The King of Prussia wins the first skirmish and strangles with iron hand the murmurs of the people of Germany for freedom. Karl Schurz, Franz Siegel, Jacobi and their fellow students crawl through the sewers, elude the Prussian soldiers, and reach our shores to swell the rank of militant Democracy. All Europe rings with the headsman’s ax and from a thousand hilltops the ropes of hangmen swing in the stark heavens. Those corpses of young men, Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets--those hearts pierced by the gray lead, Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered vitality. They live in other young men, O kings! They live in brothers, again ready to defy you! They were purified by death--they were taught and exalted. Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose, But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning. Democracy hears these invisible councilors and sets her house in order for the coming world crisis. The old Federal Union of sovereign states has proven too frail for the strain of the new era. A stronger Union must be laid with new and deeper foundations. “Liberty and Union one and inseparable now and forever” ceases to be merely the eloquent prayer of a great statesman. It has become the first necessity of the political system of Democracy. Abraham Lincoln realizes this in his soul stirring cry from the great battlefield: “_That Government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth!_” From her baptism of blood and tears the New Nation, strong, free, united, rises at last to face a hostile world, her house in order, her loins girded for the conflict. Imperial Europe hastens to test her mettle. A princeling is proclaimed emperor of Mexico in a palace in Vienna, Austria, and sails for our shores. His reign is brief. A few short months and Maximilian stands beside an old Spanish wall in a Mexican village and bids farewell to his friends. He is allowed to embrace Miramon and Mejia. With imperial gesture he throws his gold to the soldiers and bids them fire straight at his heart. The three fall simultaneously and the smoke lifts once more on a Western nation ruled by the people. Europe has not forgotten. She is busy for the moment setting her own house in order for the supreme conflict which her leaders foresee with the advance of the dangerous heresy of people claiming the right to govern themselves. The Emperor of Germany sounds the keynote in an address to his magnificent army--The Divine Right of Kings was never so boldly proclaimed by any ruler of the world. He speaks the last word of Imperial Culture to Modern Democracy: “_We Hohenzollerns hold our crown from God alone. Who opposes me I shall crush to pieces!_”