Iowa capitol reporter. [volume] (Iowa City, Iowa) 1841-1855, 1848-05-03
Liberty and Peace.

The circular of NJ. de Lamartine, the
minister Of foreign affairs, to the diploma
tic agents of the French Republic is a
mastery production, and we'll calculated
to show that war is the game Of despots,
and peace the true interest of mankind.
He points out the difference between the
positions Of the French Republic and the
republic of sixty years ago. He declares
the emancipation of France from the trea-
ties Of 1915; and says that freedom has
nothing in it which is irreconcileable with
the repose Of Europe. The concluding
portions of the circular are as follows:
Thus we declared it openly. If the
hour Of the reconstruction Of some nation
alties, oppressed in Europe or elsewhere,
should appear to us to have sounded in
the DEGREES Of Providence, if Switzerland,
our faithful ally since the time of Francis
!. were constrained or threatened in the
advance which she is effccting in her gov
eminent, in order to lend addition strength
to the facine of democratic governments
if the independent States Of Italy were in
vaded-ifany limits or obstacles were i'm
posed on their internal transformations
If the right Of alliance among themselves,
in order to consolidate an Italian nation,
were contested by main torce-the French
Republic would believe itself entitled to
arm itself in order 10 protect these legiti-
mate movements of the greatness and the
nationality Of States.
The Republic, you see, by its first step,
repudiates the era Of prescriptions and of
dictations. She is decided never to veil
Liberty at home. She is equally decided
never to veil its democratic principles
abroad. She will never permit any one
to lnterpose between the pacific radiation
OF its liberty and the regard of nations.
She proclaims herself the Intellectual and
cordial ally Of every right, of every pro-
gress, Of every legitimate development of
the institutions OF the nations which wish
to live on the same principle as herself.
She will not endeavor any immoderate or
incendiary propagandism amongst her
neighbors. She knows that there is no dura-
BILE freedom but that which grows ofitself
oni its own soil. But it will exercise by the
light pitts ideas, by the spectacle of order
and Of peace, which it hopes to give the
world, the sole and honest proselytism of
esteem and Of sympathy. That is not war,
it is nature. That is not the agitation of
Europe, it is life. That is not to embroil
the world, it is to shine from its place on
the horizon Of nations, to advance them
and to guide them at the same time.
We desire, for humanity, that the peace
be preserved. We even hope it. One
only question of war was mooted, year
ago, between England and France. 1t was
not Republican France which started that
question Of war; it was the dynasty. The
dynasty carries away with it that danger
OF war which it had given rise to in Eu-
rope by the entirely personal ambition
Of its family alliance in Spain. Thus that
domestic policy Of the fallen dynasty,
which has weighed for seventeen years
on our national dignity, weighed at the
same time, by its pretensions to another
crown at Madrid, on our liberal alliances
and on peace. The Republic has no am
bition. The Republic has no dispotism.