Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-01-16
'QDbIlloi SStates:irr:ailr,rI,, i 4,
THE ROMAN QUESTION.
NJ ua4zirI ~ II On on me n IssI.,a. SsGsnal Destiny


do, and / take, upon myself to tell you this;
first, from sense OF my duty as an italian
and Roman citizen-since IN days glorious
for your city it pleased you, to make me
such I; second, because the moharchical
party have lately endeayored to impose
upon you as mine a stupid letter preaching
patience to you, and stigmatizing as sim
prudent the glorious deeds of Rome in
1S49. Some among you may possibly have
believed In the reality of thai forgery, and
it is important to me that you should Know
that I--once Triumyir of Rome-and now
gray-headed but not gray -souled- have
which we, then united and strong in will,
announced to Italy from the Capitol. l
know NOT what Unforeseen situation you
may be placed in by the tortuous tactics of
the Government Of the kingdom Of Italy,
and their plots with French or Papal agents,
and trust you will act with dignity in
any case; but / address YOU now, taking
the Franco Italico convention as the basis
upon which to judge your position. In the
face of that convention, which binds the
Italian Government neither to promote nor
tolerate any attempt against the temporal
power OF the Pope, and to maintain Florence
as the capital of Italy, you have before you
two solemn duties-the first towards Rome
name; the second towards Italy and Eu-
rope. 1t is your duty to act-to rise up
against the ignoble horde, the refuse of
other lands, and drive them out. An ac-
cusation cireulates againstyOu--why should
L conceal this from you?-an accusation
which has frequently been repeated by the
English and French press. The strange
patience with which for eighteen long
years you have endured the presence of
the foreigner within your walls, without
single manly protest, has been accepted as
proof of the submission of people
shrinking from danger, and has given color
| to the falsehood that Rome was defended in
| 1S49 by Italians from other parts of the
| peninsula. l was witness of your con-
| duct in those days, and therefore have de-
| cared, and do declare, the assertion false
| hood. know all the many influences that
have been brought to bear upon you in
| order to induce the strange patience of
which have spoken; and, among them, /
cannot forget the peculiar and difficult
| position created for you by the Italian
monarchy in allying itself with France.
But if now. freed from that false position,
you should still persist in yielding to those
enervating influences, If you do not now
hasten to show that it was not the power of
your enemies but the fact that they were of
the nation which Italy denominated her
ally, and which had fought with her at
| Solferino and Magenta, that restrained you,
you will give confirmation to the ignoble
| accusation.
| Now Romans must not-I will not say be
| cowards-they must not even be suspected
of cowardice. Whatshould be the cry with
which you rise to armsP What your pro-
gramme? You answered this question
4 nj haUn N
| cboose-you have chosen. On the 9th of
February, 1S49-then free and legally rep
| resented--you unanimously declared
yours the cry that gave your forefathers
| their greatness, and you summed up The
| programme of Rome in the word "republic."
| That programme, accepted with enthusiasm
by all the provinces then belonging to
| Rome, was sealed by the blood of the best
among you during the two months of that
heroic struggle In Rome, Bologna and
Ancona. On the I'd of July the free eX-
preston of fyour will and of your right was
put down by brute force. That obstacle is
now removed. The manifestation of your
will recOmmences at the point where it was
interrupted. Your eternal right revives.
BY rising now you are what you were on
the 9th of neutrality-suspicious. and your
own masters. On the 81 of July, one day
after the eentrance of the French, the Roman
people, in the face ofits enemies, once more
raised its handin affirmation of its faith ;
the republican constitution was read aloud
to the multitude from the Capitol. The
foreign flag was interpOsed to veil from
Italy the hand that held the pact aloit.
That veil is rent asunder, and the hand
of the Roman people reappears raised on
high. This is the programme pointed out
to you by logic, honor, conscience and du-
ty towards the past and to the future. You
are bound before all things to reassert
yourselves, your own life, your own power,
That done, you will act as God and the sense
of your national duty inspire. First exist,
and then dispose of yourselves. Then, and
then only, when your vote will not be as
the blind, mute and hurried suffrages which
inaugurated the Bonapartist tyranny and
consigned Nice to France, when that vote
may 90 forth solemn, deliberate, and pow
erfulin collective inspiration and enlight-
ened by, the counsels of your best men in
free discussion of your own position and
that of Italy--you will decide whether
Rome ought to give herself, like seeonda-
nv city, and disinherited of all life of her
II own, to a, monarchy already doomed, a
monarchy proved impotent and incapable
I of all noble action-a monarchy which has
accented Venice as an aims from the for
eigner, and would inscribe Lissa and GUS
II toza upon the the Capitol-or whether the
tradition, glorious beyond all others, of her
4 past, and that mission which has twice
Il given moral and material unity TO the
n world, do not call-her to a part nobler,
! wortbier and. more fruitfulof glory to the
nation. In the meantime, assert yourselves ;
assert Rome. They who give you other
counsel-they who urge you servilely TO
suhiect and submerQe yourselves, without