Slike strani
PDF
ePub

with itself. Narcissus is not the symbol of patriotism, but Lycurgus and Solon are, travelling far in order to gather knowledge for their own country.

At all great and distinct periods of modern history, there are a general idea and certain adequate forms pervading the whole. Such was the papal period at the beginning of the middle ages; such was the universal feudal system; such the period of universities springing up everywhere; such the periods of art; such the periods of Abelard and scholastic philosophy; such the rising of free cities in all active parts of Europe; such the ardor of maritime discovery and enthusiasm for "cosmography;" such the period of monasteries; such protestantism; and such is, I believe, the present period of civil liberty, which, for centuries to come, will be essentially of the Anglican type. To learn liberty, I believe that nations must go to America and England, as we go to Italy to study music and to have the vast world of the fine arts opened to us, or as we go to France to study science, or to Germany that we may learn how to instruct and spread education. It was a peculiar feature of antiquity that law, religion, dress, the arts and customs, that everything in fact was localized. Modern civilization extends over regions, tends to make uniform, and eradicates even the physical differences of tribes and races.' Thus made uniform, nations receive and

The mutual influence of different literatures is daily extending. Take as an instance the literature of England, France, Germany, and the United States, and add the mutual influence of the journals of these nations. Then consider how many of the elements of civilization are not national, but common to all-the alphabet, the numeric signs, with the decimal system, musical notation and music itself, commercial usages and bookkeeping, international law, social intercourse and laws of politeness; the visiting card, the railway, the steamboat, the post-office, the institution of money, the bill of exchange, insurance-indeed it is impossible to enumerate all the agreements of nations belonging to our race. I shall only add the dress, the furniture and even cookery.

The most recent and a choice illustration of progressive uniformity of our race and its civilization, is the adoption of Commander Maury's, U. S. N., plan of a uniform maritime observation and record, adopted

give more freely. If it has pleased God to appoint the Anglican race as the first workmen to rear the temple of liberty, shall others find fault with Providence? The all-pervading law of civilization is physical and mental mutual dependence, and not isolation.

Many governments deny liberty to the people on the ground that it is not national; yet they copy foreign absolutism. There is doubtless something essential in the idea of national development, but let us never forget two facts: Men, however different, are far more uniform than different; and most of the noblest nations have arisen from the mixture of others.

by many governments in consequence of the naval congress at Brussels, in 1853. May a uniform standard of value soon follow. The widespread dollar or scudo has prepared the way for it.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE INSTITUTION. ITS DEFINITION.

AND EVIL.

ITS POWER FOR GOOD

It has been shown that civil liberty, as we understand and cherish it, consists in a large amount of individual rights, checks of power and guarantees of self-government. We have more or less fully indicated that self-government, in the sense in which we take it, and in connection with liberty, consists in the independence of the whole political society, in a national representative government and local self-government, which implies that even general laws and impulses are carried out and realized, as far as possible, by citizens who, in receiving an office, be it by election or appointment, essentially remain citizens, and do not become members of a hierarchy of placemen. We have seen that self-government, in general, requires

1 At a sumptuous ball, which the city of Paris gave, in the year 1851, to the commissioners of the London Exhibition, I was sitting in a corner and reflecting on the police officers in their uniforms and the actual patrols of the military pompiers in the very midst of the festive and crowded assemblage, when I was introduced to one of the first statesmen of France and a liberal member of the national assembly. He had been at London, to view the exhibition. It was the first time he had visited England. "Do you know," said he, "what struck me most-far more than the exhibition of works of art and industry? It was the exhibition of the civism anglais (this was the term he used) in the London police." It may be readily supposed that an American citizen turned his face toward the speaker, to hear more, when the Frenchman continued: “I am in earnest. The large number of policemen, with their citizen appearance, although in uniform, seeming to be there for no other purpose than to assist the people-and the people ever ready to assist them -this is what has most attracted my attention. Liberty and the govern

that there be an organism to elaborate and ascertain public opinion, and that, when known, it shall pass into law, and, plainly, rule the rulers; that government interfere as an exception, and not as the rule; and that, on the other hand, self-government neither means self-absolutism, nor absence of rule, but that, on the contrary, liberty requires a true government. A weak government is a negation of liberty; it cannot furnish us with a guaranteeing power, nor can it procure supremacy for public will. In other spheres it may be true that license is exaggerated liberty, but in politics there can be nothing more unlike liberty than anarchy.

We have still to ascertain how this system of civil liberty is to be realized. Liberty cannot flourish, nor can freedom become a permanent business of actual life, without a permanent love and a habit of liberty. How is the one to be engendered, and the other to be acquired?

There is no mathematical formula by which liberty can be

ment of law are even depicted in their police, where we should seek it least. What is it that strikes you most in coming here?"

[ocr errors]

The American," I replied, "in visiting the continent of Europe, is most impressed by the fact that the whole population, from Moscow to Lisbon, seems to be divided into two wholly distinct parts-the round hats, the people, and the cocked hats, the visible government. The two layers are as distinct as the hats, and the traveller sees almost as many of the one form as of the other."

There are large police establishments in all European states. Densely peopled countries require them. The different spirit and organization, however, of these establishments are most characteristic. Nothing, perhaps, shows more the character of a citizen-government in England than the wide-spread institution of the police, which has developed itself, under Sir Robert Peel, out of the ancient constable. It has great power; it has preventive, detective and custodial authority; yet it is supported by the citizens, and no one fears that it ever will be used as an institution of political espionage and denunciation—as delatores of old and mouchards of modern times. It is strictly under the public law, and that implies under publicity. There is a whole literature on this subject, but I know of no brief paper exhibiting so well its essential character as the seventh paragraph of Mittermaier's English, Scottish and American Penal Processes.

solved, nor are there laws by which liberty can be decreed, without other aids. We gain no more by throwing power unchecked into the hands of the people. It remains power, and is not liberty, and people still remain men. Flattery does not change us, for we are all

"Obnoxious, first and last,

To basest things,"

and thus flattery is no foundation for liberty. Each one of us may be declared a sovereign, as every Frenchman was designated in a solemn circular, by the provisional government; or the people may be called almighty-le peuple tout-puissant—— as in the midst of loathsome political obscenity they were termed by the dictatorial government when they were expected and led to vote for a new emperor, and thus by an act of omnipotence to extinguish every vestige of their power. They were asked to divest themselves of this very omnipotence, which nevertheless is exclusively claimed for the nation as inherent in its own nature, and to submit their omnipotence to a still greater power of one man. Nothing of all this is liberty. Self-immolation, even where it is an actual and not a theoretical act of free agency, is not life.

Enthusiasm is necessary for liberty as for every great and noble work, but enthusiasm comes and goes like the breezes of the ocean. How shall they be used for the positive interests of the navigator? Enthusiasm is not liberty, nor does the reality of liberty consist in an æsthetical love of freedom. The

1 Paradise Lost, book 9, line 170.

2 In a circular, sent by the provisional government all over France before the general election for the national constituent assembly, in 1848, was this sentence: "Every Frenchman of the age of manhood is a political citizen; every citizen is an elector; every elector is a sovereign. There is no one citizen who can say to another: You are more of a sovereign than I.' Contemplate your power, prepare to execute it, and be worthy of entering on the possession of your kingdom." The author of these phrases is Mr. de Lamartine, who says, in his Revolution of 1848: "The reign of the people is called the republic."

« PrejšnjaNaprej »