Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-03-24


that, IN the earliest times the entire free popula
! ton of Rome were members of some one of
these iamiles-and, if Of family, then of
! Gems or House, and, if of Gems or House. then
of Curia, and, if of a Curia, then of Tribe
and, if of Tribe, then of the State-thus maxi
ing the original P0pulas Romanus a strtcily pri-
UHeged order, in the exclusive possession Of the
! government. Lastly, he has shown us that
by the side of this privileged and exclu-
siye order, there to be formed in the
| course of time, partly by emigration, but princi-
| paly by conquest, an alien foreign population
not contemplated by the original Constitution of
Rome, TOR whom no provision was made in
\ that Constitution-having no connection with
| either one of the three original Tribes-re-
| lated TO none of the Houses forming those Tribes
either by the tie of membership or clientage,
| and therefore excluded from all connection
with the State-in word, an anomalous popu-
latlon, uniting personal liberty with political SUBJ
| Jectlon-dependants on no House and therefore
| freemen-members of no House and therefore
! d1.tranchlSed and not citizens of Rome Such
| were the PlebS, the great Roman commons-the
most ilustrious commons the world has ever
| seen, unless the English be excepted. In the in
| fancy Of Rome, we see them poor, weak. dis.
franchised; connected with the State, but no part
of it; compelled to fight its battles, but not per-
mtted to share its privileges. They are not even
allowed to live within the city-ths is consecrated
ground. The Aventine Hill without its walls, is
assigned them for their residence. Still less are
they permitted to intermaTy with any of the
| Roman Houses. This would be, not only to adj
NIT aliens and foreigners within the pale of the
Constitution, but to faint the old patrican blood
of Rome. For many generations the blood ran
pure III the veins of those old patrican fathers of
the city. No foreign alloy mingled with it, and
the Plebeians resided out side Of the walls, dis.
tinct community, regulating their own municipal
affairs, and living according to their own laws,
| nca md
seen, for the most part, like the English COM
mons, a conquered people; but they were also
| like that same commons an enterprising, energet-
&c and intelligent people. Consequently they
grew rapidly in wealth. and as they grew in
wealth they grew in numbers, intelligence and
power, until ultimately they came to be the most
wealthy, most numerous and most powerful por-
ton of the community. Added to this, there
were in their ranks men as high born, in whose
veins the blood courSed as pure as in the veins of
the haughtiest patrician of the City. The Oci,
the Deci the Domitii and others, families as an
Gent and noble as the patrican Claudio or Quinc-
til, sprang from the bosom of the commons, and,
in the latter days of the Republic, the majority
of the iustrious historic names of Rome were
OF Plebeian origin. That such body of men
| should rest contented under their political dis.
reimbursement and social nferiority was not to be
expected Accordingly, in the very earliest
times we hear the mutterings Of their discomfort,
and the early constitutional history of Rome is
little else than the history of this illustrious
body as it develops itself through incessant,
though not bloody conflicts with the original Ro-
man Trlbes-the growth of their demands al
ways keeping pace with their growth in wealth,
intelligence and power-the pride of privilege
gradually yielding before the principle of equali-
ty, until ultimately the whole Roman Plebs, like
the English commons, fight their way within the
pale of the Constitution. The mantle of the high
born patrlcan descends upon the shoulder of the
humble plebeian, and the entire Roman people,
patrlclan and plebeian, are fused together in one
homogeneous mass in the enjoyment of equal
rights franchises and liberties.
Thus, do we see that ancient liberty, like our
own, was an inheritance transmitted from an
arstocratic to democratic age--from the bosom
OF naughty arlstocracy to the humblest citizen.
The idea that it was founded in nature-that it
was an inalienable right due in common Justice to
all mankind, has no place in the ancient world. 1t
never seems to have occurred to any legislator
philosopher of Greece or Rome. On the con.
trary, "the two ideas most deeply rooted in the
ancient world, were the bigotry of race and the
pride of privilege. Never was the bigotry of
race more eXcuSlve-mOre intense-any where,
not even among the Jews, than it was at SPARTA
The Doric race there was, like the Norman con-
querors of England, literally standing army en-
camped in the midst of subjugated people, ever
on the verge OF instruction and only kept down
by the sword. Nor there any thing peculiar
III this domination OF race over at Sparta ex-
cept its rigor and intensity. Citizenship was uni
versally an affair of race-and liberty, so far
from being natural right, was, as we have seen,
everywhere, rank, privilege, nobility and the ex-
elusive Inheritance of certain superior races
while slavery was equally the doom of certain
other inferior races. And in the social and polit-
cal systems OF those times, the relation of mas
ter and slave was quite as well established, quite
as universal as the relation of parent and child,
husband and wife, or any other domestic relation
The statesmen and philosophers of antiquity, so
tar from holding any general theory OF human
equality, held precisely the reverse-that the
races OF men are unequal-that some are superb
or, others inferior-that it is the right of the SUI
perior races to command, and the duty of the
inferior to obey-that all this is agreeable to ma
lures law, which law is subordination and not
equality among the races Of men, and that in es-
tabllshng and perpetuating, in the constitution
of society, the supremacy of certain races-in
setting them apart, and, as it were defeating and
consecratlng them to government, literature,
philosophy and art, while all the mental and in
dustual operations of society, assigned to
certain other inferior races, they were but pro.
ceeding according to that law, and laying the
foundation of the most refined civilization-this,
whether true or false, was the theory of human
rights universally prevalent in the ancient world
the theory of all philosophers of all schools-the
Grove, the Portico, and the Academy. The JUS
tice of this view will be at once admitted bv
every true student of ancient history, and ven
ture to affirm that he who does not admit it =
whose mind is not thoroughly penetrated by it
who has not conducted his historical researches
with reference to it, has not, yet, laid his hand
apon the Key of the Past, even so much as en-
tered the portals Of the ancient world.
And now if, leaving the ancient world, we come
to the modern we shall fnd but accumulated proof
of my proposition that liberty has nowhere sprung
from theory or metaphysics; but has everywhere
descended, in the form of an Inheritance from the
bosom of an aristocratic peerage to democratic
ages and countries.