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Creator and Preserver of men, whose law, he affirmed, imposed upon all, the duties of justice, temperance, benevolence, and mercy. He reproved the immorality of his countrymen, and labored to bring them up to a knowledge of God and the practice of sound morals, and for this offence he was judicially murdered by his countrymen. As to the government of the Athenians, it is sufficient to say, that its stormy democracy knew no rule of administration but their passions, and by these, their licentious freedom was destroyed, after it had for a brief period cast a halo upon the only free State of antiquity.

The civil polity of the Athenian commonwealth, where all power was in an Assembly of the People-where debtors and their children might be sold into slavery to pay unfeeling creditors-where enfeebled slaves, and the children of the poor might be exposed to death to avoid their support; where a judicial murder of Socrates, and the ostracism of Aristides, Themistocles, Thucidides and other of her noblest defenders, greatest ornaments, and purest patriots, were perpetrated; such a civil polity was as deplorable as the morals of the people were debased. And this is the most cultivated nation of the ancient world, and in arts, sciences, morals, and even humanity, she was superior to all Pagan Empires and States that pre

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ceded the Christian era. A great poet of our day, has well described in sacred song the state of pretended liberty and actual violence of Greece and Rome, the most distinguished commonwealths of antiquity. After denouncing oppression in every form, he adds

"Earthly liberty,

Which aimed to make a reasonable man
By legislation think, and by the sword

Believe. This was that liberty renowned,

Those equal rights of Greece and Rome, where men,
All but a few, were bought and sold, and scourged,

And killed, as interest or caprice enjoined:

In after times, talked of, written of much,
That most by sound and custom led away,

Believed the essence, answered to the name."

We shall next examine the Roman oligarchy, commonly, but inaccurately called the Republic of Rome. The Athenian democracy, gleaming like a comet, with fiery radiance, casts a strong and partially beautiful light upon antiquity, but Rome rises before us like the sun of the ancient systems. At the Christian era, the Roman dominion extended over 120 millions of people, of whom, sixty millions were slaves. It covered the most valuable parts of Britain, Gaul, Spain, Germany, Italy, Egypt, and of the African and Asiatic coasts; of the Mediterranean; of the kingdom of Macedonia; and various islands and regions, comprising an extent of territory, number of sub

jects, and solidity of political power and wealth before unknown. This was the result of many centuries of war and conquest.

The conquests of Alexander, though extensive and dazzling, and wrought by the genius and valor of a great captain, fade to nothing before the gigantic, martial victories of Rome. Though Alexander the Great vainly supposed he had conquered the world, Rome conquered his kingdom of Macedonia, Greece, and Egypt, and proudly claimed to be the mistress of the world. And that nothing might be wanting to her glory, she bound her brows with the victorious wreath of Alexander-she transported to Italy the monuments and learning of Egypt, and adorned her capitol with works of Grecian art. She borrowed the philosophy and refinement of the Greeks, and entwined as it were her iron arms with the

graceful chaplets of Athenian skill. This country, thus inheriting the antique lore of Egypt, the trophies of Alexander, and Grecian learning and Grecian art, will be found to confirm our leading proposition, of the destitution of antiquity of any sound knowledge of International Law, Civil Polity, Ethics, and Morals.

Rome was founded more than seven centuries before the Christian era by a fratricide, and this murderer was the first king of the Romans. By

the fabled Sabine rape, the Romans are said to have obtained wives, and this formed the basis of Roman families, and of the Roman social state. The ancestral mothers of the Cæsars, of the Scipios, of Pompey, and of Cicero, are found, as the historians of Rome say, among these violated Sabine women; and the ancestral fathers of these great Romans, were the robbers, who by treachery and force, thus provided Rome with her first matrons and replenishers of a martial line. Woman had little respect or power in Rome, and wives were divorced by husbands at will. An act of violence upon Lucretia, overthrew the monarchy established by Romulus, in the 245th year of the city; and → this was deemed the era of Roman morality. The social state in its origin, its principles, and its practices was bad. Every page of Roman history is stained with domestic infidelities, immoralities and murders, down to the pillage of Rome by the Vandal king Genseric, who was invited to Italy by the queen of the Roman emperor.

The polity of Rome was originally an elective limited monarchy, with a hereditary Senate of 100, chosen by the king. Afterwards 200 were added to the Senate, and thus a hereditary body of Patricians were organized. From the 245th to the 727th year of Rome, the executive power was vested in two Consuls, and at times in a Dictator.

The Consuls were Patricians until the 388th year of the city, when the first Plebeian became consul. By prohibition of intermarriage, the Patricians and Plebeians were for a long period kept distinct and separate. Though the Consuls were nominally elected by the people, the Senate by influence, in fact, generally appointed them. The people had a power of legislation under certain circumstances, and by a forcible rising they secured the appointment of Tribunes of the people, as guardians and protectors of popular rights. But for most practical purposes, during the Consulate, the Senate either enacted, or influenced the pas sage of laws, and were the controlling power of the commonwealth. The Licinian law, which the Gracchi attempted to revive, with a view to restore to the Roman State the public domain, which the Patricians had illegally seized, was truly a law of the people. The tribunitial office of the Gracchi, and the existence of the restored law sanctioned anew in the assemblies of the people, were of no avail. A proud and grasping aristocracy, put down these laws by force of arms, killing the Gracchi and several thousands of the Roman people. Thus the Patricians cut down the liberties of the people of Rome with the same sword that had conquered the world. It was the first scene in the drama of retributive justice that

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