Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First TimeFreese, Jacob R.
History
Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First Time
Freese, Jacob R.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
|HAVING more than consumed the space allotted for this volume, we have
neither room nor time left in which to write of the Roman Republic as
its importance demands, and as indeed we should gladly have written.
And yet we confess there is not, or ought not to be, any necessity for
adding another word. If the lessons taught us from what we have learned
of the three preceding republics have not opened our eyes to the
dangerous tendencies of the Democratic party as a party; if we are not
already convinced that the leaders of that party, and those who stand
behind the scenes to prompt the leaders and furnish them with the
"sinews of war," in the shape of European gold, have for their ultimate
object the setting aside of our representative form of government
and the destruction of the liberty of our press, then we would not be
convinced though one arose from the dead.
Why, then, need we add a word about the founding of the Roman Republic,
five hundred and ten years before Christ; why tell of the law, then
for the first time enacted by the Senate, that any citizen who had been
condemned to death by a magistrate, or even to banishment, or corporal
punishment, should have the right of an appeal to the people before the
sentence went into effect; why tell of the wars in which the republic
was thenceforth engaged, and how gloriously the people sustained the
honor of the republic; why tell how the people were afterwards betrayed
by their rulers, and made to suffer the most intolerable hardships
until they obtained the privilege of electing tribunes; why tell of the
struggles that these tribunes of the people had with rulers chosen by
the aristocracy for many, many years in maintaining for the people the
rights for which they had made immense sacrifice of life, and which
they valued so highly; why tell--as it would take an entire volume to
tell--how corruptions crept, from time to time, into the heart of the
republic, how ambition took the place of patriotism, how the leaders
in the provinces were watching with jealous eyes those at Rome and
vice versa, how Caesar finally "passed the Rubicon," how he seized the
government, how he attempted to put on a crown, and in the attempt lost
both the crown and his life; and how, when great Caesar fell, fell
the republic, with a crash that was heard to the uttermost ends of the
earth? If we were to tell all this with the precision of a Montesquieu,
or with as much display of learning as an Abbé de Vertot, there could
only be gathered therefrom precisely the same lessons as we have already
learned from the rise, progress, decline, and downfall of the three
Grecian republics.
And thus, my friend (the reader), we are finally brought face to face
to the last clause of your third question, as to What is to be the final
end of this republic?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account