The Most Bitter Foe of Nations, and the Way to Its Permanent Overthrow

But I am aware that an objection to this estimate of the noxious activity of an Aristocracy may be raised from the history of England.

It may be said that there the course of the nobles has been different—that some of the hardest battles against tyrants have been won by combination of nobles, that they have laid the foundations of free institutions, that, under monarchs who have hated national liberty, nobles have been among the foremost martyrs.

Let us look candidly at this.

It is true that the Earl of Pembroke and the Barons of England led the struggle for Magna Charta; it is true that the Earl of Leicester and his associate barons summoned the first really representative Parliament;⁵⁶ it is true that Surrey and Raleigh and Russell suffered martyrdom at the hands of tyrants.

It is true, moreover, that English nobles have not generally been so turbulent in what I have called the Vitriolic period, nor so debased in the Narcotic period, as most other European Aristocracies. They were, indeed, very violent in the wars of the Roses,—many of them were very debased under Charles the Second, and again under the first and last Georges, and it is quite likely will be again under that very unpromising ruler, Albert Edward, who seems developing the head of George the Third and the heart of George the Fourth⁵⁷—but they have never been quite so violent or debased as the Continental nobles at similar periods.

But all this, so far from weakening the thesis I support, strengthens it—nay, clenches it.

For the nobility of England, less than any other in Europe, was based upon the oppression of a subject class. From the earliest period when law begins to be established in England we find that the serf system begins to be extinguished. The courts of law quietly adopted and steadily maintained the principle that in any question between lord and serf the presumption was in favor of the inferior's right to liberty rather than the superior's right to property.⁵⁸ The whole current set that way, and we find growing in England that middle class, steady and sturdy by the possession of rights, which won Agincourt and Crecy and Marston Moor and Worcester,—which made her country a garden and her cities marts for the world.⁵⁹

It is because England had so little of a serf-ruling caste in her history that she has been saved from so many of the calamities which have befallen other nations.

And there is another great difference between England and other nations, a difference of tremendous import. She has not stopped after making her lower classes nominally free. She has given them full civil rights and a constantly increasing share of political rights. Thus she has made them guardians of freedom. This is the great reason why her nobility have not destroyed her. This enfranchised class has been a barrier against aristocratic encroachment.

And yet in so far as the upper caste of England have partaken of traditions and habits of oppression they have deeply injured their country. Not a single great modern measure which they have not bitterly opposed.

The Repeal of the Corn Laws, the Abolition of Tests, the Reform Bill, the improvement of the Universities—these and a score more of great measures nearly as important, they have fought to the last.⁶⁰

To them is mainly due that grasping of lands which has brought so much misery on the working class.⁶¹

To them is due that cold-blooded dealing with Lafayette and Bailly and other patriots of the French Revolution, which finally resulted in the Brunswick Manifesto and the Reign of Terror.

To them and their followers is due that most stupid crime which any nation ever committed in its foreign policy—the bitter, cowardly injustice toward our own Republic in its recent struggle.

This is what the remnant of caste-spirit in England has accomplished, and it is only because it has not been habituated to oppression by serf-owning, and because it was held in check by a lower class possessing civil and political rights, that it was not frightful in turbulence and debauchery.

So stands modern history as it bears upon the thesis I have proposed.

It shows a man-mastering caste, even when its man-mastering has passed from a fact into a tradition, to be the most frequent foe and the most determined with which nations have to grapple. By its erection of a substitute for patriotism, it is of all foes the most intractable; by its erection of a substitute for political morality, the most deceptive; by its proneness to disunion and disintegration, the most bewildering; by its habit of calling for the intervention of foreign powers, the most disheartening; by its morbid sensitiveness over pretended rights, the most watchful; in its unscrupulousness, the most determined; by its brilliancy, the most powerful in cheating the world into sympathy.

But history gives more than this. To the thesis I have advanced it gives, as you have seen, a corollary. Having shown what foe to right and liberty is most vigorous and noxious, it shows how alone that foe can be conquered and permanently dethroned. The lesson of failures and successes in the world's history points to one course, and to that alone.

Here conquest cannot do it; spasmodic severity cannot do it; wheedling of material interests, orating up patriotic interests, cannot do it. History shows just one course. First, the oppressive caste must be put down at no matter what outlay of blood and treasure; next, it must be kept dethroned by erecting a living, growing barrier against its return to power, and the only way of erecting that barrier is by guaranteeing civil rights in full, and political rights at least in germ, to the subject class.

Herein is written the greatness or littleness of nations—herein is written the failure or success of their great struggles. In all history, those be the great nations which have boldly grappled with political dragons, and not only put them down but kept them down.

The work of saving a nation from an oligarchy then is two fold. It is not finished until both parts are completed. Nations forget this at their peril. Nearly every great modern revolution wherein has been gain to liberty has had to be fought over a second time. So it was with the English Revolution of 1642. So it was with the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830. What has been gained by bravery has been lost by treachery. Nations have forgotten that vigorous fighting to gain liberty must be followed by sound planning to secure it.

What is this sound planning? Is it superiority in duplicity? Not at all; it is the only planning which insists on frank dealing. Is it based on cupidity? Not at all; it is based on Right. Is it centered in Revenge? Not at all; its centre is Mercy and its circumference is Justice. It may say to the discomfited oppressor, you shall have Mercy; but it must say to the enfranchised, you shall have Justice.

Acknowledging this, Suger and the great mediaeval statesmen succeeded; ignoring this, Louis. XI., Richelieu, and a host of great modern statesmen failed.

To keep the haughty and turbulent caste of oppressors in their proper relations, the central authority in every nation has been obliged to form a close alliance with the down-trodden caste of workers. If these have been ignorant it has had to instruct them; if they have been wretched, it has had to raise them; and the simple way—nay, the only way to instruct and raise them has been to give them rights, civil and political, which will force them to raise and instruct themselves.

But it may be said that some subject classes are too low thus to be lifted—that there are some races too weak to be thus wrought into a barrier against aristocracy. I deny it. For history denies it. The race is not yet discovered in which the average man is not better and safer with rights than without them.

Think you that your ancestors were so much better than other subject classes? Look into any town directory. The names show an overwhelming majority of us descendants of European serfs and peasantry. I defy you to find any body of men more degraded and stupid than our ancestors.

Do you boast Anglo-Saxon ancestry?—look at Charles Kingsley's picture in Hereward of the great banquet, the apotheosis of wolfishness and piggishness; or look at Walter Scott's delineation in Ivanhoe of Gurth the swine-herd, dressed in skins, the brass collar soldered about his neck like the collar of a dog, and upon it the inscription, "Gurth the born thrall of Cedric."

Do you boast French ancestry?—look into Orderic Vital, or Froissart, or De Comines, and see what manner of man was your ancestor, "Jacques Bonhomme"—kicked, cuffed, plundered, murdered, robbed of the honor of his wife and the custody of his children, not allowed to wear good clothing,⁶² not recognized as a man and a brother,⁶³ not indeed in early times recognized as a man at all.⁶⁴

Do you boast German ancestry?—look at Luther's letters and see how the unutterable stupidity of your ancestors vexed him.

Yet from these progenitors of yours, kept besotted and degraded through centuries by oppression, have, by comparatively a few years of freedom, been developed the barriers which have saved modern states.

Is it said that this bestowal of rights on the oppressed is dangerous? History is full of proofs that the faith in Heaven's justice which has led statesmen to solve great difficulties by bestowing rights has proved far more safe than the attempt to evade great difficulties by withholding rights.⁶⁵

Is it said that the anarchic tendencies of an oppressive caste can be overcome by compromise and barter? History shows that the chances in trickery and barter are immensely in their favor.

Is it said that the era of such dangers is past—that civilization will modify the nature of oppressive castes? That is the most dangerous delusion of all. In all annals, a class, whether rough citizens as in Poland, or smooth gentlemen as in France, based on traditions or habits of oppression, has proved a reptile caste. Its coat may be mottled with romance, and smooth with sophistry, and glossy with civilization;—it may wind itself gracefully in chivalric courses; but its fangs will be found none the less venomous, its attacks none the less cruel, its skill in prolonging its reptile life, even after seeming death wounds, none the less deceitful.

Is it said that to grapple with such a reptile caste is dangerous? History shows not one example where the plain, hardy people have boldly faced it and throttled it and not conquered it.

The course is plain, and there it but one. Strike until the reptile caste spirit is scotched; then pile upon it a new fabric of civil and political rights until its whole organism of evil is crushed forever.

For this policy alone speaks the whole history of man,—to this policy alone stand pledged all the attributes of God.