These historic instances make us see nepotism in its original seat. Would you know how it was regarded there? Sometimes it was called a hydra with many heads, sprouting anew at the election of a pontiff,[82] then again it was called Ottoman rather than Christian in character.[83] The contemporary historian who has described it so minutely says that those who merely read of it without seeing it will find it difficult to believe or even imagine.[84] The qualities of a Pope’s relation were said to be “ignorance and cunning.”[85] It is easy to believe that this prostitution of the head of the Church was one of the abuses which excited the cry for Reform, and awakened even in Rome the echoes of Martin Luther. A Swedish nobleman visiting Rome is recorded as declaring himself unwilling to be the subject of a pontiff who was himself the subject of his own relations.[86] But even this pretension was not without open defenders, while the general effrontery with which it was maintained assumed that it was above question. If some gave with eyes closed, most gave with eyes open. It was said that Popes were not to neglect their own blood, that they should not show themselves worse than the beasts, not one of which fails to caress its relations; and the case of bears and lions, the most ferocious of all, was cited as authority for this recognition of one’s own blood.[87] All this was soberly said, and it is doubtless true. Not even a Pope can justly neglect his own blood; but help and charity must be at his own expense, and not at the expense of his country. In appointments to office, merit and not blood is the only just recommendation.
That nepotism has ceased to lord itself in Rome, that no pontiff billets his relations upon the Church, that the appointing power of the Pope is treated as a public trust and not as a personal perquisite,—all this is the present testimony with regard to that government which knows from experience the baneful character of this abuse.
AMERICAN AUTHORITIES ON NEPOTISM.
The nepotism of Rome was little known in our country, and I do not doubt that Washington, when declining to make the Presidential office a personal perquisite, was governed by that instinct of duty and patriotism which rendered him so preëminent. Through all the perils of a seven years’ war he had battled with that kingly rule which elevates a whole family without regard to merit, fastening all upon the nation, and he had learned that this royal system could find no place in a republic. Therefore he rejected the claims of relations, and in nothing was his example more beautiful. His latest biographer, Washington Irving, records him as saying:—
“So far as I know my own mind, I would not be in the remotest degree influenced in making nominations by motives arising from the ties of family or blood.”[88]
Then again he declared his purpose to “discharge the duties of the office with that impartiality and zeal for the public good which ought never to suffer connections of blood or friendship to intermingle so as to have the least sway on decisions of a public nature.”[89]
This excellent rule of conduct is illustrated by the advice to his successor with regard to the promotion of his son, John Quincy Adams. After giving it as his “decided opinion” that the latter “is the most valuable public character we have abroad,” and promises to be “the ablest of all our diplomatic corps,” Washington declares:—
“If he was now to be brought into that line, or into any other public walk, I could not, upon the principle which has regulated my own conduct, disapprove of the caution which is hinted at in the letter.”[90]