in Asia, the right of conquest practised in
the light of reason, violent annexations which dismembered one nation
for the glory of another--such is the sum total of fatal traditions
which Bismarck now solicits to be allowed to continue by means of free
discussion, and in the bosom of open parliament. Palmerston and
Gortchakoff cannot hop in the same bag. The minion of a Czar and the
representative of a nation cannot be united in one and the same
person. What programme can Bismarck develop to his colleagues which
will have the moral character of necessary work? Moreover, the divine
word called human eloquence descends only on the lips of that
apostleship which redeems a nation from slavery and impels it forward.
You could not understand Daniel defending the kings of Babylon,
Demosthenes defending Philip, Cicero defending Mark Antony, O'Connell
defending the landlords of Ireland, and Vergniaud or Mirabeau
defending the absolute kings of France. If Bismarck accepts the
liberal and tolerant policy of to-day, will he not thereby countenance
the emperor who has ridiculed him and Caprivi who has audaciously
seated himself in that exalted position from which Bismarck thought
never to fall before his death? The great man is a poor appraiser of
ideas, accepting them from every quarter whence they blow to him if
only they will fill his sails and propel his bark; but he will never
understand what mischief he could work to his enemies by opposing a
programme of advanced democratic reform to the imperial programme
whose fixity resembles the rigidity of death. But what liberty can he
invoke--he who has disavowed and injured all liberties? Not personal
liberty--abused and trampled on constantly by his menials; not
commercial liberty, sold for thirty pieces of silver after the
Germanic Zollverein had brought great wealth to Prussia; not religious
liberty, placed in grave danger by complacency with anti-Jewish
preachers and by the May laws; not scientific liberty, after having
persecuted every department of science--even history--and invested the
state with full power to enforce the teaching of official doctrines
everywhere and by everybody; not industrial liberty, wasted away by
the regulation of labor which has transformed the workshops into
garrisons, and made of the workmen an army. What remains for him to
do? He has absolutely no resource at his disposal with which to
undertake a campaign of active opposition. In social questions not