e of a terrible
revolution; and they ask, What use can I make of any material aid? when
Italy is a barrel of powder, which the slightest spark may light.

In respect to foreign rule, GERMANY is more fortunate than Italy. From
the times of the treaty of Verdun, when it separated from France and
Italy, through the long period of more than a thousand years, no foreign
power ever has succeeded to rule over Germany; such is the resistive
power of the German people to guard its national existence. The tyrants
who swayed over them were of their own blood. But to subdue German
liberty, those tyrants were always anxious to introduce foreign
institutions. First, they swept away the ancient Germanic right, the
common law so dear to the English and American, an eternal barrier
against the encroachments of despotism, and substituted for it the iron
rule of the imperial Roman law. The rule of papal Rome over the minds of
Germany crossed the mountains together with the Roman law, and a
spiritual dependency was to be established all over the world. The wings
of the German eagle were bound, that it should not soar up to the sun of
truth. But when the oppression became too severe, the people of Germany
rose against the power of Rome;--not the princes,--though they too were
oppressed: but the son of the miner of Eisenach, the poor friar, Martin
Luther, defied the Pope on his throne, and at his bidding the people of
Germany proved, that it is strong enough to shake off oppression; that
it is worthy, and that it knows how, to be free. And again, when the
French, under their Emperor, whose genius comprehended everything except
freedom, extended their moral sway over Germany, when the princes of
Germany thronged around the foreign despot, begging kingly crowns from
the son of the Corsican lawyer, with whom the Emperors were happy to
form matrimonial alliances--with the man who had no other ancestors than
his genius,--then it was again the people, which did not join in the
degradation of its rulers, but jealous to maintain their national
independence, turned the foreigner out though his name was Napoleon, and
broke the yoke asunder, which weighed as heavily upon their princes as
upon themselves. And still there are men in America who despair of the
vitality of the Germans, of their indomitable power to resist
oppression, of their love of freedom, and of their devotion to it,
proved by a glorious history of two thousand years. The German race is