Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 10 (of 20) — John Shaqi
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 10 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 10 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
Then occurred the European uprising of 1848, with France once more a
Republic; but Europe, wiser grown, did not interfere even so much as to
write a letter. The case was different with Hungary, whose victorious
armies, radiant with Liberty regained, expelled the Austrian power
only to be arrested by the armed intervention of the Russian Czar, who
yielded to the double pressure of invitation from Austria and fear
that successful insurrection might extend into Poland. It was left
for France, in another country, with strange inconsistency, to play
the part which Russia played in Hungary. Rome, after rising against
the temporal power of the Pope and proclaiming the Republic, was
occupied by a French army, which expelled the republican magistrates,
and, though fourteen years are already passed since that unhappy
act, the occupation still continues. From this military intervention
Great Britain stands aloof. In a despatch, dated at London, January
28, 1849, Lord Palmerston makes a permanent record, to the honor of
his country, as follows: “Her Majesty’s Government would, upon every
account, and not only upon abstract principle, but with reference
to the general interests of Europe, and from the value which they
attach to the maintenance of peace, _sincerely deprecate any attempt
to settle the differences between the Pope and his subjects by the
military interference of foreign powers_.”[74] This statesman gives
further point to the position of Great Britain in contrast with
France, when he says: “Armed intervention _to assist in retaining a
bad Government would be unjustifiable_.”[75] Such was the declaration
of the Lord Palmerston of that day. How much more unjustifiable the
strange assistance now proposed _to found_ a bad Government! The
British minister insisted that the differences should be accommodated
by “the diplomatic interposition of friendly powers,” which he declared
a “much better mode of settlement than an authoritative imposition of
terms by the force of foreign arms.”[76] In harmony with this policy,
Great Britain, during the same year, united with France in proffering
mediation between the insurgent Sicilians and the King of Naples, the
notorious Bomba, in the hope of helping good government and liberal
principles. Not disheartened by rebuff, these two powers, in 1856,
united in friendly remonstrance to the same tyrannical sovereign
against the harsh system of political arrests, and against his cruelty
to good citizens thrust without trial into the worst of prisons. The
advice was indignantly rejected, and the two powers that gave it
withdrew their ministers from Naples. The sympathy of Russia was on the
wrong side, and Prince Gortschakoff, in a circular, while admitting,
that, “as a consequence of friendly fore-thought, one Government might
give advice to another,” declared, that “to endeavor by threats or a
menacing demonstration to obtain from the King of Naples concessions in
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