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    • when it was steaming against wind and tide into the mid Channel , might themselves mark the many American ships which were ¦ peacefully traversing our waters , substantial representatives of the immense wealth which , constantly repassing "between England and America , constitutes the common property of both countries . For this country , a war vr ith America is next to an economical and social impossibility . We have already stated that Manchester would not tolerate it , and the address from the people of Manchester

    to the peop le of the United States is either a proof that we correctly anticipated the sentiments of the Lancashire people , or , if our opponents please , that we can influence the course of opinion in that important county . But , we ask , can England go to war against the opinion of Lancashire , Staffordshire , Warwickshire , and Yorkshire , to say nothing of Ayrshire and Ulster , — nothing of Bristol or London ? Lord John Rtjsselij perceives the absurdity , and he at least would not be the Minister to plunge into an American war : so he hinted last light . Probably , on that hint , Ministers will et their own deliberations take a pacific turn .

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    THE NEW SORT OF DESPOTISM . " t seems that a Government supported by ight millions of votes and 500 , 000 bayo-Lets has still something to fear . It still ears History . The other day , the Revue e JParis , a non - political journal , gave a sview of the recent historians of CLesar . 'he article was perfectly temperate , canid , and just , and written bond fide for an istorical purpose . If it suggested paral-) ls , so must all history . It was written 1 the spirit of Roman constitutionalism ; and

    hile it admitted Caesar ' s great qualities , lamed him for destroying the liberties of his ountry ; but it was far less strong in a reublican sense than the language which the Id French monarchy tolerated in Monxes-[ UJLEU . However , it did not preach those octrines about the power of the military lonarchy at Home which are preached by M . Ieoplong and enforced by his Government , o down came two warnings , one after anther ; the third stroke being , as our readers re aware , the suppression of the journal . Vith that fine union of fraud with force

    rhich is the only homage French tyranny ays to the shade of French liberty , the first arning was given ostensibly not for the bnoxious article , but for articles which had een published a fortnight , a month , two Lonths ' before , and which had passed the oyc * the censor without even an unofficial arning .

    In a land where the court of a chivalrous id legitimate despotism admired the great Inlosophers and historians of the eighteenth jntury , M . Tuoplonq how forbids you to riticize a panegyric of C ^ usAit . Monbsquieu , if he were now alive , would be ilenccd by tho fiat of M . Tkoi > lonq . And lis is what the Examiner calls a new sort f despotism . llavo avc not read of sometung like this suppression of history in tho Annala" Tacitus ? But in Tacitus it i not tho first , but the second Emperor of

    tome that suppresses history in the interest f the dynasty . August vs leaves ltomiin insllect free ; patronizes tlio republican Livy ; ad encourages his stepson to read Cicero . a Home , worried by so many civil wars , ad sapped by epicurism and moral corrupon , it was still necessary for despotism to roceod with some caution , and to tread lightly n . tho- smouldering fishes of republican onour . Iu Franco this caution is not ncsssary . There despotism enn afford to show self at onco in its truo colours , and to

    trample with a firm foot on the dust of those who , for fifty years , have bled for liberty and truth . The suppression of history in . the interest of a despotic dynasty is not so sensibly felt as many other acts of oppression . It does not , directly at least , spoil any man ' s dinner , or injure any man ' s trade . And therefore it is a matter of supreme indifference to the stockjobber , to the voluptuary , to the materialist—those noble spirits to whom the Government of M . Teoplokg and his master seems a blessed calm , after the storms of moral and intellectual life . It is also a

    matter of supreme indifference to the uneducated classes , careless of all that is beyond their intellect , and wholly incapable of tracing the chain of cause and effect between a brutal and sensualist despotism , and the universal misery to which such a despotism ultimately leads . Yet nothing , not even the most tyrannical outrages on life or property , could more manifestly reveal the abject character of the French Government , or more decisively seal the shame of France . To sentence a nation

    to be deprived of truth , is to sentence it to brutal materialism forever . The fate of Turkey or Morocco is less degraded than that of a great intellectual nation on which such a sentence has passed . But what are they who , writing as free men in a free country , applaud the authors of the sentence , and adore as a new sort of despotism the Government of the modern Tibebius ?

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    NATIONAL PARTIES IN EUROPE . The flatterers of the French Emperor are in the habit of saying that he has subdued the Revolution—crushed it in France , disheartened it throughout Europe . In this fallacy a confusion may be detected between the idea of a repulse , signifying a failure of tactics , and a total defeat , signifying exhaustion , submission , and . ' ruin . The tactics of the Liberal party on the Continent were unsuccessful in 18-18 and 1849 . The Revolution was

    temporarily overpowered . But that it is still vital and formidable is proved by the activity discernible in those military camps , which are , virtuallv , the courts of the French and Austrian Empires . Nowhere do we observe the people more content witli their Governments than before the conflagration of 1848 , or the eclipse of 1851 . The several nations have ceased to fight for their liberties ; but

    they have not ceased combining ' , conspiring , tracing plans of attaclc , discussing common objects . Their rulers enjoy no security , and no rest . Their territories are undermined by political societies—the secret passages of opinion and conspiracy . Not a nation , not a party , not a class , that was baffled in 1848 , has resigned its hopes or its pretensions , or accepted an amnesty that would devote its offences in the sight of power , and its rights in tho sight of history , to tho same ignominious obliviou . In France , sit least four powerful

    sections meditate tho destruction ot the reignin « dynasty , tho only constituents of which are , the partial corruption of tho army , tho venality of tho trading classes , the apathy and ignorance of some of tho rural populations . We were told , soon after tho night surprise of liberty by tho coup-tVetat of December , that Franco would speedily bo reconciled to her new institutions , that the system of rethe

    pression Mas merely temporary , and that Emperor would gradually rostoro the freedom of speech and opinion , the reality of electoral government , tho domination of the civil over the military power . Instead of this , what have wo seen ? Not ono decree of licenso has been promulgated from tho Tuileries during tho past four years . There has been ' an incessant and invariable advance of despotic authority . In June , 1850 , Franco

    is as completely subject to the government of the police as in January , 1852 . Every change that has occurred has been an exaggeration of the Imperial regime . In Germany , are the governments more at one with the nations than when Prussia suppressed the Baden and Saxony insurrections ; when the Holsteiners maintained , unaided , the general German cause ; when Austria triumphed in the moderation of her enemies ;

    and when petty perjuries were committed by petty rulers , in imitation of the grand Ejlpsbueg and Bonaparte practice ? The Hungarian and Transylvanian populations are simply waiting for a favourable crisis . The Italians are even expected to bring on that crisis , and already absolutism marshals its troops in the field . That is the condition of Europe . IVEoreover the chances of the revolution have been

    materially improved . We have seen , since 1849 , the partial consolidation , at least , of national parties in Italy as well as in Germany . A gradual approximation of the Liberal sects is taking place . The absence of this political concord was grievously felt when the Schleswig question was decided as one of local interest instead of being valued as identified with a national cause , and when the

    Liberal life of Hesse was consumed in separate and unaided struggles . In 1834 , the principal statesmen of Germany , under the presidency of Metternich , met at Vienna , and framed a plot for the suppression of all popular movements in the smaller constitutional states—Baden , Bavaria , " Wurtemberg , Nassau , Saxony , Brunswick , &c . This was at once an example of their policy , and of their fears . The minor states of Europe are the sources of continual alarm to the

    great Powers . Their populations are close , compact , and pliable . It was not , however , until 1845 that the proceedings of this conference were detected . The secret record was discovered by Welokeb , and published at Strasburg . We are not yet iu possession of the secret stipulations of Olmiitz and Dresden , but we know enough to justify the suspicion that similar schemes are now on foot at Paris , and at Vienna . A suspicion of this nature , combined with the known fact

    that mysterious negotiations are going on , should have the same effect on the Liberal party as many political leaders hoped it would have had in 1848 . Between the Liberal societies of Frankfort , Baden , Saxony , and the other sccondarv German states , and even between that of Austria and Prussia , considerable harmony of opinion was established ; but tho essential point was harmony ot action ; and this was wanting . AVhen , however , wo perceive , throughout Germany , not one German journal , when the conceit ot tho local Philistek , the statesman ot a

    parish , overcomes all . national consciousness , and when Prussian , Austrian , or Wurtemberg ideas arc advocated instead ot tho broad and general interests of Genniuy , it is evident that much progress has still to be made . Of course a peoplo not politically constituted as one finds it difficult to obliterate from its theories the traces of conquest and partition . In England tho provincial substance

    journal is essentially provincial m , spirit , and manners . And how much more is this tho cano in Germany , where the laws ol censorship and the influence of the police ure constantly directed to carry out the advice ot tho Russian memorial of 1833 , " to take care that tho German press limited itacll to Llio discussion of local and provincial mat tors only " It is not to bo wondered at that tlie people , under such troatment , are

    provincialized . . . , The Italians , as represented by their most sincere and intelligent leaders , appear to be

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    June 14 1856 . ] THE LEADE R . 565 L -

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1856, page 565, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2145/page/13/