CALIFORNIA

It is impossible for any man of com

mon observation to direct his attention to the events which are now oc. curring, and the changes which are in progress throughout the civilized world, without perceiving that a prodigious impulse, whether for good or for evil, has been communicated to the human mind, and that a vivifying spirit has breathed over the slumbering energies of men, like that on the valley of dry bones in the Prophet's vision. To whatever cause, or combination of co-existent and co-operating causes, this phenomenon is to be ascribed, its existence is certain; and in Spain, Portugal, South America, France, Italy, Greece, and even Germany, the "principle of resurrection" is either in full activity, or, at least, there are discernible signs that some mighty crisis is rapidly approaching, and a power at work, the manifestations of which cannot be much longer repressed.

Knowledge, says Lord Bacon, is power; and when the maxim is applied, in its broadest sense, to the aggregate of knowledge, diffused at a period when science and literature, no longer confined to the speculative, or privileged few, have been rendered accessible to the great mass of human beings in every civilized country, its truth, though in a different sense from that contemplated by the great author, is pre-eminently and intuitively obvious. There have been periods, perhaps, when learning could boast of a few greater and brighter luminaries than any by which the broad firmament of intellect is now illuminated; but then they were so few, that, though stars of the first magnitude, their splendour served rather to render the surrounding darkness visible than to dispel it; while, to the contrast furnished by their own brightness with the general obscuration through which they shone, they have pro

bably been indebted for a portion of that renown with which their names are associated. We need not indicate how completely the circumstances of the world are changed. By means of a press, more or less free, knowledge has radiated to almost every point in the surface of society; objects regarded with a sort of undefinable veneration and awe, because viewed through the dim and magnifying medium of darkness and ignorance, have been presented to the mind's eye in their true and natural dimensions; imagination has lost nearly all its power, while reason has gained in proportion; the idol which men blindly and unquestioningly worshipped when placed in mystery and darkness, they now profanely scoff at when dragged into broad day; the reverence for antiquity has merged in the appetite for demonstration; and with the superstitions, men have abandoned a great portion of the creed of their forefathers.

interests, respect their rights, and fairly and fully represent their spi-.rit. It is by this constant gravitation of the government to the people that revolutions are prevented, because they are rendered unnecessary; it is thus that, in an enlightened age, a truly national character can be maintained, and the moral, physical, and intellectual power of states consolidated. A government may remain stationary when the people are retrograding, but never when they are advancing: it must grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength: if it partake not the general movement, it will soon either fall to pieces of itself, or be rudely shaken off as an incumbrance, as an odious and unimproveable remnant of the age of barbarism.

Whenever a period of such illumination arrives, it is clearly no longer possible to govern men except through the medium of their reason, and by a constant reference to their interests and their rights. Governments and people must advance passibus æquis; the one must become the exponent of the opinions and sentiments of the other. The doctrines believed and promulgated in ages of ignorance, priestcraft, and slavery, can never be maintained or enforced in periods of knowledge, inquiry, and comparative freedom. Jupiter himself was ruled by opinion, and no government can long oppose it. Government without the people is a head without a body; and to carry the people along with it, it must, in general, adopt their principles, accommodate itself to their circumstances, promote their

In an advancing period of society, when knowledge has been widely diffused, the love of liberty engendered, and the mass of thinking and intelligent beings prodigiously increased, the tendency to change, or, as some will have it, to revolution, is unquestionably great. But this tendency may not only be counteracted, but made to conspire to the strength, energy, and glory of states, when the interests and the opinions of the people are fairly represented, and allowed their proper weight in public affairs. Of the truth of this position, Great Britain and America are conclusive examples. But it is customary among those who cannot distinguish between a principle and the excesses to which the triumph of that principle, after long and determined resistance, sometimes leads, to refer to the French Revolution as the great salient point, whence has proceeded the general stirring we now observe among the nations, and to dwell upon the monstrous iniquities to which it gave birth, as

so many warnings against any of the least concession to popular opinion and popular rights. We are not the persons to palliate, or extenuate, far less defend, the crimes with which bad men disgrace and injure the cause of liberty. But, we may ask, to what were these dreadful excesses, in a great measure, to be ascribed? Certainly, we think, to the folly and wickedness of a crazy, imbecile, superannuated despotism, which had, for ages, trampled upon the rights, privileges, and opinions of the people,-shut itself up, like the Anarch Old of Milton, in the midst of darkness,-excluded every ray of that light and intelli gence which were silently penetrat ing the remotest corners of the land, -and endeavoured to rule, not only with the people, but against them. If in the frenzy of the time, and the delirium of success, the throne and the altar were overwhelmed in a common ruin, it was because the former had long forfeited all claim to the support of the nation, and because the latter had degenerated into an agent for the propagation of delusion, when the people had become too wise to be deceived. "Multorum autem odiis," says Cicero, "nullas opes posse obsistere, si antea fuit ignotum, nuper est cognitum. Nec vero hujus tyranni solum, quem armis oppressa pertulit civitas, interitus declarat, quantum odium hominum valeat ad pestem; sed reliquorum similes exitus tyran

norum."

The crimes perpetrated in the first paroxysm of this terrible fever, ought not, however, to blind us to the good which has been achieved, and which remains, and is daily experienced and acknowledged, while the

recollection of the price at which it was purchased is becoming fainter, and passing into the page of history as a salutary warning to after times. Now that the work of the revolution has been legitimated under the sway of the Bourbons, it would be as absurd to deny it, as to shut our eyes to the notorious truth, that the example of France, taken in conjunction with that of Britain and America, and aided in its operation by the mighty events which we have witnessed, has acted with incredible power on the public mind throughout Europe, and created that universal demand for representative governments, which is the grand feature of our time,-which is every day gaining fresh accessions of force, and reaping new triumphs, and which can no more be resisted by any confederacy, holy or unholy, of Sovereigns enamoured of feudal vassalage and unmixed despotism, than the course of the heavenly bodies, or the alternations of the tides. Partial reverses only prepare the way for ultimate and complete success. The effort which was easily crushed in Naples, among an ignorant, superstitious, and voluptuous race, every way unprepared either to conquer or to enjoy liberty, has already been triumphant in Greece, and will no doubt prove equally so in Spain and Portugal, notwithstanding the external dangers with which liberty is there menaced. Italy is well known to be ripe for change; Germany demands free governments in the fulfilment of the pledges given when she rose en masse against the falling dynasty of Napoleon; Poland has not yet forgotten the partition, or her glorious though unfortunate struggle for in

dependence; and who knows but the spirit which now thrills in every vein and in every nerve among the more enlightened nations of Europe, may find its way beyond the Borysthenes and the Dwina into the tents of the Calmucs, and the steppes and forests of Scythia? Philosophers tell us that no degree of motion communicated to matter is ever lost. It is so with mind. Ancient prejudices and the interests of a few will never be able to make head against the spring-tide that is now flowing; and should these attempt a vain and foolish resistance, they will infallibly be swept away altogether when it reaches its maximum of velocity and power. Hume has said that despotism is the euthanasia of the British, and, by inference, of every free constitution, with a standing army, an immense revenue, and the powerful, though secret, influence which the Crown exercises by means of both: but he is mistaken. He lived in times of great political degeneracy and apathy, when public principle was scoff. ed at as the worst species of hypocrisy, and corruption was too general to entail disgrace; and reasoning from what he observed, and probably from what he wished, he made no account of the people, and could not foresee the great events by which, in our time, the public mind has been awaked and called into activity. The mass of physical, moral, and intellectual power is arrayed on the side which demands some amelioration of existing institutions, and some approximation in the maxims of Government to the opinions and circumstances of the people; and it would be more wonderful, than any of the wonders which our age has witnessed, were such a power to be baffled in its object.

The main danger to the existing governments of Europe, however,

arises not from what we have endeavoured to describe as the spirit of age, but from a fruitless and unavailing resistance to that which cannot be successfully opposed. The current which no force can stem, may nevertheless be guided into a safe channel. Something must be conceded, that every thing may not be lost. The maxims of the sixteenth century must be abandoned. If, in the progress of events, a new power has risen up in the bosom of almost every state, it must be allowed some influence, some representation, some organ adapted to its peculiar nature and character. Wise men, by skilfully taking advantage of the course of events, may, in a certain sense, be said to govern it: but it too often happens that the maxims of state policy are grounded on narrow, prejudiced views, temporary, shuffling expedients, and inferior interests, to the exclusion of that liberal and comprehensive philosophy which has found it more difficult to penetrate the precincts of courts than to rescue a large portion of mankind from the spiritual thraldom of the Papal Hierarchy. Hence it is that we see the Sovereigns of Europe ostentatiously leaguing themselves against the light, knowledge and opinions of the age; promulgating doctrines, which are as obnoxious to the candid and impartial, as they are unquestionably hostile to the independence of states, and the sound principles of international law; organising themselves into a sort of royal police, to watch the progress of what has been denominated "liberal opinions ;", and announcing their intention to repress, by force of arms, every attempt, however moderate and rational, to expel the corruptions and abuses engendered during the lapse of ages, and to ameliorate and improve existing institutions. By