a
power, the vitality and influence of which you can trace through the
_world's_ history for two thousand years; you can trace it through
the history of science and heroism, of industry, and of bold
enterprizing spirit. Your own country, your own national character, bear
the mark of German vitality. Other nations, now and then, were great by
some great men--the German people was always great by itself.

But the German princes cannot bear independence and liberty; they had
rather themselves become slaves, the underlings of the Czar, than allow
that their people should enjoy some liberty. An alliance was therefore
formed, which they blasphemously called the Holy Alliance,--with the
avowed purpose to keep the people down. The great powers guaranteed to
the smaller princes--whose name is Legion, for they are many,--the power
to fleece and torment their people, and promised every aid to them
against the insurrection of those, who would find that for liberty's
sake it is worth while to risk their lives and property. It was an
alliance for the oppression of the nations, not for the maintenance of
the princely prerogative. When the Grand-Duke of Baden, in a fit of
liberality, granted his people the liberty of the press, the Emperor of
Austria and the King of Prussia abolished the law, though it had been
carried unanimously by the Legislature of Baden and sanctioned by the
prince.--The Holy Alliance had guaranteed to the princes the power to
oppress, but not the power to benefit their people.

But though the great powers interfered often in the principalities and
little kingdoms of Germany, indeed as often as the spirit of liberty
awoke, yet they themselves avoided every occasion which would have
forced them to request the aid of their allies, and especially of
Russia. They knew too well, that to accept foreign aid against their own
people, was nothing else than to lose independence, and was morally the
same as to kneel down before the Czar and to take the oath of
allegiance. A government which needs foreign aid against its own people,
avows that it cannot stand without foreign aid. Take that foreign
aid--interference!--away, and it falls.

The dynasties of Austria and Prussia were aware of this. They therefore
yielded, as often as their encroachments met a firm resistance from the
people. When my nation so resolutely resisted in 1823 the attempt to
abolish the constitution, Prince Metternich himself advised the Emperor
Fran