107.

of their own. The more liberal the party has | talents of that class, and qualifying them for been which was called to the helm, the greater the direction of affairs. Foreigners often exhas always been the number of the noblemen press surprise at the long-continued ascendency in its Cabinet. The abolition of the corn laws, of the English aristocracy in the affairs of their and the imposition of the tax on landed succes- country, so different from the fate which has sion, and many other measures, prove that this overtaken that order in so many Continental has not been owing to the want of power in the states; but whoever is acquainted with the difpopular party, so far as votes are concerned. ferent strata of society in the British empire It has been entirely owing to the want of power will have no difficulty in discerning the reason. in debate and statesmanlike wisdom in its lead- They have kept the lead so long, because the ers in Parliament. constitution had made them legislators, and The reason of this is apparent to any one thus trained them to its duties. Had they been who considers the structure of En- as politically nullified as the nobles of France Reason of the glish society, and the mental train- and Spain were under the old régime, they superiority in ing requisite for success in represen- would have been equally inefficient. If any general of the tative assemblies. The sons of the one will compare the capacity and conversation aristocracy as hereditary aristocracy have proved of the landed proprietors, and still more of their statesmen. themselves superior to those of the wives and daughters, below the line of Parlia middle or working class in the arena of Parliament and above it, the difference will appear exment, for the same reason that their ancestors treme. The moment we emerge from the class were superior in the tournament. It is their in which hunting, shooting, and fishing form business to joust, and practice improves the nat- the great objects of life, and rise into that in ural powers not less in the tilts of the mind which political questions are the subject of than in those of the body. No amount of natu- thought and conversation, we feel as if in anral talent or of practice, or success in other pro- other world. fessions, can supply the want of this essential requisite. The common observation, that even the most eminent lawyers seldom attain any great success in Parliament, is a proof that even the profession, the habits of which are most akin to those required in representative assem blies, does not afford the requisite training for their direction. No one supposes that a Cabinet could be formed out of the Manchester school, or the mercantile representatives of great towns; they are valuable, from their local or peculiar information, in Parliament, but they are incapable of taking a lead in it. The reason is, they have not been trained to its contests in their early years. Success in the other walks of life is not an earnest of eminence in Parliament, but a bar to it, because it has arisen from a long-continued bent of the mind in another direction. It is as impossible for great success at the bar, in the army, or in commerce, to qualify a person, even of the greatest talents, to obtain the lead in Parliament, as it is for the lead in Parliament to qualify for a surgical operation, or the command of the Channel fleet, or the direction of the siege of Sebastopol.

While this cause of lasting influence renders 108. the existence of a hereditary class Increased vig- of legislators the best security for or and capac- capacity in the direction of affairs, ity this gives to the higher by training a body of men to that branches of the direction as their end and aim in aristocracy. life, it operates not less powerfully in elevating the character and improving the

109.

the heredita

duction.

Add to this, that it is of the last importance that one branch at least of the Legislature should be for the most part Importance of composed of those whose position the interests of is fixed-who have not their fortune ry peers being to make, whose interests are iden- identified with tified with those of production, and those of prowho have an inheritance to leave to their descendants which might be endangered by precipitate innovation. A fly-wheel is required in the political not less than the mechanical machine. Without it the very force of the generated power may in critical periods tear it in pieces. The great danger in an old, wealthy, and mixed community is, that the inhabitants of towns will, from their superior wealth, concentration, and intelligence, get the command of those of the country, and in conse quence pursue a series of measures, for their own immediate advantage, fatal in the end to the best interests of society, and ruinous to the national independence. Without asserting that the existence of a separate Legislature, composed of a hereditary Legislature, is able entirely to obviate this danger, which seems inherent in the very structure of society, it may at least safely be affirmed that it tends greatly to lessen it, and that if perpetually recruited, as the English aristocracy is, by accessions of talent and energy from the middle classes of society, it may long serve as a barrier alike against the despotism of the executive and the madness of the people.

CHAPTER XXVI.

POLISH REVOLUTION AND WAR, FROM ITS COMMENCEMENT IN NOVEMBER, 1830, TO ITS TERMINATION IN SEPTEMBER, 1831.

1.

Terrible wars which have

rope and Asia.

day around us. It was the difference of character which rendered their seats different: the Asiatics remained at home, because they were submissive; the Europeans wandered abroad, because they were turbulent. Authority was as necessary to the one as it was distasteful to the other. So essentially was this the distinctive character of the two races, and the original cause of their separation, that it characterized the opposite sides in the very first ages of their existence. Priam governed the tributary states of Troy with the authority of a sultan; but the Grecian host elected the King of men to rule them. It was composed of many different independent bodies; and the first epic in the world narrates the wrath of one of its chieftains, and the woes his insubordination brought upon the children of Hellas. The first great strife recorded in authentic history was between the forces of the great king and the coalesced troops of the European republics; and the same character has distinguished the opposite sides to this day. Athens and Lacedemon were the prototypes of France and England; Thermopyle of Inkermann, Cyrus of Nicholas. So early did Nature affix one character upon the different races of men, and so indelible is the impress of her hand.

SURVIVING all the changes of time, of religion, of empire, and of dynasty, one great contest has in every age of the world divided mankind. It is the ever prevailed war of Asia and Europe-the strife between Eu- of the descendants of Shem with the sons of Japhet. All other contests sink into insignificance in comparison. The nations of Europe and Asia have had many and bloody wars among each other, but they have been as nothing compared to those terrible strifes which in different ages have in a manner precipitated one hemisphere upon the other. This enduring warfare has alternately pierced each hemisphere to the heart: it brought the arms of Alexander to Babylon, and those of England to Cabool; it conducted the Saracens to Tours, and Attila to Chalons. In one age it induced the disasters of Julian, in another the Moscow retreat; it led to the fall of Rome and Constantinople; it precipitated Europe upon Asia during the Crusades, and Asia upon Europe during the fervor of Mohammedan conquest. Caesar was preparing an expedition against the Parthians when he was assassinated; Napoleon perished from attempting one against Russia. The Goths, who overturned the Roman empire, appeared first as suppliants on the Lower Danube, and they were them- From this original diversity in the character selves impelled by a human wave which rose of the two great dominant races on the frontiers of China. It is the East, not of men has arisen a difference not Opposite sourthe North, which in every age has threatened less remarkable in the sources of ces of their Europe; it is in the table-land of Tartary that their strength and the means of strength and the greatest conquerors of mankind have been their resistance. Unity renders bred. The chief heroes whose exploits form Asia formidable; diversity has constituted the the theme of history or song, have in different strength of Europe. Multitudes of slaves, images signalized themselves in the immortal con-pelled by one impulse, obeying one direction, test against these ruthless barbarians. Achil- follow the standards of the Eastern sultan; les, Themistocles, Leonidas, Alexander, Pom-crowds of freemen, actuated by opposite paspey, Marius, Belisarius, Constantine Paleologus, Charles Martel, Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, John Hunniades, Scanderbeg, John Sobieski, Don John of Austria, Prince Eugene, Charles XII., Lord Clive, Lord Lake, Napoleon, have in successive ages carried it on. It has been sung in one age by Homer, in an other by Tasso; it has awakened at one period the powers of Herodotus, in another those of Gibbon. It began with the siege of Troy, but it will not end with that of Sebastopol.

2.

It is owing to the different characters of the races of men who have peopled the Causes of two continents that this strife has this perpet- been so long-continued and terrible. ual strife. Though all profane history, not less than Holy Writ, teaches us that the human race originally sprung from one family in the centre of the eastern continent, yet the descendants of Adam who sojourned in Asia were essentially different from those who wandered to Europe. Nor was this surprising: we see differences as great in the same household every

3.

weakness.

sions, often torn by discordant interests, form the phalanxes of Western liberty. The strength of Asia consists mainly in the unity of power and administration which, in the hands of an able and energetic monarch, can be perseveringly directed to one object; that of Europe is found in the resources which the energy of freemen furnishes to the state, and the courage with which, when danger arrives, it is repelled. The weakness of the despotic dynasties of Asia is to be found in their entire dependence on the vigor and capacity of the ruling sovereign, and the destruction of the national resources by the oppression or venal

4.

they were-the frontier powers of Europe concurred in it; and Austria, in particular, which had been indebted to Polish valor for deliverance from the sabres of the Osmanlis, requited her gallant deliverers by joining in their destruction, and receiving a share of their possessions as a reward of her ingratitude. To say that this partition was a flagrant violation of the law of nations, a shameless instance of national ingratitude, and unparalleled even in the annals of Christian atrocity, is to express only what has since been the unanimous opinion of mankind. It is of more importance to observe what lasting political effects this great measure of spoliation has had on the subsequent balance of power in Europe, and how completely the justice of the Divine adminis tration has been vindicated by the results, especially to the partitioning powers, with which it has been attended.

6.

of Russia

from the par

ity of subordinate governors. The weakness of Muscovite strength or ambition, great as of the free states of Europe arises mainly from the impossibility of giving habits of foresight to the ruling multitudes, and their invincible repugnance to present burdens in order to avert future disaster. If it were possible to give to the energy of Europe the foresight of Asia, or develop, under the despotism of the East, the energy of the West, the state enjoying even for a brief period the effects of such a combination would obtain the empire of the world. This accordingly is what happened to Rome in ancient and British India in modern times. But universal dominion, except under peculiar circumstances, and for a very brief period, is not part of the system of Nature; and to eschew it, the gifts of power are variously distributed to its various offspring. Two great sins-one of omission, and one of commission-have been committed Disastrous ef by the states of Europe in modfects of the ern times, and it is from their com- The partition of Poland first broke down the conquest ofthe bined effect that the extreme dif- northern barrier of Europe against Byzantine Empire by the ficulty of the Eastern Question, and Asia, and brought the might of the Vast increase Turks, and of the perils with which it is now Orientals to the very heart of Eu- of the power the partition environed, have arisen. The sin ropean civilization. What the conof Poland. of omission was allowing the By-quest of the Byzantine Empire had tition of Pozantine Empire to be overrun by the Turks in done in the south, that fatal spoli- land. the fifteenth century-the sin of commission, ation effected in the north of Europe. Being the partition of Poland in the nineteenth. It the most powerful of the partitioning powers, is under the effects of both that we are now the Semiramis of the north obtained the lion's laboring; for they broke down the barrier of share to herself. By the successive partitions Europe against Asia, and converted the out- of 1772 and 1794, the whole of Poland was diworks of freedom against despotism into the vided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria; and outworks of despotism against freedom. It is Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia, which fell to historically certain, but not generally known, Russia, contained no less than nine millions of that the balance between the Christians and inhabitants. By the treaty of 1815, Russia obTurks hung even a few years before the taking tained in addition the grand-duchy of Warsaw, of Constantinople in 1454, and that a very slight containing four millions, which had been raised support from the Western powers would have up by the Treaty of Tilsit, and her frontiers enabled the former to drive the latter back into were brought to within one hundred and eighty Asia. In 1446, when John Hunniades, with his miles of both Berlin and Vienna. It may safe noble Hungarians on the Danube, and Scander- ly be asserted that by these acquisitions the beg in Epirus, with heroic constancy made head strength of Russia as against the states of conagainst the Osmanlis, Constantinople was still tinental Europe was more than doubled; for in the hands of the Greek emperors; all the not only was the barrier which had hitherto fortresses on the Danube had been wrested from restrained her advances swept away, but the the Turks; Macedonia and the western prov- strength, great in a military point of view, of inces were in arms for the Cross; and twenty the Sarmatian nation, was added to her arms. thousand auxiliary troops from France or En- Thenceforward she became irresistible in eastgland would have enabled Hunniades, in the ern Europe; nothing but a coalition of the decisive battle of Varna, to have forever ex- Western powers, the last hope of freedom, could pelled the ruthless invaders from the soil of arrest her advance. The great war of 1854 was Europe. But the Western powers, divided by the legacy bequeathed to Europe by the parti separate interests, or incapable of just foresight, tion of 1794. did nothing: the Pope in vain endeavored to form an efficient league of Christendom against the Mohammedans; the strength of Europe held back, that of Asia was brought to the very 1 Lamar- front by the genius of Mohammed tine, Hist. de II.; Constantinople was taken, the la Turquie, Greek empire overthrown, and a iii. 90, 120; chasm made in the defenses of Eumer, Hist. de rope against Asia, which all the efforts of later times have been scarcely able to repair.1 The sin of commission has been still greater, for it was done from baser and Sin of Europe more guilty motives, and it was in the partition obviously attended by a more forof Poland. midable and lasting danger. The partition of Poland was not the work merely

Von Ham

Turcs, v. 124, 145.

5.

7.

Yet, because the guilt of the partitioning powers was great, it is not to be supposed that the fault of the Poles Faults of the themselves had been small, or that Poles which they are justified in raising the led to their subjugation. cry of injured innocence among the other nations of Europe. On the contrary, they fell mainly in consequence of their own misconduct; and every other nation which imitates them will, to the end of the world, undergo the same punishment. The Sarmatia of the ancients, Poland, on the first settlement of the northern nations after the fall of the Roman empire, was the most extensive kingdom in Europe. Extending from the Baltic to the Sea, from Smolensko to Prague, it was the most powerful state on the Continent, so far

the pospolite, or armed convocation of the nobles. The consequence was, that, in the last struggle under Kosciusko, they could not oppose 25,000 men to the united armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. In a word, the Poles did, during three hundred years, what Mr. Cobden and the Peace Conference so strenuously urged the English government to do; and had their advice been equally implicitly followed, England, like Poland, would beyond all question, in the course of time, have been swept from among nations.

as material resources went. Prussia, Bohemia, only a few regiments of mercenaries as a duMoravia, Silesia, the Ukraine, Podolia, Volhy-rable force, no fortified towns or arsenals, and nia, as well as Poland Proper and Lithuania, they trusted the national defense entirely to were comprised in its mighty domains. Its forests, abounding with fir and oak, formed inexhaustible supplies for the construction of houses and ship-building; its soil, every where perfectly flat, and enriched in most places, like the American, by the perennial vegetable decay of the forests, was admirably adapted for grain crops, and has ever rendered its harbors the granary of Europe for wheat; its great rivers supplied, ready-made by the hand of Nature, as in the Valley of the Mississippi, the immense advantages of a net-work of water communications penetrating every part of the country; its inhabitants, intrepid and brave almost beyond any other in Europe, had always been distinguished by a passionate love of freedom and attachment to their country; and they have been characterized, with truth, by Napoleon, as the men in Europe who most readily and quickly form soldiers. There must, therefore, have been some great national fault, some overpowering defects in constitution or character, which neutralized all these advantages, and rendered the nation to which Nature had given the greatest means of power, and placed on the frontier of civilization to shield it from the barbarians, the weakest and most

unfortunate.

8.

between Po

A strange and mysterious connection has existed for a long period between the 9. cause of Poland and that of Euro- Mysterious pean democracy. It is more than connection a mere ardent sympathy of the one land and the for the other; it is a linking togeth- cause of deer of fate, apparently by the decree mocracy. of Supreme Power. As Poland was the frontier state of European civilization, so it seems to have been destined to stand as the advanced guard to warn the other nations by its fate of the danger which awaited them if they listened to the voice of the tempter within their own bosoms. Its long-continued misfortunes, despite the valor of its sons, and ultimate subjugation, was beyond all doubt owing to the viIt is not difficult to see what it was which olence of the passion of equality in its inhabbrought this about. The "ignorant itants, which led them to retain an elective It was the impatience of taxation" did the whole. government when they should have exchanged impatience Poland being a country in which, it for a hereditary, and neglect all provision of taxation probably from homogeneity of orig- for defense when their neighbors were daily which ruin inal race, and the absence of any of augmenting their means of attack. When the ed Poland. the distinctions of rank consequent volcano broke out in France, and Polish nationon foreign conquest, equality was really and ality was extinguished, the same connection practically, not nominally, established, the pres- continued. It was the anxiety of the partitionervation of their equal rights became the ruling powers to provide for the division of Poing passion of the people, to which every other consideration, how pressing soever, was sacrificed. Among these rights the most important and the most valued was that of being free from taxation. In all countries where the people have really got the power of government into their own hands, and where they are not ruled, as in ancient Rome, by a hereditary senate, or in modern France, by a despotic Committee of Public Safety, this is a favorite object; and accordingly, in America, no statesman has ever ventured to hint even at any direct taxes. So strong was this feeling in Poland that it amounted to a perfect passion. No danger, however great-no calamities, however threatening-no perils, however overwhelming, could induce them to submit to the smallest present burden to ward off future disaster. In Sidney Smith's words, "they preferred any load of infamy, however great, to any burden of taxation, however light." They constantly trusted to their own valor and warlike spirit to avert any dangers with which their country might be threatened; but although their heroic qualities often extricated the republic from perils which seemed insurmountable, it could not supply the want of a regular army, or the preparation in peace of the means of effective defense in war. When all the adjoining states were putting on foot powerful standing armies and constructing strong fortresses, they had

land in 1792, 1793, and 1794, which led them to starve the war with France, and permit its insane demagogues to precipitate the French nation into the frightful career of the Revolution, when they might, by uniting their forces, with ease have captured Paris, and restored a constitutional monarchy in a single campaign. With the crushing of the revolutionary spirit in France in 1814, and the capture of Paris, Poland again emerged from its ashes; it obtained from the efforts of Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna the shadow at least of nationality, and the progress it made during the next fifteen years, and the strength it displayed during the contest with Russia in 1831, proved that the division and weakness of democracy had hitherto been the cause of its ruin. With the triumph of the barricades, the dark cloud again came over the fortunes of Poland; her nationality was destroyed, and a long period of humiliation, of suffering, again presented the lesson to Europe of the national punishment of democratic institutions.

10.

Though far from enjoying the blessings of real freedom, the small portion of Poland which was erected in 1815 Prosperity of into a separate state, with the Em- Poland under peror of Russia on its throne, en- the Russian joyed a degree of prosperity, and rule from 1815 made an amount of progress, far beyond any that it had ever experienced under

to 1830.

1 Ante, c. viii. $ 9, 10.

the weak government of its elected kings, or | spirit became universal, from the frequent exthe blind rule of its stormy Diets. The statis- hibitions of its most attractive spectacles; patical facts already given place this beyond a triotic ardor wide-spread, from the progressive doubt. The army was thirty revival of its hopes. The officers of the Polish thousand strong, and in the very regiments, composed entirely of the nobles, in highest state of discipline and whom the passion for independence burned most equipment; while the growing information and strongly, mutually encouraged each other in intelligence of the people, owing to the great these sentiments; the young men at the military extension of the means of education among schools and the university of Warsaw, all drawn them, and the vast increase of their material from the same class, embraced them with still comforts, had augmented in a surprising degree more inconsiderate and generous ardor. Out the resources of the country. Many grievan- of the rising prosperity of Poland, and the gradces, indeed, were still complained of, and some ual removal of its grievances, sprung very natexisted. It is scarcely to be expected they urally a consciousness of national strength, and should at once disappear under the sceptre of a desire for the restoration of national independthe Czar. Though fond of Poland, to a native ence. It is a mistake to suppose that the most of whom he was married, and proud beyond serious insurrections arise from the extremity measure of its troops, Constantine, its viceroy, of suffering; it breaks rather than excites the was by nature capricious and passionate. Sev- spirit. It is true, as Lord Bacon says, that eral acts of tyranny occurred during his govern- the worst rebellions come from the stomach; ment, and it was too evident that the attempt but it is not when it is most sorely pinched to ingraft the constitutional freedom of Europe that they arise. It is when the pinching is comupon the traditional despotism of Asia was of ing on, or going off, that they are most to be all human undertakings the most difficult. The dreaded. sittings of the Chambers, which never lasted Ever since the year 1825, when the great remore than a few weeks, had been discontinued bellion broke out in the Russian 12. for five years before 1830, when they army, which was repressed, as al- Secret socie June, 1830. were held for a month by the Em- ready recounted, by the vigor and ties in Poland. peror Nicholas. The debates were not made intrepidity of Nicholas,' and even 1 Ante, chap. public, and the most rigorous censorship of the before that time, an immense secret viii. 129. press shut out the communication of independ- society had existed in Poland, having for its prinent thought throughout the community. But cipal object to restore the national independwith all these restraints and evils, which were ence. It was not so much directed, like the Carfar from imaginary, the condition of Poland had bonari of Italy, the Red Republicans of France, marvelously improved, from the mere effect of or the Ribbonmen of Ireland, to objects of social a steady rule, since it fell under the govern- change or disorder, as to the grand object of rement of Russia. The proof of this is decisive. placing Poland in its ancient place in the EuroStrong as Russia was, and immensely as her re- pean family. Accordingly, it embraced a greatsources had augmented since the last partition er number of classes, was actuated by more genin 1794, the strength of Poland had grown in erous sentiments, and was less likely to be staina still greater proportion. Skrzynecki made a ed by crime. It was a fixed principle in these very different stand from Kosciusko, and a quar- societies, that nothing should ever be committed ter of its old territory and population main- to writing, but every thing trusted to the fideltained, for the first time, in 1831, anity and honor of the affiliated. And so worthy 2 Cap. iv. equal contest with the forces of the did they prove of the trust, that the existence of 40, 46. Czar.2 the gigantic organization, which had its ramiBut this very circumstance of the increased fications not only in the kingdom of Poland, strength and improved condition of but in Gallicia and the grand-duchy of Posen, the people only rendered more in- the portions which had fallen to Austria and ity increased tense the desire for independence, Prussia on the final partition, was not even susand more galling the sense of subju- pected when its designs were approaching mafor independ- gation. The sight of the Polish arms turity. There is no example recorded in histoover the public edifices, of the Po-ry of so great a conspiracy, embracing so many lish uniform on the soldiers, of the Polish stand- thousand individuals, having been 2 Roman Solards over their ranks, perpetually recalled the so long and faithfully kept secret tyk, Pologne days of their independence; while the sense of -a decisive, proof of the ardent et la Revolu the growing prosperity and resources of the spirit and sentiments of honor by tion en 1820, country inspired the hope of at length succeed- which its members were actuated. i. 24, 27. ing in re-establishing it. The reviews of Constantine's guards and the garrison of Warsaw, often twenty thousand strong; the magnificent squadrons of the cavalry, the steady ranks of the infantry, the splendid trains of the artillery, all in the Polish uniform, composed of national troops, and in the finest possible state of discipline and equipment, inspired them with an overweening idea of their own strength. No force on earth seemed capable, to their fond and ardent imaginations, of resisting the gallant arrays of armed men, equal to the élite of the French or Russian Guards, which were constantly passing before their eyes. The military

11.

This prosper

the passion

ence.

13.

The French Revolution of 1830, as might naturally be supposed, excited the warmest sympathy, and produced Different the most unbounded enthusiasm in plans of the Poland; and the subsequent dem- conspirators. ocratic movements in Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, still farther fanned the flame. The effervescence soon became such that it was ob vious it could not be restrained; and the chiefs of the conspiracy, accordingly, held several meetings at Warsaw, in the end of SepSept. 29. tember, at which the plan of operations was discussed and agreed on. Two different projects were laid before the meeting, and their