sword alone enjoys
the privilege of deciding great questions by a single stroke.
Diplomatists, a timid army of peace, proceed but by half-measures.

There is one which was proposed in 1814 by Count Aldini, in 1831 by
Rossi, in 1855 by Count Cavour. These three statesmen, comprehending
the impossibility of limiting the authority of the Pope within the
kingdom in which it is exercised, and over the people who are
abandoned to it, advised Europe to remedy the evil by diminishing the
extent of, and reducing the population subjected to, the States of the
Church.

Nothing is more just, natural, or easy than to free the Adriatic
provinces, and to confine the despotism of the Papacy between the
Mediterranean and the Apennines. I have shown that the cities of
Ferrara, Ravenna, Bologna, Rimini, and Ancona are at once the most
impatient of the Pontifical yoke and the most worthy of liberty.
Deliver them. Here is a miracle which may be wrought by a stroke of
the pen: and the eagle's plume which signed the treaty of Paris is as
yet but freshly mended.

There would still remain to the Pope a million of subjects, and
between three and four millions of acres; neither the one nor the
other in a very high state of cultivation, I must admit; but it is
possible that the diminution of his revenue might induce him to manage
his estates and utilize his resources better than he now does. One of
two things would occur: either he would enter upon the course pursued
by good governments, and the condition of his subjects would become
endurable, or he would persist in the errors of his predecessors, and
the Mediterranean provinces would in their turn demand their
independence.

At the worst, and as a last alternative, the Pope might retain the
city of Rome, his palaces and temples, his cardinals and prelates, his
priests and monks, his princes and footmen, and Europe would
contribute to feed the little colony.

Rome, surrounded by the respect of the universe, as by a Chinese wall,
would be, so to speak, a foreign body in the midst of free and living
Italy. The country would suffer neither more nor less than does an old
soldier from the bullet which the surgeon has left in his leg.

But will the Pope and the Cardinals easily resign themselves to the
condition of mere ministers of religion? Will they willingly renounce
their political influence? Will they in a single day forget their
habits of interfering in our affairs, of aiming princes aga