child of the Polish nation. If they can not govern themselves, it is
equally certain they can not be governed by any despotic power. It is
not by slaughtering defenseless women and children; not by forcing
churches to be opened; not by sending savage and heartless minions to
crush the people down in the dust, that Alexander II. is to win a
reputation for humanity and liberality. It is not by issuing edicts of
emancipation to his serfs, and then, at the instigation of a cruel and
ruthless camarilla, deluging the country with their blood to keep them
quiet, that he is going to do it. It is not by extending privileges to
the press and the universities, and then, by a sudden and violent
suppression of all liberty, undertake to arrest some abuses, that he
is likely to achieve it. It is not by countenancing venal and
unscrupulous writers to sustain every outrage that his nobles may
choose to perpetrate, and banishing all who respectfully remonstrate
against their misconduct, that he is to attain the highest eminence as
a civilized sovereign. It is not by keeping up a system of foreign
surveillance, by which Russians in other countries are watched and
their lives threatened, that these glorious results are to be
achieved. His secret police may (on their own responsibility or his,
it matters little to the victims which) assassinate M. Herzain, the
editor of the _Kolokol_, in London; but if they do, a thousand
Herzains will rise in his place. No; it is by no such means as these
that the name of Alexander II. is to be transmitted to posterity as
the most liberal and enlightened sovereign of the age.

If he would regenerate Russia--if he would avert the dismemberment of
a great empire--if he would accomplish the noble mission upon which
the world gives him the credit of having started, he must banish from
his presence all evil councils; he must be true to himself and the
great cause of humanity; he must give all his people, and all his
dependencies, a liberal and equitable constitution, which will protect
them from the despotic sway of military governors and the aristocracy.
He must establish a constitutional government, complete in all its
parts; abolish secret tribunals, and open the avenues of knowledge and
justice to all. He must see that the laws are fairly and equitably
administered. He must enlarge the liberty of the press, and proscribe
no man for his opinions, unless in cases of treason, and under
peculiar circumstances