Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-06-16
ITHE GROWTH OF LIBERTY AND
DESPOTISN.

ITIIE GROWTH OF LIBERTY AND
DEsPOTIsM.
Everything that pertains to organic
life has periods of growth and decay,
and liberty and dospotism are names
given to different stages and develop
ments in the progress of our species.
The general arming of the great powers
of Europe tells Enthusiastically what the
active and controlling minds Of the
continent are thinking about. The
masses are studying plans to increase
their liberty and consequence in the
world, while dynasties and the heads
of government are seeking ways and
means to strengthen and perpetuate
the hereditary rule of an aged and de-
caying despotism.
Trained statesmen claim that they
can govern nations much better than
the people are able to govern themselves
in the full enjoyment of liberty, and
the exercise of absolute sovereignty.
The conservative feeling and intel
lect Of Europe tend in this direction.
Extremes meet. there being but one
step from the sublime to the ridiculous
from liberty to anarchy and its ex-
cessive cruelties. Many dread the des-
potism of organized mobs, and it is
confidently asserted that the Trades
Union of England has seven hundred
and fifty thousand members who act
as one man, and are drilled with the
discipline Of the Prussian Army.
Crowned heads have small love for
menacing organizations of this charac-
ter in the bosom of their States. To
the royal and aristocratic families of
Europe this growing, Independent,
thinking, training combination, is an
ever present danger.
If the impulsive masses had sense
enough to listen to good advice, and
pursue a .self-denying conservative
policy, the whole power of the State
would drop into their hands as a ripe
apple falls from tree. But can human
nature, ct the level it has attained in
Europe, restrain its impulsiveness IN
der great proyocations, and not give
large standing armies the coveted op-
portunity to extend indefinitely the
chain of military despotism? We fear
not. 1t is the policy of imperial gov
ernments secretly to excite disturbances
and rebellions when it is desirable to
strengthen power by their suppression.
National antipathies are fomented,
as those of Russia and France against
Germany, for political purposes.
Government plays with the news prints
Of the day as an artist with a fiddle,
and the people incontinently dance to
the music, whether it leads Frenchmen
to Berlin or Germans to Paris.
What interest has mankind in cut
ting the threats of skilled laborers by
thousands or millions, and taxing all
that survive unframed to work and
earn pensions for the manned, and pay
enormous taxes to meet the expenses OF
murderous war? Human butchery, des-
potism and oppressive public debts live
and flourish together. Their root sinthe
black, fat soil of ignorance and tradi-
ton. Patriotism becomes as meaning
less as a ripple ON the ocean, when used
to place or keep a family in office.
Yet with millions, loyalty to a sOver-
eign, whether king, emperor, queen or
empress, is the soul of patriotism, and
the essence Of liberty. The traditions
Observation-Disclosures have taught
this lesson. Hence, the apparently
conflicting forces Of liberty and despot-
ism have existed together in the same
subjects of the crown for indefinite
ages. Nevertheless, the life of the
more advanced white races does not
stand to-day where it stood when the
first Napoleon invaded Russia, and
provoked combinations which sent him
to muse and die on a far off island in
the Southern Atlantic.
In his late visit 10 England,
Alexander went to see the son of
Napoleon III. and his mother.
Il is understood that an Emperor who
commands soldiers by the million, will
do what he can to place a French
crown on the head of this youth of
twenty or twenty-one years. France
as a stable republic, would be hot
bed in Europe to propagate democrat
lie ideas troublesome In every monarch
al nation. Allow France and Spain to
join little. yet prosperous, Switzerland
in sustaining republican principles,
and nothing could prevent these prin-
ciples from spreading over the CONT
nent. But, unfortunately, republican
principles have an inharmonious sup
port in France and Spain,
and we have little to expect
from the Hneducated masses.
All this goes to prove that the human
mind is having slow growth as COM
pared with other organic systems. 1t
can not escape from its crysalis condi-
ton till the fullness of time, no more
than the egg of a seventeen year locust
(so-called) can hatch into a large fly
like its parent, in ten minutes.
Time and vitality are curiously ad-