ithout an exception, that the violence of a
revolution corresponds to the degree of misgovernment which has
produced that revolution. Why was the French Revolution so bloody and
destructive? Why was our revolution of 1641 comparatively mild? Why was
our revolution of 1688 milder still? Why was the American Revolution,
considered as an internal movement, the mildest of all? There is an
obvious and complete solution of the problem. The English under James
the First and Charles the First were less oppressed than the French
under Louis the Fifteenth and Louis the Sixteenth. The English were less
oppressed after the Restoration than before the great Rebellion. And
America under George the Third was less oppressed than England under
the Stuarts. The reaction was exactly proportioned to the pressure,--the
vengeance to the provocation.

When Mr Burke was reminded in his later years of the zeal which he had
displayed in the cause of the Americans, he vindicated himself from the
charge of inconsistency, by contrasting the wisdom and moderation of the
Colonial insurgents of 1776 with the fanaticism and wickedness of the
Jacobins of 1792. He was in fact bringing an argument a fortiori against
himself. The circumstances on which he rested his vindication fully
proved that the old government of France stood in far more need of
a complete change than the old government of America. The difference
between Washington and Robespierre,--the difference between Franklin and
Barere,--the difference between the destruction of a few barrels of
tea and the confiscation of thousands of square miles,--the difference
between the tarring and feathering of a tax-gatherer and the massacres
of September,--measure the difference between the government of America
under the rule of England and the government of France under the rule of
the Bourbons.

Louis the Sixteenth made great voluntary concessions to his people;
and they sent him to the scaffold. Charles the Tenth violated the
fundamental laws of the state, established a despotism, and butchered
his subjects for not submitting quietly to that despotism. He failed in
his wicked attempt. He was at the mercy of those whom he had injured.
The pavements of Paris were still heaped up in barricades;--the
hospitals were still full of the wounded;--the dead were still
unburied;--a thousand families were in mourning;--a hundred thousand
citizens were in arms. The crime was recent;--the life of the criminal
w