Daily Los Angeles herald., 1878-06-13
Tho Voice OF Nations.


A fter all it is only very short
time since the voice of peoples has
had expression in this world OF
ours. Klngcraft. and, in no disre-
spectful sense, priestcraft, have
ruled the earth until period of a
date so recent that, when we con-
template the advances which have
been made by free thought, it is
fairly surprising. Voltaire was al
most the first man who ventured
to break the spell of the enslaved
intellect from any other than sac
erdotal standpoint. The conflicts
Of religion, as illustrated by Luther
and Bossuet, are one thing. The
emerge tic efforts of the human in
tellect, In the direction of social and
political questions, as illustrated by
voitaire and Jean Jacques Rous.
seau, are quite another. The re.
ligious controversies Of Voltaire
were purely excursions of his ac-
tive intellect. They were not the
object Of his being, but were en-
phatically secondary to his pur-
pose of guiding and stimulating
free secular thought. This was even
more emphatically the case with
Rousseau.
When one looks back over the
pages Of history it is hard to realize
that both me n were in the full ac-
tivity Of their intellects in the fa-
nous Seven Years War. At q
time when Braddock, assisted by
the young Washington, was max
ing his way through the jungles of
the Monongahela Valley, in Penn
sylvania, Rousseau and Voltaire
were still on the stage of active
life. They were not young, but
they were in the meridian of their
faculties. 1t is not an extreme as
sertion to say that, ii they had not
lived and written, Thomas Jefferson
would never have penned the Dec
laration of American Independ-
ence. Voltaire lived to see
the opening of the French Rev
olution, and his last breath
was drawn, while his brow was
encircled by the chaplets of the
French people, as the grand drama
Of liberty was opening in that epic
country.
The conviction is borne in upon
US that grand epic is again open.
ing for humanity in Europe. AT
time when lot of enervated Re-
publicans in the United States ex-
pect to see the brow of a General
who required three to one to assure
success crowned with the circlet of
q dictator, soon TO be transformed
into an Emperor, we venture the
Prediction that real Republican,
Democratic revival is in progress
all over the world. France, for
the first time in her history, moth
ering enthusiastic impulses, is to.
day a placid, sagacious and pow
erful Republic. Free thought and
free institutions have been accom-.
pinied by an increase of wealth
and steady prosperity which have
not been without their effects in
despotic countries. Germany is
to-day, with all the splendors of an
autocratic government, suffering
the extremes of poverty. Her peo-
pie are crushed to the earth. They
are regarded in governmental cir.
cles as mainly all incident of the
aggrandizement OF the Hohenzol-
Tern family. In view of the light
thrown upon hum anity in the last
hundred and fifty years, the idea OF
accepting people as a mere ap-
psndage Of royalty is exceedingly
offensive to intellectual persons.
The thing is CALLING in the ex-
treme. 1t is, in fact, simply in.
supportable.
The voice of the nations of Eu.
rops to day ia distinctively for a
government by the people for the
people. They reject the monstrous
doctrine that nations are but pend.
ant, TO Kings and Emperors.
The next twenty years will
witness, or we are much mistaken,
the cashisring of many kings and
the reno lelins of many govern
mcuts. The greatest good of the
greatest number Is rapidly becom-
ing the d eliminating impulse in hu
man Affairs. Republics may, occa
sionally, commit exccsses, bul
they REPRESENT, after all, the whole
some human instinct. There /,
in them nothing of repression tc
free thought, free speech, free ac-
ton. Taey give fail play to man
as man. For thousands aad tIious.
ands OF years the world has been
administered on the basis of the
rank, which Is but the guinca's Is
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