The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-02 00:00:00

FREE AND DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS.

So long as habits of liberty are preserved
amongst a whole people, so long as every class
has an equal horror of slavery, a sudden explo-
sion of the sentiment which fills every heart suf-
fices to accomplish a revolution—to render vain
the efforts of usurpers, or to overthrow a recent
tyranny, though at the moment it may have suc-
ceeded in establishing itself. The despot, even
when he has silenced by terror the people whom
he has oppressed and disarmed, always feels at
war with them ; he has too much to fear from
every class, to hope, with any chance of success,
to attach any of them to his cause. But when
absolute power has been established long enough
for the violence of its first origin to be forgotten ;
when the majority of the men in the prime of
life have been born under its yoke, and have
never known a better state ; the usurper finds
himself supported by the inert part of the nation
—by those who, incapable of thinking, or of in-
vestigating for themselves, must be contented with
borrowed ideas, and with blindly assenting to
every doctrine which the Government may pro-
mulge.
With the loss of liberty is lost also that
free and animated intercourse which warms the
soul, and diffuses noble sentiments even among
classes unenlightened by the knowledge of the
past, or by the experience of foreign nations.
In slavish countries the Prince alone speaks,
amidst universal silence: he dictates the procla-
mations of authorities, the sentences of the tri-
bunals ; he even inspires the language to be
uttered from the pulpit or the confessional: be-
cause the disposal of the revenue is at his will,
he appears as a dispensing providence ; and
makes the people believe he gives all that he
does not take from them. The indigent aro
grateful to him for the public charities ; the
labourer, for the justice and police which protect
his property. The populace of towns applaud
the rigour which falls on the higher classes.
The national pride takes offence at the foreigner
who expresses his pity for an unhappy and ill-
governed people ; and the vanity of the vulgar
is interested in the support of what exists. If
any memory of the period of liberty is preserved
amongst the ignorant classes, it only refers to
unhappiness and pain. They have heard of the
efforts, the sacrifices, made by their fathers in
defence of the people's rights ; but they see only
the evils of the struggle, while the result, because
it is not of a material nature, escapes their ima-
gination. They conclude that bread was as dear,
and labour as painful, in the days of liberty as in
their times; and to the privations they endure
were then added dangers and violent catastro-
phes, of which fathers transmitted to their
children some terrible details. Slavery, it is
said, so debases man as to make him love it ;
and experience confirms the maxim. Nations
e
most
eoe
nsr
tyt whe
in
vicious
c pit.
ore
proportion
psappearo ritnioninstitutionst attachedo
i t
a imperfections;
e s c l i
everywhere t sG n-
wohvianetr
o sis t
liked ; and the most obstinate resistance is that
which the people oppose to their moral advance-
ment.—Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclop&dia
Vol. XXVII. Sismondi's History ofthe Italian ;'
Republics.
.: •