:--

"Your life, Caesar, is not that which is bounded by the union of your
soul and body. Your life is that which shall continue fresh in the
memory of ages to come, which posterity will cherish and eternity itself
keep guard over. Much has been done by you which men will admire; much
remains to be done which they can praise. They will read with wonder of
empires and provinces, of the Rhine, the ocean, and the Nile, of battles
without number, of amazing victories, of countless monuments and
triumphs; but unless the Commonwealth be wisely re-established in
institutions by you bestowed upon us, your name will travel widely over
the world, but will have no fixed habitation; and those who come after
you _will dispute about you_ as we have disputed. Some will extol you to
the skies; others will find something wanting, and the most important
element of all. Remember the tribunal before which you are to stand. The
ages that are to be will try you, it may be with minds less prejudiced
than ours, uninfluenced either by the desire to please you or by envy of
your greatness."

Thus spoke Cicero with heroic frankness. The ages have "disputed about"
Caesar, and will continue to dispute about him, as they do about
Cromwell and Napoleon; but the man is nothing to us in comparison with
the ideas which he fought or which he supported, and which have the same
force to-day as they had nearly two thousand years ago. He is the
representative of imperialism; which few Americans will defend, unless
it becomes a necessity which every enlightened patriot admits. The
question is, whether it was or was not a necessity at Rome fifty years
before Christ was born. It is not easy to settle in regard to the
benefit that Caesar is supposed by some--including Mr. Froude and the
late Emperor of the French--to have rendered to the cause of
civilization by overturning the aristocratic Constitution, and
substituting, not the rule of the people, but that of a single man. It
is still one of the speculations of history; it is not one of its
established facts, although the opinions of enlightened historians seem
to lean to the necessity of the Caesarian imperialism, in view of the
misrule of the aristocracy and the abject venality of the citizens who
had votes to sell. But it must be borne in mind that it was under the
aristocratic rule of senators and patricians that Rome went on from
conquering to conquer; that the governing classes were at all times the
mo