ty to the provincials, and conceded them the rights and
privileges of Roman citizens, they introduced not only a foreign
element into the state, destitute of Roman patriotism, but the barbaric
and despotic elements retained by the conquered nations as yet only
partially assimilated. These elements became germs of anti-republican
developments, rather of corruptions, and prepared the downfall of the
empire. Doubtless these corruptions might have been arrested, and
would have been, if Roman patriotism had survived the changes effected
in the Roman population by the concession of Roman citizenship to
provincials; but it did not, and they were favored as time went on by
the emperors themselves, and more especially by Dioclesian, a real
barbarian, who hated Rome, and by Constantine, surnamed the Great, a
real despot, who converted the empire from a republican to a despotic
empire. Rome fell from the force of barbarism developed from within,
far more than from the force of the barbarians hovering on her
frontiers and invading her provinces.

The law of all possible developments is in the providential or
congenital constitution; but these possible developments are many and
various, and the reason and free-will of the nation as well as of
individuals are operative in determining which of them shall be
adopted. The nation, under the direction of wise and able statesmen
who understood their age and country, who knew how to discern between
normal developments and barbaric corruptions, placed at the head of
affairs in season, might have saved Rome from her fate, eliminated the
barbaric and assimilated the foreign elements, and preserved Rome as a
Christian and republican empire to this day, and saved the civilized
world from the ten centuries of barbarism which followed her conquest
by the barbarians of the North. But it rarely happens that the real
statesmen of a nation are placed at the head of affairs.

Rome did not fall in consequence of the strength of her external
enemies, nor through the corruption of private morals and manners,
which was never greater than under the first Triumvirate. She fell
from the want of true statesmanship in her public men, and patriotism
in her people. Private virtues and private vices are of the last
consequence to individuals, both here and hereafter; but private
virtues never saved, private vices never ruined a nation. Edward the
Confessor was a saint, and yet be prepared the way for the N