The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1894-01-03

to, her foreign policy ever remained
the same, and her victorious Eagle
waved 10 triumph from Britain to the
Euphrates. from the Danube to the
Pillars of Hercules. aud her armies
whether led by Fabius or Scipio,
Marius or Caesar beat the invaders at
her gates, aud conquered opposing
legions or foreign soil. And yet,
invincible as she was in arms,
brilliant 10 statecraft, literature, and
oratory, and magi6cent in her temples,
and palaces, her impress is most
felt in her code of laws which
is to-day incorporate iuto the jurispru-
dencc and polity of all enlightened
modern nations. And remarkable to
think, that this city with not more than
two millions at the hood-tide of its pop
ulation, should for centuries have con-
trolled the world Marvellous exbibi-
ton of the power Of organization and
force Of idea! But internal dissensions
and eastern luxury, slowly and stealth
lily sapped her vitality, and from the
acme of her fame and glory uuder Au
gustus. her decline began The tyran-
ny aud corruption Of succeeding En-
perors. the prostitution Of elections,
the open barter and sale of the empire,
the efeminacy of her soldiery cumi-
mated in the reign of the weak and
vacillating Romulus Augustulus, A. D.,
416, aud she sank beneath the surging
waves of Barbaric corruption to rise no
more Her fall, and decline, traced by
the matchless pen Of Gibbon, affords a
melancholy instance of the mutability
of human fortune and the instability
of human institutions; while it points
the moral, that no people however great
or potent in resources, can withstand
internal dissensions, class legislation,
or the arrogance of wealth, and that re-
tribution awaits such arrogance, aud the
prostitution Of power to the selfish ends
of tyranuous domination.
A distinguished historian in sum-
ming up her case, says: The Roman
Commonwealth bad conquered the world
by the wisdom of its civil maxims, and
the rigor of its military discipline.
But under the Emperors the former
were forgotten or despised, aud the lat
ter was gradually relaxed. At the
same time that the martial spirit became
extinct, the resources of the Empire
became diminished, the taste for the
luxury of the East became increased to
such pitch 10 the Imperial Court that
great sums were carried into India. from
whence in the channel Of commerce
they never returned i vast vas, body
of languid and almost iDanimate SOL
diery became incapable of any effort to
save themselves, and we're easily over
powdered y
The Barbarian hordes carried desola-
ton in their pathway, and marked their
route with blood and ravages, and
destroyed all around them Those
who first settled in the countries, they
conquered and devastated, gave place
in turn to others, who had come from
more remote regions. The most disas-
trous period in the history of Europe was
chat embraced in the two hundred
years, between the death of Tbeodosius
the Great, A. D. 33l:3, aud the establish
ment Of the Lombards in Italy. a. D.
81. Between these periods Rome
disappeared as power, and modern
Europe began to emerge. In the
obscurity, of chaos, says the same
author, occasioned by this general
wreck of natious we must search for the
seeds of order, and eudeavor to find the
fist rudlmeuts of the policy, and laws
now established in Europe. The
Saxons were masters of the southern.
and more fertile parts of Britain the
Franks of Gaul; the Huns of Panno-
MIA; the Gotbs of Spain; and the
Lombards of Italy. ''Very faint
vestiges of the Roman policy, juris-
prudence or literature remained, new
forms of government, new laws, new
manners, new dress, new language,
and new names of men, and countries,
we're everywhere introduced /" The
lands we're divided, and allotted to the
favorities of conquerors, and they in
turn allotted them to their retainers and
followers and while these favorites
acknowledged the superiority of
the monarch, they we're, SO to speak,
supreme each in his own baiiwick,
and often defed the monarch himself.
Thus was inaugurate the Feudal
System which dominated Europe from
the 1th TO the llth century 1t was
admirably adapted as defence against
the assaults of foreign power, but
extremely deficient in preserving inter
nal order, and tranquility 1t was a
period Of interuecine strife, and petty
tnrorc op1 ,o l;l-. rs