State, you may
tell me--I know not, I cannot read the counsels of Providence--a State
having a mission to subdue the world; but a State whose very basis it
was to deny the equal rights, to proscribe the independent existence,
of other nations. That, gentlemen, was the Roman idea. It has been
partially and not ill described in three lines of a translation from
Virgil by our great poet Dryden, which run as follows:

O Rome! 'tis thine alone with awful sway
To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war thine own majestic way.

We are told to fall back upon this example. No doubt the word 'Empire'
was qualified with the word 'Liberty'. But what did the two words
'Liberty' and 'Empire' mean in a Roman mouth? They meant simply
this--'Liberty for ourselves, Empire over the rest of mankind'.

I do not think, gentlemen, that this Ministry, or any other Ministry,
is going to place us in the position of Rome. What I object to is the
revival of the idea--I care not how feebly, I care not even how, from
a philosophic or historic point of view, how ridiculous the attempt
at this revival may be. I say it indicates an intention--I say it
indicates a frame of mind, and that frame of mind, unfortunately, I
find, has been consistent with the policy of which I have given you
some illustrations--the policy of denying to others the rights that
we claim ourselves. No doubt, gentlemen, Rome may have had its work to
do, and Rome did its work. But modern times have brought a different
state of things. Modern times have established a sisterhood of
nations, equal, independent; each of them built up under that
legitimate defence which public law affords to every nation, living
within its own borders, and seeking to perform its own affairs; but if
one thing more than another has been detestable to Europe, it has been
the appearance upon the stage from time to time of men who, even in
the times of the Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at
universal dominion. It was this aggressive disposition on the part
of Louis XIV, King of France, that led your forefathers, gentlemen,
freely to spend their blood and treasure in a cause not immediately
their own, and to struggle against the method of policy which, having
Paris for its centre, seemed to aim at a universal monarchy. It was
the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was the charge
launched, and justly launched, against Napoleon, that under his
do