The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
invoked for Poland some years back, which Italy invokes for herself
to-day, under the form, and with the guarantee of nationality, and which
you cannot pretend to be good for one country and bad for another,
unless you believe it a part of religion to create a pariah people in
the bosom of humanity."
Very admirably, too, and nobly written, are Mr. Mazzini's later remarks
on the republican and anti-papal administration of Rome, and the
coldness it met with in England and elsewhere. We must admit that it is
hard for a people to struggle, suffer, and bleed alone, yet hold
themselves in this temperate attitude. It is _not_ generous, as Mr.
Mazzini too truly complains, in a nation having the enjoyment and the
consciousness of liberty herself, to wait until the hour of victory has
sounded for another nation before she stretches out a sister's hand
towards her.
WHAT THE REPUBLICANS DID AND ENGLAND MIGHT HAVE DONE.
I affirm that with the exception of Ancona, where the triumvirate were
obliged energetically to repress certain criminal acts of political
vengeance, the republican cause was never sullied by the slightest
excess; that no censorship was assumed over the press before the siege,
and that no occasion arose for exercising it during the siege. Not a
single condemnation to death or exile bore witness to a severity which
it would have been our right to have exercised, but which the perfect
unanimity which reigned amongst all the elements of the state rendered
useless. I affirm that, except in the case of three or four priests, who
had been guilty of firing upon our combatants, and who were killed by
the people during the last days of the siege, not a single act of
personal violence was committed by any fraction of the population
against another, and that if ever there was a city presenting the
spectacle of a band of brothers pursuing a common end, and bound
together by the same faith, it was Rome under the republican rule. The
city was inhabited by foreigners from all parts of the world, by the
consular agents, by many of your countrymen; let any one of them arise
and under the guarantee of his own signature deny, if he can, the truth
of what I say. Terror now reigns in Rome; the prisons are choked with
men who have been arrested and detained without trial; fifty priests are
confined in the castle of St. Angelo, whose only crime consists in their
having lent their services in our hospitals; the citizens, the best
known for their moderation, are exiled; the army is almost entirely
dissolved, the city disarmed, and the "factious" sent away even to the
last man; and yet France dares not consult in legal manner the will of
the populations, but re-establishes the papal authority by military
decree. I do not believe that since the dismemberment of Poland there
has been committed a more atrocious injustice, a more gross violation of
the eternal right which God has implanted in the peoples, that of
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