Litchfield enquirer., 1879-07-31

provinces. If they are unwilling or unable tt admit their dependencies to share their owl
 constitution, the constitution itself will fall il
 pieces from mere incompetence for it's duties.
 The second great defect of the later Roma.
 republic was it's social condition. Owing 1T
 part, no doubt, to the prevalence of Slavery
 the rich had become SO rich and the poor, ST
 poor that there was no longer any independ
 ence of action left to the great bulk of thu
 citizens. They might become the clients o
 the wealthy families, or sell their votes te
 wealthy candidates, but they no longer occu
 pied any honorable or useful position in the
 state The small farms their fathers haG
 owned and had defended against Pyrrhus anC
 Hannibal, were now the property of nobles
 and worked by slaves. The vast accumnla tions of territory and of revenue from the con quests of the Roman legions had gone to en rich the few. This is defect in any popular institutions hitherto devised which England is feeling almost as severely o-day as Rome felt i, nineteen and half centuries ago. America is beginning to suffer from it already. Is it not worth while, then, to note how this worst vice of what we called civilization had eaten the heart out of the Roman Republic in the very hour of it's triumph over all surrounding na- tions? MT. Froude rightly holds that the sum of cruelty, as well as of selfshness, lies at the doors of the rich, in that contest which is per- petually going on between the two classes:
 Patrlcians and plebeians, aristecrats and democrats, have alike stained thelr hands with blood in the working out of the problem of politics. But impartial history also declares that the crimes of the popular party have in all ages been the lighter in degree, while in themselves they have more to excuse them l; and if the violent acts of revolutionists have been held up more conspicuously for condenl- nation, it has been only because the fate of noblemen and gentlemen has been more im- pressive to the imagination than the fate of the peasant or the artisan. But the endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the mar vel Of human society. When the people com. plain, said Mirabeau, the people are always right. The popular cause has been the cause of the laborer struggling for right to live and breathe and think as man. Aristocracies fight for wealth and power, wealth which they waste upon luxury, and power which they abuse for their own interests
 Our chief objection to Cesar is Cesarsm We have no pity for the corrupt aristocracy of Rome, but we pity her people. No doubt Casarlsm gave better internal government to the empire, but it sapped the life out of it, slowly but surely Finally deliverance and regeneration came not through internal revo- lution. but from barbarian invasion. Society reverted to chaos for near thousand years i; and then. at last, civilization dawned on Eu- rope once more. Nothing would seem so de- structive, therefore, as Cesarism. A modern tried a different remedy. Representatives went up from her people to the capital and be- gan great reforms. They were attacked by surrounding nations. Reform became revolu- tion. Revolution degeneratedin into despotism ;; at first cruel and blind, then keen sighted and selfish. Then came Csesarism fever of conquest, and a fainting fit'of reaction Then the people struggled and partially won their freedom. Repeated revolutions have followed, but the people have prespered The great landed estates of the ante revolutionary period have been divided up among small farmers, and the country is richer to-day than ever be- fore. They now have a representative repub- lic
 No doubt revolution is harsh medicine, but it is neither so harsh, nor SO deadly in it's ulti- mate effects, as Cesarlsm. This latter may have been unavoidable in Rome; but the facts of 'n'dern history seem to prove that revolu- ton is the preferable remedy for any modern political disease so severe as te require heroic treatment