tives of wine-countries are always sober. In
climates where wine is a rarity, intemperance abounds. A newly-liberated
people may be compared to a northern army encamped on the Rhine or the
Xeres. It is said that when soldiers in such a situation first find
themselves able to indulge without restraint in such a rare and
expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxication. Soon, however,
plenty teaches discretion; and after wine has been for a few months
their daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever been in
their own country. In the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of
liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its immediate effects are
often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, skepticism on points the
most clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just at this
crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the
scaffolding from the half-finished edifice; they point to the flying
dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful
irregularity of the whole appearance; and then ask in scorn where the
promised splendour and comfort are to be found? If such miserable
sophisms were to prevail, there never would be a good house or a good
government in the world.... There is only one cure for the evils which
newly acquired freedom produces--and that cure is freedom. When a
prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day--he is unable
to discriminate colours or to recognise faces. But the remedy is not to
remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun.
The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations
which have become half-blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze
on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to
reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories
correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to conflict,
and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is
educed out of the chaos.

"Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a
self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are
fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old
story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim.
If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in
slavery, they may indeed wait for ever."

The speedy dissolution of family and state was pro