Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-08-05

aud Christian nifty in its Influence ON
Liberty.
The following interesting and impressive re-
marks are taken from an article in the last
number of the North American Review. They
are made in connection with notice of the
50 History of Liberty" by Samuel Eliot
20 " We are, no doubt, liable to be misled by
the ostensibly republican governments of Ath-
ems and Rome in their palmy days, and by
stereotyped phrases that designate Greece as
the cradle of liberty. But in sober fact, the
term republic, as applied to the States of clas-
steal antiquity, is but the negative of mon-
archy, or euphemism Of oligarchy. In Attn
ems the slaves outnumbered the free citizens,
sometimes in the proportion of twenty to one,
and single woman citizens could count their
bondmen by the thousand, or even the ten
thousand. These slaves were either insolvent
debtors, captives of war, or prizes of conquest,
often the equals or superiors OF their mas
tiers in culture and refinement, yet utterly di-
vested of legal rights, not even law protect
ed chattels, but no less subject to arbitrary
and irresponsible control than dogs and cattle.
While we have no plea to offer for negro sla-
very, we must maintain in this connection,
that it bears no parallel with the correspond
ing institution of the ancients for the slave
is now legally recognized as in certain aspects
not chattel, but a man, with rights and rem
edies which the law undertakes to guarantee
Q
to enforce.
But not the slaves alone, the nominally free
poor were unprotected and unprivileged under
the ancient republics, --subjec not co-sover-
eigns. In Athens, the citizens of the fourth
or poorer class were ineligible to office, and
legally neapacitated for bearing any part in
the public deliberations. In Rome, the ple-
bian centuries were so constituted as to assign
to an individual vote less than 1.-THE of the
influence attached to patrician suffrage, and
even this shadow of an elective or governing
franchise was vouchsafed to the lower centu-
ries only when division among the upper
made their presence in the eonlitt0 necessary.
The whole history Of Rome, from the expul-
sion of the Tarquins to the elevation of the
Caesars, is that of constant hostility between
the partrieians and the populace. The prob
lem, in perpetual, though vacillating process
of solution, was the minimum of rights and
privileges which could be conceded to the PILE
bians consistently with their submission in
peace and seryiceableness in war. The Agra
rian laws, which bore so infamous name
among patrician orators and historians, were
no meditated aggression upon the rights of in
dividuals but simply repeated attempts to null
tIply the ranks of independent proprietors by
dividing among the pte6s lands which were
the property of the state and Spurious Cas-
sius and Gracchi incurred death and ignominy
solely as the champions of the oppressed and
down trodden against the pride OF caste which
despised them, and the public policy which
sought to perpetuate their degradation. In
later times, indeed, the mere name of Ro-
man citizen, though borne by pauper or a
vagabond, conferred valuable rights and i'm
munities; but not until the multitude Of con-
quered provinces created larger plebs and
elevated the Romans and their afflicted fellow
| citizens into nation of Kings. And when
| that name had become talisman of defence
| and honor, the mass of the people in subject
| States were not only DISTINGUISHED, but with
out remedy to whatever mode of extortion,
| oppression, or wanton cruelty could glut the
avarice, crafty the caprice, or satiate the vim
| dictive passions of proeonsuls and perpetrators.
! As for Grecian liberty in gross, it was the
| liberty of the several States, not of their sub
! iects. 1t was freedom as regarded Persian or
Macedonian aggression, not with reference to
domestic tyranny or aristocratic usurpation.
oThe tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedoms best and bravest."
Popular rights had absolutely no defenders.-
Sparta could .vindicate the liberties Of Greece
by her brave three hundred at Thermopyla;
but her Helots at home had no doubt felt the
edge of those self-same swords in wanton
slaughter or in legalized massacre.
But there was one State of antiquity in
which We may trace the germs of personal
liberty. In Judea none were DISTINGUISHED.
The impoverished, the indebted classes, hired
laborers, paupers, slaves, fugitives from bond
age, all had rights and immunities which they
could legally claim, offices towards them, that
entered not into the charity of any other ma
ton upon earth, were enjoined as matters of
legal obligation in the Mosaic code, which
precluded pauperism, superseded lnendicaney,
and established high average standard of
comfort, intelligence, and self-respect This
state of things had not ceased to exist at the
Christian era; for Notwithstanding the nation
al degeneracy and corruption, the law Of
Moses was still the civil constitution and the
social directory.
To verify this statement, we might compare
the Roman plebian under Tiberius with the
Galilean fishermen of the same age. The
plebian was squalid, ignorant, and generally
vicious. His scanty livelihood was eked out
by largesses bestowed to obtain his shouts, his
services in crimes of stealth or violence, or his
physical force in civil connections and brawls.
His domestic relations were vague and brut-
ish, his amusements such as fed the coarsest
tastes and vilest passions. The Galilean fish,
ermen, on the other hand, was free and en-
hghtened man. His home was decent and
wen-ordered. His family enioyed his pro-
lection, and reciprocated his kindness. He
was imbued in that noble Hebrew literature.
to suppose which independent Of Divine in
spiration, implies a greater miracle than any
of which it bears the record. He could sing
the psalms of David, and dipped his oar to
the rhythm of the Hottest strains that ever
flowed from human lip or pen. His curiosity
was awake, his mind alert and active. When
he drew his boat on shore and rested with his
companions under its shelter, his talk was of
the words of the seers, and the hope of the
Great Deliverer. When the eIemite John
preached by the Jordan, when the Divine
Teacher gathered his congregation on the
mountain, he left his nets by the sea-
side, and plodded many weary mile to listen,
Three times in the year he made his pilgrimage
to the metropolis, and joined in the august
rites that commemorated the early portions of
the national, and kept alive in all minds the
greater facts of its religious history. The New
Testament makes us acquainted with many OF
these poor men, takes us into their villages
and homes, leads us along the shores OF their
beautiful lake, and shows us how wei lifted
they were, in mental activity intelllgence,and
probity, to welcome the words OF Him who
snake as never man spake. In no other
Quarter of the world, had he appeared, could
| i have been said that sthe common people
heard him gladly Nowhere else would
there have been common ideas and terms that
could have brought him without perpetual
miracle into so intimate a relation with the
popular mind, and won him disciples, capa-