ve shortened this
description of the Great Reaction. But it is just as well that you
should have a thorough knowledge of this era. It was not the first time
that an attempt had been made to set the clock of history back. The
result was the usual one.

NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE

THE LOVE OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE, HOWEVER WAS TOO STRONG TO BE
DESTROYED IN THIS WAY. THE SOUTH AMERICANS WERE THE FIRST TO REBEL
AGAINST THE REACTIONARY MEASURES OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA, GREECE AND
BELGIUM AND SPAIN AND A LARGE NUMBER OF OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE EUROPEAN
CONTINENT FOLLOWED SUIT AND THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WAS FILLED WITH THE
RUMOUR OF MANY WARS OF INDEPENDENCE

IT will serve no good purpose to say "if only the Congress of Vienna had
done such and such a thing instead of taking such and such a course, the
history of Europe in the nineteenth century would have been different."
The Congress of Vienna was a gathering of men who had just passed
through a great revolution and through twenty years of terrible and
almost continuous warfare. They came together for the purpose of giving
Europe that "peace and stability" which they thought that the people
needed and wanted. They were what we call reactionaries. They sincerely
believed in the inability of the mass of the people to rule themselves.
They re-arranged the map of Europe in such a way as seemed to promise
the greatest possibility of a lasting success. They failed, but not
through any premeditated wickedness on their part. They were, for the
greater part, men of the old school who remembered the happier days of
their quiet youth and ardently wished a return of that blessed period.
They failed to recognise the strong hold which many of the revolutionary
principles had gained upon the people of the European continent. That
was a misfortune but hardly a sin. But one of the things which the
French Revolution had taught not only Europe but America as well, was
the right of people to their own "nationality."

Napoleon, who respected nothing and nobody, was utterly ruthless in
his dealing with national and patriotic aspirations. But the early
revolutionary generals had proclaimed the new doctrine that "nationality
was not a matter of political frontiers or round skulls and broad noses,
but a matter of the heart and soul." While they were teaching the French
children the greatness of the French nation, they encouraged Spaniards
and Hollanders and Italians to do the same thing. Soo