Weekly national intelligencer., 1848-10-14
NOTES ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS.


up those Of laly-a country which but little while
ago gave the brightest hopes of national regenera
ton. but where those hopes seem already perishng,
almost as socn as they have blossomed, destined,
we fear, only to add one more TO the many past ex
amples OF how difficult thing, how beset with un-
discovered causes of failure, is that most precious
of public attanments, political freedom, which, hard
as it is to get, is yet harder to keep; and well, in
deed, as the very highest result of virtue TO men in
society, may it be so. Forbidden alike to the tur-
bulent and the slothful, to the ambitious and the
inert, power often fatal to it as weakness;
for strength tempts it TO attack and no attack upon
it, even where weakest, is half so dangerous to it
have ever been its own attempts against the in
dependence of Others Born to nations in their sim
plicty it seems ever to fly from their far-advanced
refinement the child of their poverty, it hastens
unlike mortal ofsprng) to desert them in their opu-
lence, as if that were blessing enough withou, l.;
and yet, wayward thing that it is nothing fit TO
promote that emnence Of people with which it
loves not to be found associated mother of the arts
and of the diffused conveniences Of life. it scorns
the sofness and the selGshness which they induce
parent of population, it cannot abide the excess
which begets: it chershes equality, which destroys
it; it is the nurse Of glory, which supplants and
ruins it. nothing robust in the seeming adversely
Of brave community, and it sckens and dies with
their highest prosperity. For most races of men,
no wisdom, no science no initiative longing can cre-
ate it, but only, in its stead the forfeiture Of those
forms OF government proper to their temper and
circumstances to some other races it appears ma
tive, an instinct, and necessity rather than pnl-
dence; and yet these, too, hold it by some gift Of
situation, not of nature, lose it through the very
effort to exalt, and like soils cropped too long with
the same harvest, will never bear it again until
newed by growing for ages men of another Stock
Indeed we might almost say that Political Freedom
is, in this respect to nations what certain diseases
are to the human race: there are amazingly few in
stances of their ever having it second time.
Italy and Greece are striking examples Of the
truth which we have just laid down; France and
Spain equally striking ones of the vanness Of all
attempts arfcialy TO create for people freedom
under institutions not native to their sofia Greek
or Roman an American freedom, for men that
have not habit nor an idea in common with what
they would initiate. AS well expect to make all
AiahSS cPOdh oiCCh, Wy ouuuCuly pulLllS po-
pulation into the Hellenic costume, imagine that
clothing her with this Constitution or that Cons-
tuition could alter her identity 1t is easy to alter
for country its apparent, but hard to change its
real forms of government; for the people will re-
main the same, and the Government, give it what
theoretic shape you please, ever take much the
same powers; those powers, that is to say, which
the accustomed spirit, the particular genius of socie
ty permits to be exercised. But it is of Italy and
her regeneration that we are to speak: so let us
proceed.
We need hardly say that the old dream of that
regeneration is her union under a single head, as
the only means of accumulating within her strength
sufficient for ridding her of Austrian domination.
This has been for centuries the favorite vision of
her greatest spirits, from Machiavelli and Flicaia
down 10 Alferi. And yet it is easy to see that the
impedments TO unity, SO long the common wish
of all Italy, must be strong, or else it would many
day since have been brought about. 1t is coun.
try broken by Nature into number of separate
regions, each fit only for the seat of small inde-
pendent State. In this it resembles the second
litte-compact peninsula of Europe, Greece and,
accordingly, neither of these countries has ever
rived at condition of unity, except when forming
a part of great empire" Community of tongue
is the only cause Of union that might melt them into
one people: but the experience Of above two thou
sand five hundred years abundantly proves that
adverse causes more powerful exist But with
these hindrances, permanent because physical others
concur, the work of human arrangement or Of hu-
man character, which forbid this long-expected
union Of Italy: frsf the clerico-political power Of
the Papacy, which always has been, and must be
an nsuperabe bar to the political unity in question
the Papal power cannot, from its peculiar relation
10 foreign States, coaesce, subordinate, with any
such general Italian sovereignty, whether that Of
single supreme State or ola Coafederacy and the
theocratical character forbids Italy to adopt
the Papal sovereignty as its head: secondly, Tus-
cany, country blessed with mild government
and population eminently industrious, well-order-
ed, and comfortable, would be mad if she mixed her
fate with that Of Southern Italy, region utterly
different in its social character and political capaci
ties thirdly, if she otherwise could the Papal
States nterposed render it impossible: fourfhiy,
the Kingdom Of Naples the Two Sicilies)-flled
with sloth and sensuality-her upper classes plung.
ed in cffeminacy, her lower in voluntary beggary-