Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-11-04
wHAT Owe MAN cav DO.

From the Washington Patriot.l
Were not the public mind of this
country, just now, directed With intensi-
" and exclusiveness to its own Concerns,
and especially to the solution Of the
great problem whether there is q capaci.
ty of resistance TO the wrong-doing OF
one man, and be the object one of a ma
TONS gratitude and trust, We are very
sure it would look admiringly at the at
titude of another, who is devOtipg the
closing hours of long life and the en-
ergies Of an intelligence which seems
able to meet any demand on it. to the
creation and construction of a new Re
public. Never till now hns there been
a chance Of a constitutional Republic
on the continent OF EurOpe-we mean a
Republic on a large scale, transcending
what was once CracOw, what is now
5witzerland-and it really looks as il
this new one was TO be created and con-
summated; and if it is, it viii be due
mainly, perhaps wholly, to the virtue
and intellectual ability of one old man.
Forty years ago, Adolph Thiers was
publicist, teacher, ssboOk-maker, Journal
ist. He is old enough to remember,
though not IS an adult, the first imperi-
slism-selfish, exacting, Obdurate, re-
lentless. The natural perversity Of his
race once made him its apOlogist-its
ecstatic eulOgist-bUt now seeing in what
fruits such political institutions-if they
be institutions-when a single will is
law, have ripened, even after a new
graft, the chastened author of misdi-
rected panegyric must blush for having
written H. OF course he remembers,
though still a good way of, the dreamy
benumbing political influence which
succeeded " Bmpiren-the Bourbonism
Of fifteen yeasr, from 1915 to 1880, and
which had but the merit that unless ex-
ceptionally, it was not aggressive.
France, except when, in 1926, she
crossed the Pyreneese, confined he0-alf
to her limits strictly. There were no
long avenues Of Fenchmen's graves,
rsdiating all over creation. But il fell,
as it were, in the order Of nature, and
with its fall began, under hybrid insti-
tutiOns-neither one thing no the other
the public life Of the septuagenarian
Of to-day.
Thirty years ago NJ. Thiers was Min
ister Of what was called a "COnstitution-
81 King" a faithful servant Of what, in
picturesque point Of view, is the most
degrading influence that ever controlled
the destinies Of France. That which is
now doing for France in 1872, after wears
OF sorrow and humiliation and blood,
might have been done in 1880, had Louis
Philippe been other than he was. 1t is
enough to know it was neither done nor
attempted, and NJ. Thiers lives to see
the Orleans faction as thoroughly frag-
mentary and significant as Bona
partisan. The best Of therl-and who
shall say what be would have been had
he lived longer-perished by an ignoble
fall from back alley cab. The rest OF
them, when great peril came, and hero
ic emergency presented itself, scattered
and ran away, leaving the women and
children to take care Of themselves-One
taking refuge in a neighboring country
with suicide at the threshold and a
bloody duel at the back-dOOr. Impo-
tence has marked all these ''Orleanists, %
from the hour when, oblivous of Valmy
and Jenappes, the old King saw his pal
ace plundered before his eyes, and ran
away in q ftdcre, and Nemours and
MOntpensier left their sister with their
little boy to the mercy Of the "Reds.n
They, or some Of them, came to this
country to take hand in civil war on
what they thought the winning side,
Malvern Hill, never 70 return, before it
began 10 win. For eighteen years this
continued, with the ordinary alterna-
nations such as ordinary politics engen-
der, NJ. Thiers playing his part, and then
the rickety structure fell unmOurned.
What next ensued all know, for it was
Of our day and generation, and from
lS45 TO 1870, with its psuedO-republican-
ism and renewed imperialism, he had
relatively little to do. From the bloody
ruin Of all this, in the convulsiOn Of in
itiate and actual terrorism, and in the
humiliation Of the military power Of
what was once thought the most soldier
" nation in the world, has arisen that
which promises 10 be a truly constitu-
tional Republic and of that Republic,
this old man eloquent-this old man en-
ergetic-seems to be the founder and
protector. Thus far, he seems to have
made no serious mistake, unless it be in
severity (and who shall say il is undue)
to those who when they had no power
knew not what mercy was. II Thiers's
life and tenure Of power be protracted
till he can reconcile his country TO new
constitutional limitations-tO a dual leg
islature, TO provision for lapse by death
of executive authority-and to some
thing more assimilated 10 AnglO-Amer-
lean institutions, we see no reason to
doubt at last French Republic is an
accomplished fact.