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

by Andrew Dickson White

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.