Do you boast Anglo-Saxon ancestry?--look at Charles Kingsley's picture in Hereward of the great banquet, the apotheosis of wolfishness and piggishness; or look at Walter Scott's delineation in Ivanhoe of Gurth the swine-herd, dressed in skins, the brass collar soldered about his neck like the collar of a dog, and upon it the inscription, "Gurth the born thrall of Cedric." Do you boast French ancestry?--look into Orderic Vital, or Froissart, or De Comines, and see what manner of man was your ancestor, "_Jacques Bonhomme_"--kicked, cuffed, plundered, murdered, robbed of the honor of his wife and the custody of his children, not allowed to wear good clothing,[62] not recognized as a man and a brother,[63] not indeed in early times recognized as a man at all.[64] Do you boast German ancestry?--look at Luther's letters and see how the unutterable stupidity of your ancestors vexed him. Yet from these progenitors of yours, kept besotted and degraded through centuries by oppression, have, by comparatively a few years of freedom, been developed the barriers which have saved modern states. Is it said that this bestowal of rights on the oppressed is dangerous? History is full of proofs that the faith in Heaven's justice which has led statesmen to solve great difficulties by _bestowing_ rights has proved far more safe than the attempt to evade great difficulties by _withholding_ rights.[65] Is it said that the anarchic tendencies of an oppressive caste can be overcome by compromise and barter? History shows that the chances in trickery and barter are immensely in their favor. Is it said that the era of such dangers is past--that _civilization_ will modify the nature of oppressive castes? That is the most dangerous delusion of all. In all annals, a class, whether rough citizens as in Poland, or smooth gentlemen as in France, based on traditions or habits of oppression, has proved a _reptile caste_. Its coat may be mottled with romance, and smooth with sophistry, and glossy with civilization;--it may wind itself gracefully in chivalric courses; but its fangs will be found none the less venomous, its attacks none the less cruel, its skill in prolonging its reptile life, even after seeming death wounds, none the less deceitful. Is it said that to grapple with such a reptile caste is dangerous? History shows not one example where the plain, hardy people have boldly faced it and throttled it and not conquered it. The course is plain, and there it but one. Strike until the reptile caste spirit is scotched; then pile upon it a new fabric of civil and political rights until its whole organism of evil is crushed forever. For this policy alone speaks the whole history of man,--to this policy alone stand pledged all the attributes of God. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: History of Civilization in Europe. Third Lecture.] [Footnote 2: Sempere, _Histoire des Cortes d'Espagne_, Chap. 6.]