People's voice., 1900-06-14
FrOude's Roman Lessons For America.

to the English student above all Others
the conversion of the Roman republic
into a military empire commands a pc
culiar interest. Notwithstanding many
differences, the English and Roman:
essentially resemble one another. The
early Romans possessed the faculty Of
self government beyond any people oi
whom we have historical knowledge,
with the exception of ourselves. In
virtue of their temporal freedom, they
became the most powerful nation in the
known world; and their liberties perished
only when Rome became the mistress
of conquered races, to whom she was
unable or unwilling to extend her priv
ileges.
If there be one lesson which history
clearly teaches, it is this, that free ma
tions cannot govern subject provinces.
If they are unable or unwilling to ad-
NIT their dependencies to share their
own constitution, the constitution itself
will fall in pieces from mere incompe-
tence for its duties.
THE PATHOLOGY OF NATIONS.
The life of a nation, like the life of
a man, may be prolonged in honor into
the fulness OF its time, or it may perish
prematurely, for want of guidance, by
violence or internal disorders. And thus
the history Of rational revolutions is to
craftsmanship what the pathology of
disease is to the art of medicine.
The pysician cannot arrest the coming
on of age. Where disease has laid hold
upon the constitution he cannot expel it.
But he may check the progress of the
evil if he can recognize the symptoms in
time. He can save life at the cost of an
unsolnd limb. He can tell US how to
preserve our health when we have it; he
can warn us of the conditions under
which particular disorders will nave us
at disadvantage.
And so with nations; amidst the end
less variety of circumstances there are
constant phenomena which give notice
of approaching danger; there are
courses of action which have uniformly
produced the same results, and the wise
politicians are those who have learned
from experience the real tendencies OF
things, unmisled by superficial differ
ences, who can shun the rocks where
others have been wrecked, or from fore.
sight OF what is coming can be cool
when peril is upon them.
For these reasons the fall of the Ro.
man Republic is exceptionally instruct
i've to is. A constitutional government
the most enduring and the most power.
full that ever existed was put on its trial
and found wanting. We see it in its
rowth; we see the causes which nder-
mined its strength. We see attempts to
check the growing mischief fail, and
why they failed.
OUR AGE FORESHADOWED.
With such vividness, with such trans
parent Clearness, the age stands before
us OF Cato and Pompey, of Cicero and
julius Caesar; the more distinctly be-
cause it was an age in so many ways the
counterpart of our own, the blossoming
period of the old civilization, when the
intellect was trained to the highest point
which it could reach, and on the great
subjects CT human interest, on morals
and politics, on poetry and art, even on
religion itself and the speculative prob
lens of life, men thought as we think,
doubted where we doubt, argued as we
argue, aspired and struggled after the
same objects,
1t was an age of material progress and
material civilization; all age of civil
and intellectual culture; an age of PAM
phlets and epigranls, of salons and Of
dinner parties, of senatorial majorities
and electoral corruption.
The highest offices of state were open
in theory to the meanest citizen; they
were confined, in fact, to those who had
the longest purses, or the most ready use
of the tongue on popular platforms.
Distinctions of birth had been exchanged
for distinctions of wealth.
The struggles between plebians and
patricians for equality of privilege were
over, and new division had been formed
between the party of property and a
party who desired a change in the struct-
ure of society. The free cultivators
were disappearing from the soil.
Patriotism survived on the lips, but
patriotism meant the ascendancy Of the
party which would maintain the existing
order of things, or would overthrow ii
for a more equal distribution of the good
things which alone are valued.
Religion, once the foundation of the
laws and rule of personal conduct, had
Subsided into opinion. The educated in
theF hearts disbelieved it Temples
were still built with increasing splendor;
the established forms were scrupulsusly
observed. Public men spoke conven-