The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-10-06
r HE PR SIS.
Thursday Morning, October 6, 1870.
The Weakness Of lnfallibiIity.

1t is surprising how little it amounts 10 ior
man to be infallible. Plus MINI, newly
invested with infallibility, seems no petter OH
than poor Pope Joan, who was not lnialllnie
or irrcproachable at all, and who more than
thousand years ago was obliglngly gwen her
option by an angelic messenger, of being con-
fined in public, or suffering eternally in hell
fire. The present sovereign pontiffis not so
much as offered an alternative, but is tempo
rally damned, willy nilly, on compulsion.
1t is wonderful evidence of the ineficien-
cy of this infallibly wise and good man that
be has ruled the people over whom his tempo
raj sovereignty extended with such infalible
gantleness and wisdom, that fifty thousand
vote for what is equivalent to his deposition,
while only fifty are found to vote for the con-
tnuance of his power. Rulers not infallible
have sometimes been more successful in con-
ciliating their subjects.
The immediate causes that have led to the
overthrow of the Pope's temporal power be.
gan to operate about 1850. The war of
France against Austria, the previous year, had
added to the territory of Victor Emmanuel,
@Aiho VI oiulHid, dli vi 4NOlluCl 1Ntiy SASSPN
Venice, and he then for the first time assumed
the title of "King of Italy," Afterwards
the BourboDs were driven from Naples by the
arms of Garibaldi, and that State with the
island of Sicily were added to the Kingdom OF
Italy. Italian unity was now complete with
the exception of Venice, held by the Austri-
ans, and the Papal States, governed by the
,l,< &c
was compelled, but rather by Prussian than
italian valor, to relinquish Venice. There
remained only Rome to be added. The i'm
patience of the Italians to repossess their an
Gent capital, where French troops and the
Pope's mercenaries kept the patriots at bay
was entirely natural. The Italian govern
ment, however, was bound by the terms of a
convention with France to repress all at
eempts on the part OF its citizens to invade
the papal territories. So the world has seen
again and again the spectacle of Victor En-
manuel defending Rome from the arms of his
own subjects who desired to make it the cap
ital of his own Kingdom. But with the out
break of the present war and the downfall of
Napoleon everything changed. French troops
could no longer be spared to defend the Vati-
can, and the Italian troops were at once put
in motion toward Rome. Only nominal
defense was made and once more amidst the
acclamations of the people and with the un-
qualified approval of the moral sentiment Of
the world the Eternal City is the capital of q
united Italy.
And it is time. The rule of Plus Ninth, OF
perhaps we should say of Cardinal Antonelli
has been as bad every way as can be imagined
The Rule of the Monk by Gen. Garibald
gives highly colored picture of the despotisn
and RIGHTEOUSNESS of the papal government
and it's instruments, but it is notorious thai
the wickedness and profigacy of the clerica
vermin that swan in Rome left very little
room for exaggeration. The Pope's wisdom
cannot any of it be of this world, for the peo
pie over whom he reiened he succeeded in
making the poorest and unhappiest in Eu-
rope. Victor Emmanuel is not at all any
body's ideal of a good ruler-he is always in
debt and always in trouble. The skeleton in
his closet is the Republic, which seems al
ways on the point of walking oat and present
ing ITSELF But the Pope was so much more
conspicuous as an undesirable sovereign that
the Romans have ever been in a state of sup
pressed revolt and have looked forward to the
advent of their Italian brethren and TO TIT
absorption of Rome by Italy as to the millen
mum.