The Duel Between France and GermanySumner, Charles
History
The Duel Between France and Germany
Sumner, Charles
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871
_"Dans Petat actuel des choses, avant dix ans_, toute
l'Europe peut etre cosaque, ou toute en republique."--LAS CASES,
_Memorial de Sainte-Hellene_, (Reimpression de 1823 et 1824,)
Tom. III. p. 111,--Journal, 18 Avril 1816. _Correspondence de
Napoleon I_, (Paris, 1858-69,) Tom. XXXIL p. 326.] Evidently
Europe will not be Cossack, unless the Cossack is already changed
to Republican,--as well may be, when it is known, that, since the
great act of Enfranchisement, in February, 1861, by which twenty-
three millions of serfs were raised to citizenship, with the right
to vote, fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty public schools
have been opened in Russia. A better than Napoleon, who saw
mankind with truer insight, Lafayette, has recorded a clearer
prophecy. At the foundation of the monument on Bunker Hill, on the
semi-centennial anniversary of the battle, 17th June, 1825, our
much-honored national guest gave this toast: "Bunker Hill, and the
holy resistance to oppression, which has already enfranchised the
American hemisphere. The next half-century Jubilee's toast shall
be,--To _Enfranchised Europe_."[Footnote: Columbian Centinel,
June 18, 1825.] The close of that half-century, already so
prolific, is at hand. Shall it behold the great Jubilee with all
its vastness of promise accomplished? Enfranchised Europe,
foretold by Lafayette, means not only the Republic for all, but
Peace for all; it means the United States of Europe, with the War
System abolished. Against that little faith through which so much
fails in life, I declare my unalterable conviction, that
"government of the people, by the people, and for the people"--
thus simply described by Abraham Lincoln [Footnote: Address at the
Consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19,
1863: McPherson's Political History of the United States during
the Great Rebellion, p. 606.]--is a necessity of civilization, not
only because of that republican equality without distinction of
birth which it establishes, but for its assurance of permanent
peace. All privilege is usurpation, and, like Slavery, a state of
war, relieved only by truce, to be broken by the people in their
might. To the people alone can mankind look for the repose of
nations; but the Republic is the embodied people. All hail to the
Republic, equal guardian of all, and angel of peace!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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