a free country which was built
upon the degradation and slavery of half of its population. Rome never
was a republic. It was simply a faction of land and slave holders, who
blinded and befooled the ignorant populace, by parading before them some
of the forms of liberty, but kept the power in their own hands. They
were a community of petty kings, which was better in their mind than
only one king, as in the time of the Tarquins. It was a republic of
kingdoms and of kings, if you will. Now and then, indeed, the people
bustled about and shook their chains, as in the times of the institution
of the tribune's office, and those of the Gracchi. But they gained
nothing. The patricians were still the kings who ruled them. And among
no people can there be liberty where slavery exists--liberty, I mean,
properly so called. He who holds slaves cannot, in the nature of things,
be a republican; but, in the nature of things, he is on the other hand a
despot. I am one. And a nation of such individuals is an association of
despots for despotic purposes, and nothing else nor better. Liberty in
their mouths is a profanation of the sacred name. It signifies nothing
but their liberty to reign. I confess, it is to those who happen to be
the kings a very agreeable state of things. I enjoy my power and state
mightily. But I am not blind to the fact--my own experience teaches
it--that it is a state of things corrupt and rotten to the
heart--destructive everywhere of the highest form of the human
character. It nurses and brings out the animal, represses and embrutes
the god that is within us. It makes of man a being of violence, force,
passion, and the narrowest selfishness; while reason and humanity, which
should distinguish him, are degraded and oppressed. Such men are not the
stuff that republics are made of. A republic may endure for a time in
spite of them, owing to fortunate circumstances of another kind; but
wherever they obtain a preponderance in the state, liberty will expire,
or exist only in the insulting forms in which she waved her bloody
sceptre during most of our early history. Slavery and despotism are
natural allies.'

'I rejoice,' I said, 'to find a change in you, at least in the theory
which you adopt.'

'I certainly am changed,' he replied; 'and such as the change may be, is
it owing, sir Christian, to thy calm and yet fiery epistles from
Palmyra. Small thanks do I owe thee for making me uncomfortable in a
position from which