With all the memories and traditions of their slavery in the land of Egypt, and the grinding despotism incident to an absolute monarchy of which their ancestors bore witness, they preferred despotism with its evils to the independence they had enjoyed under the Judges; for nationality, to which the Jewish people were casting longing eyes, demands law and order as the first condition of society.

The Government, though in the form of a Republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sober-mindedness, and the magnanimity of the despot.i.

According to this supposition, when slavery and despotism shall, agreeably to Professor Hodge's expectations, have entirely ceased, there will be not one master nor servant, not one ruler nor subject in the whole earth, to fall, as such, under the Apostolic injunctions.

Was the despotism of the Roman government sinless?

and, when he classes despotism and slavery with adiaphora, "things indifferent;" and allows no more moral character to them than to a table or a broomstick, I trust no good man envies his optics.

May I not hope that you, Mr. Smylie, perceive a difference between despotism and an "indifferent thing."

May I not hope, that you will, both as a Republican and a Christian, take the ground, that despotism has a moral character, and a bad one?

When our fathers prayed, and toiled, and bled, to obtain for themselves and their children the right of self-government, and to effect their liberation from a power, which, in the extent and rigor of its despotism, is no more to be compared to the Roman government, than the "little finger" to the "loins," I doubt not, that they felt that despotism had a moral, and a very bad moral character.

When our fathers prayed, and toiled, and bled, to obtain for themselves and their children the right of self-government, and to effect their liberation from a power, which, in the extent and rigor of its despotism, is no more to be compared to the Roman government, than the "little finger" to the "loins," I doubt not, that they felt that despotism had a moral, and a very bad moral character.

They prided themselves on being the "daughters of freemen," and while adapting themselves for the sake of earning a living to the novel conditions of factory employment, they were not made of the stuff to submit tamely to irritating rules of discipline, to petty despotism, and to what they felt was a breach of tacit agreement, involved in periodical cutting of wages.

Ye shall enjoy spiritual and passional freedom; your guides shall no longer be the despotism of ignorant laws, nor the whip of an imaginary conscience,but the natural impulses of your nature, which are the melody of Life, and the natural affinities, which are its harmony!

But it must be remembered that his mere effigy cannot, like its prototype, have the pleasure of hearing itself talk; so that to the mind of the spectator the oratorical despotism is tempered with some reasonable hope of silence.

An aristocrat like Palmerston, loving freedom and hating the upstart despotism, must have looked on at its cold brutality not without that ugly question which Hamlet asked himselfam I a coward?

For him an Emperor meant merely despotism; he had not yet learned that a Parliament may mean merely oligarchy.

To treat the Coup d'état as unpardonable is to justify riot against despotism, but forbid any riot against aristocracy.

Hark! 'Tis the voice of eloquence, pouring forth the living energies of the soul; pleading, with generous indignation and holy emotion, the cause of injured humanity against lawless might, and reading the awful destiny that awaits the oppressor!I see the stern countenance of despotism overawed!

Nothing proves more that the French republican government was originally founded on principles of despotism and injustice, than the weakness and anarchy which seem to accompany every deviation from these principles.

The French, who are obliged to celebrate so many aeras of revolution, who have demolished Bastilles and destroyed tyrants, seem at this moment to be in a political infancy, struggling against despotism, and emerging from ignorance and barbarity.

Under the Brissotins it was fatal to write, and hazardous to read, any work which tended to exculpate the King, or to censure his despotism, and the massacres that accompanied and followed it.

Since I last wrote, the government has considerably improved in decency and moderation; and though the French enjoy as little freedom as their almost sole Allies, the Algerines, yet their terror begins to wear off and, temporizing with a despotism they want energy to destroy, they rejoice in the suspension of oppressions which a day or an hour may renew.

But, as I have often had occasion to notice, this species of republicanism is in itself so weak, that it cannot exist except by a constant recurrence to the very despotism it professes to exclude.

Hence, their assumed principles and their conduct are generally at variance; and, divided between despotism and weakness, they arrest the printers of pamphlets and newspapers one day, and are obliged to liberate them the next.

Vainly shall we talk of republican manners and democratic government, while our representatives carry into the departments examples of despotism and corruption.

This is one proof, among a variety of others, that the despotism under which the French have groaned for the last three years, has much subdued the vivacity and impatience of the national character; for I know of no period in their history, when such a combination of personal suffering and political discontent, as exists at present, would not have produced some serious convulsion.

But I am wearied and disgusted with the contemplation of this despotism, and I return to my country deeply and gratefully impressed with a sense of the blessings we enjoy in a free and happy constitution.