far greater morality.ite

The Roman Republic was by its very constitution an Aristocracy, and that too of the most cruel and intolerant kind. The whole history of Rome is a mere account of struggles for power, between the Patricians and the People-a circumstance which demonstrates the badness of the government. Nothing produced any degree of quiet, but the murderous policy of the Senate, in waging incessant

* Vide the learned dissertation prefixed to Richardson's Persian Dictionary.

wars, by means of which they rid themselves of the more enterprising and turbulent spirits, and induced the Plebeians to forget their liberties in the intoxication of military glory. The government allowed the armies to plunder the nations they conquered, in the same way as, in our times, Napoleon permitted his sanguinary legions. Indeed, if the administration of the colonies was the same under the consuls that it was under the emperors, we may judge of the hypocritical policy of the Republic from what Galgacus said: "Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant." If the Carthaginians, and the other conquered nations, had left any histories behind them, I have no doubt they would materially diminish our respect for the " rerum dominos gentemque togatam." For my own part I should think that the "lords of the universe," by frequently condemning their captives to fight in the amphitheatres, showed much greater cruelty than the American Indians. Moreover, if a government is to be blamed for the licentious depravity of the people, we may remark, that the Romans, imitating all that was bad in the Greeks, were guilty of unnatural and horrible vices, worthy only of the Arreoys and the Mawhoos of the Friendly Islands...

[ocr errors]

After the Republic of Rome had naturally sunk into a military despotism, Freedom slept a sleep of centuries, and it was not until comparatively mo

« PreviousContinue »