FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1751   1752   1753   1754   1755   1756   1757   1758   1759   1760   1761   1762   1763   1764   1765   1766   1767   1768   1769   1770   1771   1772   1773   1774   1775  
1776   1777   1778   1779   1780   1781   1782   1783   1784   1785   1786   1787   1788   1789   1790   1791   1792   1793   1794   1795   1796   1797   1798   1799   1800   >>   >|  
her, when he occupied the same position as the Envoy of the hated, newborn Republic. "It cannot be denied,"--says another observer, placed on one of our national watch-towers in a foreign capital,--"it cannot be denied that the tendency of European public opinion, as delivered from high places, is more and more unfriendly to our cause"; "but the people," he adds, "everywhere sympathize with us, for they know that our cause is that of free institutions,--that our struggle is that of the people against an oligarchy." These are the words of the Minister to Austria, whose generous sympathies with popular liberty no homage paid to his genius by the class whose admiring welcome is most seductive to scholars has ever spoiled; our fellow-citizen, the historian of a great Republic which infused a portion of its life into our own,--John Lothrop Motley. It is a bitter commentary on the effects of European, and especially of British institutions, that such men should have to speak in such terms of the manner in which our struggle has been regarded. We had, no doubt, very generally reckoned on the sympathy of England, at least, in a strife which, whatever pretexts were alleged as its cause, arrayed upon one side the supporters of an institution she was supposed to hate in earnest, and on the other its assailants. We had forgotten what her own poet, one of the truest and purest of her children, had said of his countrymen, in words which might well have been spoken by the British Premier to the American Ambassador asking for some evidence of kind feeling on the part of his government: "Alas I expect it not. We found no bait To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, Disinterested good, is not our trade." We know full well by this time what truth there is in these honest lines. We have found out, too, who our European enemies are, and why they are our enemies. Three bending statues bear up that gilded seat, which, in spite of the time-hallowed usurpations and consecrated wrongs so long associated with its history, is still venerated as the throne. One of these supports is the pensioned church; the second is the purchased army; the third is the long-suffering people. Whenever the third caryatid comes to life and walks from beneath its burden, the capitals of Europe will be filled with the broken furniture of palaces. No wonder that our ministers find the privileged orders willing to see the ominous republic s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1751   1752   1753   1754   1755   1756   1757   1758   1759   1760   1761   1762   1763   1764   1765   1766   1767   1768   1769   1770   1771   1772   1773   1774   1775  
1776   1777   1778   1779   1780   1781   1782   1783   1784   1785   1786   1787   1788   1789   1790   1791   1792   1793   1794   1795   1796   1797   1798   1799   1800   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

European

 

people

 
Republic
 

institutions

 

struggle

 

denied

 

British

 

enemies

 

honest

 

evidence


children

 
Ambassador
 
American
 

countrymen

 
spoken
 
Premier
 

feeling

 

country

 

government

 

expect


Disinterested

 

Europe

 

capitals

 

filled

 

broken

 

burden

 

beneath

 

Whenever

 

caryatid

 
furniture

palaces

 

ominous

 
republic
 

orders

 

privileged

 
ministers
 

suffering

 
hallowed
 

usurpations

 
consecrated

gilded

 

bending

 

statues

 
wrongs
 

pensioned

 

supports

 
church
 

purchased

 

throne

 
history