Imatges de pàgina
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would its commerce and general business be materially injured. But a war with a powerful Nation, with whom we have the most extensive relations, commercial and social, would bring down upon our country the heaviest calamity. It would dry up the sources of its prosperity, and deluge it in blood.

The great principle of our Republican institutions cannot be propagated by the sword. This can be done by moral force, and not physical. If we desire the political regeneration of oppressed Nations, we must show them the simplicity, the grandeur, and the freedom, of our own Government. We must recommend it to the intelligence and virtue of other Nations, by its elevated and enlightened action, its purity, its justice, and the protection it affords to all its citizens, and the liberty they enjoy. And if, in this respect, we shall be faithful to the high bequests of our fathers, to ourselves, and to posterity, we shall do more to liberate other Governments, and emancipate their subjects, than could be accomplished by millions of bayonets. This moral power is what tyrants have most cause to dread. It addresses itself to the thoughts and the judgments of men. No physical force can arrest its progress. Its approaches are unseen, but its consequences are deeply felt. It enters garrisons most strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces of kings and emperors. We should cherish this power as essential to the preservation of our own Government; and as the most efficient means of ameliorating the condition of our race. And this can only be done by a reverence for the laws, and by the exercise of an elevated patriotism. But, if we trample under our feet the laws of our country, if we disregard the faith of treaties, and our citizens engage without restraint in military enterprises against the peace of other Governments, we shall be considered and treated, and justly, too, as a Nation of pirates.

14. THE DEATH PENALTY. — Original Translation from Victor Hugo. From Victor Hugo's speech at the trial of his son, Charles Hugo, in Paris, June 11th, 1851,. charged with violating the respect due to the laws, in an article in the journal "L' Evenement," upon the execution of Montcharmont, a sentenced criminal. Notwithstanding the father's eloquent appeal, Charles Hugo was found "guilty" by the Jury, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and a fine of five hundred francs.

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GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY, if there is a culprit here, it is not my son, - it is myself, it is I! - I, who for these last twenty-five years have opposed capital punishment, have contended for the inviolability of human life, have committed this crime, for which my son is now arraigned. Here I denounce myself, Mr. Advocate General! I have committed it under all aggravated circumstances; deliberately, repeatedly, tenaciously. Yes, this old and absurd lex talionis- this law of blood for blood- I have combated all my life- all my life, Gentlemen of the Jury! And, while I have breath, I will continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer, by all my words and all my votes as a legislator! I declare it before the crucifix; before that victim of the penalty of death, who sees and hears us; before that gibbet, to which, two thousand years ago, for the eternal instruction of the generations, the human law nailed the Divine!

In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment, and for writing and publishing which he is now before you on trial, - in all that he has written, he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which, from his infancy, I have inspired him. Gentlemen Jurors, the right to criticize a law, and to criticize it severely, especially a penal law, is placed beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch beside the work under the artisan's hand. This right of the journalist is as sacred, as necessary, as imprescriptible, as the right of the legis

lator.

What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is dragged, on a certain morning, to one of our public squares. There he finds the scaffold! He shudders, he struggles, he refuses to die. He is young yet-only twenty-nine. Ah! I know what you will say, -"He is a murderer!" But hear me. Two officers seize him. His hands, his feet, are tied. He throws off the two officers. A frightful struggle ensues. His feet, bound as they are, become entangled in the ladder. He uses the scaffold against the scaffold! The struggle is prolonged. Horror seizes on the crowd. The officers, sweat and shame on their brows, - pale, panting, terrified, despairing,

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despairing with I know not what horrible despair, - shrinking under that public reprobation which ought to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive instrument, the executioner, the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the scaffold, and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn, his shoulders bloody, - still he resists. length, after three quarters of an hour of this monstrous effort, of this spectacle without a name, of this agony, - agony for all, be it understood, agony for the assembled spectators as well as for the condemned man, after this age of anguish, Gentlemen of the Jury, they take back the poor wretch to his prison. The People breathe again. The People, naturally merciful, hope that the man will be spared. But no, the guillotine, though vanquished, remains standing. There it frowns all day, in the midst of a sickened population. And at night, the officers, reinforced, drag forth the wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight, they drag him forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life,calling upon God, calling upon his father and mother, - for like a very child had this man become in the prospect of death, they drag him forth to execution. He is hoisted on to the scaffold, and his head falls! - And then through every conscience runs a shudder. Never had legal murder appeared with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly implicated in the deed. It is at this moment that from a young man's breast escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart, -a cry of pity and of anguish, -a cry of horror, a cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish! And, in face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say to the guillotine, "Thou art right!" and to Pity, saintly Pity, Thou art wrong! Gentlemen of the Jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.

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PART FIFTH.

POLITICAL AND OCCASIONAL.

1. THE EXAMPLE OF AMERICA.-Francis Jeffrey. Born, 1773; died, 1850.

How absurd are the sophisms and predictions by which the advocates of existing abuses have, at all times, endeavored to create a jealousy and apprehension of reform! You cannot touch the most corrupt and imbecile Government, without involving society in disorders at once frightful and contemptible, and reducing all things to the level of an insecure, and ignoble, and bloody equality! Such are the reasonings by which we are now to be persuaded that liberty is incompatible with private happiness or national prosperity. To these we need not now answer in words, or by reference to past and questionable examples; but we put them down at once, and trample them contemptuously to the earth, by a short appeal to the existence and condition of America! What is the country of the universe, I would now ask, in which property is most sacred, or industry most sure of its reward? Where is the authority of law most omnipotent? Where is intelligence and wealth most widely diffused, and most rapidly progressive? Where, but in America?-in America, who laid the foundation of her Republican Constitution in a violent, radical, sanguinary Revolution; America, with her fundamental Democracy, made more unmanageable, and apparently more hazardous, by being broken up into I do not know how many confederated and independent Democracies; America, with universal suffrage, and yearly elections, with a free and unlicensed Press, without an established Priesthood, an hereditary Nobility, or a permanent Executive, with all that is combustible, in short, and pregnant with danger, on the hypothesis of Tyranny, and without one of the checks or safeguards by which alone, they contend, the benefits or the very being of society can be maintained!

There is something at once audacious and ridiculous in maintaining such doctrines, in the face of such experience. Nor can anything be founded on the novelty of these institutions, on the pretence that they have not yet been put fairly to their trial. America has gone on prospering under them for forty years, and has exhibited a picture of uninterrupted, rapid, unprecedented advances in wealth, population, intelligence, and concord; while all the arbitrary Governments of the

Old World have been overrun with bankruptcies, conspiracies, rebellions, and Revolutions; and are at this moment trembling in the consciousness of their insecurity, and vainly endeavoring to repress irrepressible discontents, by confederated violence and terror.

2. FALSE NOTIONS OF GOVERNMENT VIGOR.— Rev. Sydney Smith.

I CANNOT describe the horror and disgust which I felt at hearing Mr. Perceval call upon the then Ministry for measures of vigor in Ireland. If I lived at Hampstead upon stewed meats and claret,—if I walked to church, every Sunday, before eleven young gentlemen of my own begetting, with their faces washed, and their hair pleasingly combed,if the Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort, -how awfully would I pause before I sent for the flame and the sword over the cabins of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ireland!

How easy it is to shed human blood; how easy it is to persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so, and that the decision has cost us a severe struggle; how much, in all ages, have wounds and shrieks and tears been the cheap and vulgar resources of the rulers of mankind; how difficult and how noble it is to govern in kindness, and to found an empire upon the everlasting basis of justice and affection! But what do men call vigor? To let loose hussars, and to bring up artillery, to govern with lighted matches, and to cut, and push, and prime, I call this, not vigor, but the sloth of cruelty and ignorance. The vigor I love consists in finding out wherein subjects are aggrieved, in relieving them, in studying the temper and genius of a People, in consulting their prejudices, in selecting proper persons to lead and manage them, in the laborious, watchful, and difficult task of increasing public happiness, by allaying each particular discontent. In this way only will Ireland ever be subdued. But this, in the eyes of Mr. Perceval, is imbecility and meanness; - houses are not broken open, women are not insulted, the People seem all to be happy, — they are not ridden over by horses, and cut by whips. Do you call this vigor? Is this Government?

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3. REJECTION OF THE REFORM BILL, 1831.- Rev. Sydney Smith.

MR. CHAIRMAN, I feel most deeply the rejection of the Reform Bill by the Lords, because, by putting the two Houses of Parliament in collision with each other, it will impede the public business, and diminish the public prosperity. I feel it as a churchman, because I cannot but blush to see so many dignitaries of the Church arrayed against the wishes and happiness of the People. I feel it, more than all, because I believe it will sow the seeds of deadly hatred between the aristocracy and the great mass of the People. The loss of the Bill I do not feel, and for the best of all possible reasons, because I have not the slightest idea that it is lost. I have no more doubt, before

the expiration of the winter, that this Bill will pass, than I have that the annual tax bills will pass; and greater certainty than this no man can have, for Franklin tells us there are but two things certain in this world, death and taxes. As for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing, ere long, a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd notion that ever entered into human imagination. I do not mean to be disrespectful; but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town; the tide rose to an incredible height; the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house, with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean! The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest.

Gentlemen, be at your ease,· be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.

4. ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG MEN OF ITALY.-Joseph Mazzini.

The following extract, translated from the Italian, is from an impassioned Address, delivered by Mazzini, at Milan, on the 25th of July, 1848, at the request of a National Association, on the occasion of a solemn commemoration of the death of the brothers Bandiéra, and their fellowmartyrs, at Cosenza.

WHEN I was commissioned by you, young men, to proffer in this temple a few words consecrated to the memory of the brothers Bandiéra, and their fellow-martyrs at Cosenza, I thought that some one of those who heard me might perhaps exclaim, with noble indignation, "Why thus lament over the dead? The martyrs of liberty are only worthily honored by winning the battle they have begun. Cosenza, the land where they fell, is enslaved; Venice, the city of their birth, is begirt with strangers. Let us emancipate them; and, until that moment, let no words pass our lips, save those of war." But another thought arose, and suggested to me, Why have we not conquered? Why is it that, whilst our countrymen are fighting for independence in the North of Italy, liberty is perishing in the South? Why is it that a war which should have sprung to the Alps with the bound of a lion has dragged itself along for four months with the slow, uncertain motion of the scorpion surrounded by the circle of fire? How has the rapid and powerful intuition of a People newly arisen to life been converted into the weary, helpless effort of the sick man, turning from side to side?

Ah! had we all arisen in the sanctity of the idea for which our martyrs died; had the holy standard of their faith preceded our youth

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