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872 Wbt &*«&**? [Saturday, __.. _ _ _ ._...
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^mrnnn $ tmnxu% AND ITS OFFICIAL ACTS.. . _ _ _ ¦
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This page is accorded to an authentic Ex...
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We found ourselves unprepared, owing to ...
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ADDRESS OF THE ITALIAN NATIONAL COMMIT T...
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(From the Morning Herald of Dec. 2nd.) T...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
872 Wbt &*«&**? [Saturday, __.. _ _ _ ._...
872 Wbt &*«&**? [ Saturday , - --- - ¦ - ^ ... _ ¦— - — -- *^—¦ ¦— " * - *———— — - —¦ ¦
^Mrnnn $ Tmnxu% And Its Official Acts.. . _ _ _ ¦
tonuptn Uttttntrartj , AND ITS OFFICIAL ACTS . __ .. _ _ _ . _ -----
This Page Is Accorded To An Authentic Ex...
This page is accorded to an authentic Exposition of the Opinions and Acts of the Democracy of Europe : as such . we do not impose any restraint on the utterance of opinion , and . therefore , limit our own responsibility to the authenticity of the statement .
We Found Ourselves Unprepared, Owing To ...
We found ourselves unprepared , owing to unforeseen circumstances , with our usual amount of matter under this head last week ; and by an error of the press our announcement to that effect did not appear . The address of the Italian National Committee to the French Assembly , which we subjoin , reached us too late for insertion ; we , however , communicated it at once to the Morning Herald and other papers , and from that journal -we now reprint it , together with its own leading article upon the address . Our main object , it will be recollected , in these weekly pages is not to accomplish a propaganda of any peculiar political view , so much as to assist political thinkers in
this country , whether sympathizing or not with Democratic tendencies in Europe , to appreciate them , and the parties who are their authorized exponents , fairly and accurately . There are two questions , however , affecting the Republican National Party in Italy on which it is really impossible that Englishmen , of whatever political creed , can arrive at opposite conclusions . Adopting the very words of the Morning Herald of Monday last , December 2— The first is as to the necessity of doing away with the effete , the corrupt , and the abominable government of the Popes of Rome ; and the second is as to the mischievousness , the impolicy , and the injustice of the
French invasion and occupation of the Eternal City . __ In spite of the extreme difference of its own political views , we know of no journal in this country which has been more truly and eloquently just to the rights of the Roman Republic than the Morning Herald ; and we feel that we cannot better occupy our space than by reproducing its leading article entire , as a sample of generous and true appreciation despite an extreme disparity of political convictions . It is peculiarly appropriate also to the time ; and suggests a ground of opposition to Papacy , more practical , and at the same time more elevated and just , than any that has yet been taken in recent discussions .
Address Of The Italian National Commit T...
ADDRESS OF THE ITALIAN NATIONAL COMMIT TEE To the National Assembly of France . Gentlemen , —On the 2 nd of July , 1849 , after a resistance of two months , your troops took possession of Rome . The Government of the Republic was overthrown . Your forces entered , you then said after victory—for you held different language before—to protect the Pope against the yoke of Austrian intervention . And now Austria is encamped in the Legations , and oppresses and murders at her pleasure . She occupies Bologna—she fortifies herself in Ancona . Your forces entered to restore peace to the Roman States . Your peace is a military partition of territory , maintained by 25 , 000 or 30 , 000 foreign bayonets .
They entered to reestablish public order , disturbed by what you call a faction , to assure to the Roman population good government and true liberty . Such were your promises , attested in your latest despatches , repeated at the tribune , recorded in a dictatorial , almost menacing , letter of the President of France . Aud the very shadow of liberty has disappeared . Rome is in the hands of a despotic clerical government . Pius IX . has renewed the tradition of Gregory XVI . We said to you then , —Gentlemen , you are deceived . The faction is Rome and the whole population . ^ A faction is a minority seeking to seize upon power by intrigue
or terror . To possess themselves of power , the Republicans of Home awaited the almost unanimous manifestation of the People , legally convoked and represented . The Republic , proclaimed by a Constituent Assembly , was sanctioned by the spontaneous and pacific expres-Bion of adhesion of all the communes of the Roman States . Uehold their addresses — verify them . You cannot avoid seeing that a system of terror at Rome would have been , not merely criminal , but impossible . The reign of terror commences only with you ; but it will not change the People , and it will obtain nothing from the Pope .
Well , gentlemen , the fiction has now been conquered , proscribed , imprisoned full seventeen months . The army is dissolved—the National Guard is dissolved—the reorganization of the state from above is complete . What have you obtained from the people ? What have you obtained from the Pope ? The People is sad—sombre—irritated ; it hates and despises you ; and to restrain it , you are obliged to send reinforcements to your corps of occupation . The Pope- Itas yielded nothing . You would demand from him , you said , the principles of the statute—the
luws of your civil code , a complete judicial reform , a municipal uiul provincial organization founded on election , n deliberate assembly for nuances , an almost universal amnesty , and the secularization of the Admini-Htration . He has given nothing . You declared that tlu * re should he no inquisitorm ! researches into the past ; he has replied » o you oy dismissal * aud arrests en masse . You boasted * that joii would not permit nny acts of violence to be committed under your eyes ; nnd some few weeks ago under your own eyes , six persons were executed lor past political ollenccs . Behold , i ^ eivUemen , the . results of your expedition to Home , for which you have sacrificed , in the minder of Sitting of the Assembly of Oct . 18 . Speech of the 1 'renitlcnt if the Council .
a friendly people , the gold , the blood , and the honour of France . Gentlemen , seventeen months ago it might have been that you were yourselves deceived ; Europe now knows that it is France that has been betrayed—France whose initiative for good is threatened with destruction at Rome—France , whose soldiers take part in arms at the Saturnalia of a power which is expiring , and in the condemnation to twenty years' imprisonment of young men guilty of illuminating their windows with tri-coloured Bengal lights .
Gentlemen , they are your colours which are there condemned ; it is your republican flag which is being nailed to the galleys . A thought hostile to your liberty broods over all this shameful episode ; it directed your arms against Rome , because that was the price of an electoral bargain ; it deals abroad a first blow to the institutions which you conquered in February ; it desired to train the soldiers of France to fire , wherever it might be , on the republican flag ; it sought a second Algeria ; through Rome it prepares a Satory ; by the crusade against the Italian Republic it prepares that expedition of Rome against the interior , which one of your orators announced to you with such audacity , and which y ^ our majority , gentlemen , enfeebled , enervated by the crime which you have allowed to be committed , was able to hear proclaimed with indifference .
Members of a National Committee , of which the nucleus was elected by sixty members of that Assembly which you dispersed by your bayonets , and which has been completed by the choice of a great number of Italian patriots , all bound together by the same idea ; interpreters of the vows of the Roman populations again subjected by you to the law of silence , we come , gentlemen , to renew before you , and to France , the protest of Rome against your violation of her territory , against the overthrow of her Republic , against the prolonged occupation of your troops . ..... _ ... _
We protest , in the name of Article 5 of the Preamble of your Constitution—in the name of your official declarations of the 16 th , 24 th , and 26 th of April—in the name of the solemn vote of your Assembly of the 7 th . of Mayin the name of the written declarations of M . de Courcelles , on the 13 th of June—in the name of the engagements solemnly entered into at the tribune by your President of the Council , and by your Ministers in the sittings of the 13 th , 18 th , and 19 th of October , 1849 . We protest , in the name of the imperishable right of nations—in the name of eternal justice—in the name of God , who has created his people for liberty , and not for oppression by brute force . for
You may , gentlemen , put down our protest— a time ; you cannot refute it . We said to you , seventeen months ago , restore the ri g ht of suffrage to the Roman people , and let it proclaim its inmost desires concerning the Government which you have reimposed upon it ; and we repeat our demand to-day . Summon the people to vote—it will accomplish our victory by the suffrage . Recall your troops—it will conquer for us by insurrection . You know this , gentlemen , and therefore you will not You entered Rome , because you dared not forbid the entry of the Austrians into the . Legations . You remain there , because you dare not hear the mighty cry of " Vive la Republique , " which two hours after your departure would be raised to declare your policy criminal and false .
Remain , then , gentlemen . It may be that the lesson is not yet complete—it may be in order that the national Italian thought , of which Rome has been the cradle and must be the temple , shall have a more resistless outburst —that for some short time yet all eyes may behold the spectacle of the Papacy depending for its reign on foreign bayonets alone . But take care , gentlemen , lest Europe should one day say to France , " The nation which destroys the liberty of others has no right to the enjoyment of it herself " ; take care lest history say of you , " After having submitted to the policy of corruption they inaugurated the policy of cowardice . They had neither the frank brutality of crime , nor the blessed courage of repentance . " For the Italian National Committee , Joseph Mazzini . Joseph Sirtori . Aukelio Saffi . AVltELIO SALICETI . Mattia Montecciii . CyissAUE Agostini , Secretary . London , Nov . 11 . 1850 .
(From The Morning Herald Of Dec. 2nd.) T...
( From the Morning Herald of Dec . 2 nd . ) The ex-Triumvir of Rome—Mazzini—however men may differ from him in opinion—must by all be admitted to be a man of conspicuous ability , energy , and eloquence , and one who for more than twenty years of an agitated life has uniformly played a remarkable and consistent , if not always a wise and prudent part in the affairs of his country . ., ,, A « . ^ The son of a physician of considerable repute at Genoa , Mazzini , like most young Italians of respectable family , dedicated himself at an early ago to the study oi the law . and was in due course admitted an advocate . I 3 nt
with the eager and impetuous zeal of some of his countrymen , the ' Pandects aud the Code were soon abandoned for politics , and the future tribune and triumvir had soarcely more than attained man ' s estate when he found himself an object of suspicion and surveillance to some of the authorities of his own country . This is neither surprising nor wonderful . Anterior to 1830 all the Governments of Italy but one were obscurantist and retrograde—and , perhaps , there was not among them all , witu the exception ot the Popedom and the Cabinet of Naples , a Government who had less excuse to ofier for its sins of commission and of omission than the Cabinet
of Sardinia . „ , The French revolution of 1830 found many of the young men of Genoa and Turin ripe for change ; and ,
considering the excitement and effervescence which were communicated from Paris and the French frontier to the kingdom of Savoy , it is not wonderful that Giuseppe Mazzini , whose extreme opinions were previously known , should have been compromised in revolutionary movements , and obliged , in consequence , to fly from his native city . He was , if we mistake not , condemned to death par contumace in 1830 , and since then for twenty long years ( with the exception of his short democratical reign of a twelvemonth in Rome ) his life has been the life of a wanderer and an exile .
Of most of the secret societies which have been formed for the independence and political unity of Italy Mazzini has been a leading member . Of two or three of them he has been the founder , the apostle , the confessor—all , indeed , but the martyr or the victim . Of the ancient Carbonari he was in his youth a zealous member , and of the societies of Young Italy and of Young Europe he may be pronounced to have been the ablest and the foremost man . The expedition to Savoy was , we believe , one of the fruits of his persevering efforts ; and the expedition to Calabria in 1844 , * in which the two unfortunate brothers Bandiera ( sons of an admiral in the service of Austria ) suffered : * was originated and matured by a mind fertile in expedients against existing governments and authorities . Such were some of the doings of a man who has recently acquired a European notoriety
as a tribune of Rome ; and who , whatever his faults of omission or commission , cannot be accused of any want of talent or of zeal , —of any personal or corrupt ends . Mazzini , in looking for an independent and united Italy , is seeking for a chimera which we apprehend will not be found in our day , but in pursuing this mischievous , but , according to him , brilliant a . nd laudable , phantom , it is impossible to deny that he has exhibited energy , enthusiasm , singleness of purpose , and a literary ability equally rare and remarkable . He may , if you will , be a desperate and a dangerous enthusiast , and if we were ourselves officially connected with the Austro-Italian , the Neapolitan , or the Sardinian Governments we should so think him . But , admitting this to be so , his appeals to his countrymen are not the less remarkable , the less spiritstirring , and , by consequence , the less dangerous .
On two questions , however , without committing ourselves to any of the wild theories or extravagant opinions of Mazzini , we have thought him right from the commencement . The first is as to the necessity of doing away with the effete , the corrupt , and the abominable Government of the Popes of Rome ; and the second is as to the mischievousness , the impolicy , and the injustice of the French invasion and occupation of the Eternal City . In his treatise , Le Pope au Dix-neuvieme Siecle , Mazzini has shown , with an energy , eloquence , learning , and logical power , rarely equalled , and never surpassed , that the sway of the Popes has been licentious and leaden—immoral—unclean—and brutalizing — blighting
the mind—blasting the prosperity , and ruining the religion , the morals , and manners of his countrymen . He has shown—irrefragably shown—that so long as this vile and venal sway lasts no improvement can come to Italy ; while the existence of the Popedom as a temporal Government is equally a danger and a reproach to civilized Europe . It is not our purpose to-day to follow the Triumvir through his historic illustrations of his theory , but we cannot—in commenting on the address of the Italian National Committee to the National Assembly of France , and published in the Morning Herald of
Saturday—forbear from pointing out what remarkable confirmation the theory of Mazzini receives from recent facts , and how the result of the French expedition proves , not only its inconsiderateness and impolicy , but its utter powerlessness in dealing with a Government which arrogates to itself a character of infallibility . Such a Government is , in human affairs , not to be mended or moulded—is not to be corrected—or patched up for a few years . Such a Government must be swept altogether away , unless , indeed , the intention of the parties sustaining it is to place an extinguisher on human reason—and to oppose a barrier to human improvement .
The address of Mazzini to the National Assembly of France is unanswerable , because it is every word true . The logic of rhetoric is easily assailable , but the logic of facts there is no withstanding . The exiled and fallen Triumvir tells the Government of France that they entered Rome to protect the Pope against the Austrians , yet the Austrians are now encamped in the Legationsnow occupy Bologna—now fortify themselves in Ancona . He tells them that they entered Rome professedly to establish order , which was not compromized—to lestore peace , which was not disturbed—and to establish true liberty , which was never endangered . He tells them that the result of their interference , and of seventeen months '
military occupation , has been to replace Pius IX . certainly ; but to restore at one and the same time the despotism and the abominations of a Popish sacerdotal Government , and to destroy every vestige of liberty and every scintilla of free opinion . The reign of terror and of blood is again restored . The Government is the Pope , the cardinals , the priests and their minions , the sacristans , while the so-called faction of disaffected is the whole Roman people—the nation at large . Arrests , denunciations , and executions have commenced and continue . The press is silenced and destroyed . Municipal
government has ceased to exist . There is no Representative Assembly . No Communal Councils exist . Espionage and the Inquisition arc as active as in the middle ages ; and banishments and imprisonments , without rhyme or reason , continue to be the order of the day . Among the thousands incriminated , not ten have been brought to trial ; and what is called by a cruel mockery justice has been administered , should we not say inflicted , with closed doors . The cardinal ministers are incapable ; the clerical subordinates debauched and corrupt . The national debt has Our contemporary is here somewhat in error : we may take a future opportunity of explaining the history of this expedition .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 7, 1850, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07121850/page/8/
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