Liberty in the Nineteenth Century

by Frederic May Holland

No wonder that there is little of the revolutionary ardor of Shelley and Byron in Tennyson, Browning, and other recent poets. They have delighted in progress; but they have seen that it must come through such peaceable changes in public opinion, and then in legislation, as are caused by free discussion. The benign influence of peace has enabled them to display such brilliancy as had not been seen in England for more than two hundred years. No other writers ever paid so much attention to public health and the general happiness. The ablest thought of the century has been devoted to enriching human life, and not to destroying it. This has enabled science to make unprecedented progress. A new period of intellectual history has been opened by Spencer and Darwin.

VIII. Prominent among reformers who had no wish for revolution, and no respect for science, were Dickens and Carlyle. The latter's ("former's" Ed.) aversion to political economy as "the dismal science" was echoed in the pages of Hard Times; and the absence of any reference in Dombey and Son to the great movement against the corn laws is characteristic of a novelist whose Pickwick Papers made fun of scientific investigation. What was there called the "tittlebat" is really that nest-building fish, the stickleback. Passages ridiculing the use of statistics might be quoted at great length from both authors. Dickens had too much sympathy with paupers, especially those who suffered under the poor-law of 1834; and Carlyle had much too little. They agreed in opposition to model prisons and other new forms of philanthropy. Perhaps it was mainly the habit of indiscriminate ridicule which suggested such caricatures as Mrs. Jellaby and Mrs. Pardiggle. Carlyle's belief that abolitionism was "an alarming Devil's Gospel" and his denunciation of "the sugary, disastrous jargon of philanthropy" were legitimate results of idolatry of what he called "early, earnest times," namely the Dark Ages. His sympathy with mediaeval methods was so narrow that he spoke of a poet of weak health and high culture, whom he saw suffering under a sentence of two years in a pestilential prison, forbidden books or writing materials, kept most of the time alone and on bread and water, but guilty of nothing worse than a Chartist speech, as "master of his own time and spiritual resources to, as I supposed, a really enviable extent." Dickens shows much more appreciation of the real superiority of modern times, though personal disappointments, during his visit to America, prevented him from acknowledging the merits of democracy. Carlyle's reverence for the early Hebrews and other primitive barbarians made him present hero-worship as the only secure corner-stone of politics. His receipt for a perfect government is this: "Find in any country the ablest man that exists there; raise him to the supreme place; and loyally reverence him." "Such a government is not to be improved by voting or debating." "Neither except in obedience to the Heaven-chosen is freedom so much as conceivable." This theory showed its own absurdity in prompting eulogies on Francia and other despots; but Carlyle's apologies for Cromwell were of some service to the cause of liberty fifty years ago, when England had forgotten to honour the champions of the Long Parliament. Dickens thought more about the asceticism than the independence of the Puritans. He and Carlyle have dispelled some of the prejudices against the heroes of the First Republic; but they perpetuated others. Carlyle's best work was in encouraging the readers of his first books to think for themselves. The power of Dickens to call out sympathy with the unfortunate will never cease to bless mankind.

As much pity for the outcast has been shown by his great rival, Victor Hugo, and even more fellow-feeling with the oppressed. The spirit which has made France free animates all his writings, especially those grand poems which were called out by the usurpation of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. His early dramas dealt so vigorously with royal weakness and vice that Marion de Lorme was suppressed by Charles X. and Le Roi s'amuse by Louis Philippe. The work which has made him best known, and which appeared in 1862 in nine languages, is a plea for mercy to criminals, or in his own words, to "the miserable." The chief aim is to show "the oppression of laws," and the mistake of aiding the tyranny of the police by thinking too severely of the fallen. He finds an opportunity to introduce an enthusiastic panegyric on the victories of Napoleon, closing with the question: "What could be more grand?" "To be free," is the reply. Full justice to the French Revolution is done by that most dramatic of novels, Ninety-Three. Here he says: "The agony of the nations ended with the fall of the Bastile." "Perhaps the Convention is the culmination of history." "It declared poverty and disability sacred." "It branded the slave-trade, and freed the blacks." "It decreed gratuitous education." "The object of two-thirds of its decrees was philanthropic." Such facts are all the more worthy of mention, because they were omitted by Carlyle.

SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER II

I. Thomas Carlyle's prejudice against democracy was strengthened by the failure of the revolutions of 1848. Constitutional monarchy was as hostile to reform in France as it was friendly in England.

Only one Frenchman in thirty could vote; and the legislature cared nothing for public opinion. Louis Philippe was hated for habitual dishonesty. There had been several attempts at regicide and some bloody revolts. One of the latter gave a basis from history for Victor Hugo's Misérables. Restrictions on the press and on public meetings increased the unwillingness of the working-men at Paris to be governed by the rich. Socialism was popular, and employment insufficient. The prohibition of a reform banquet caused barricades to be thrown up on February 22d in Paris. The militia took sides with the populace; the King fled to England; and all France accepted the Republic, which was proclaimed on February 24th. Slavery had been reestablished in the colonies by Napoleon; but it was now abolished; and so was capital punishment for political offences.

The example of Paris was followed in March by successful insurrections at Berlin, Vienna, and other German cities, as well as in Lombardy and Venice. Home rule was demanded by Hungary and Bohemia, and constitutional governments were soon established there as well as in Austria, Prussia, and other German states, and in every part of Italy. The King of Sardinia took the lead in a war for driving back the Austrians across the Alps. Co-operation of French, German, Hungarian, and Italian patriots might have made all these countries permanently free.

Such a union would have been difficult on account of international jealousies; and it was made impossible by the Socialists at Paris. Scarcely had a provisional government been set up, when recognition of "the right of employment" was demanded by a workman, who came musket in hand, and was supported by a multitude of armed artisans. They extorted a decree which promised every citizen work enough for his support. A ten-hour law was passed. Co-operative factories were started with aid from the city authorities, and had some success. Opening national workshops was not advised by leading Socialists; but it was considered necessary by some of the Ministry in order to keep the unemployed from revolt. Every applicant drew money constantly, even if not at work. What little labour was actually performed was done so lazily, and paid so highly, that the number of men soon rose to 120,000. The expenses became enormous; and the tax-payers insisted that they too had rights. In order to be able to employ all the labourers a government would have to own all the property; and it would also have to be strong enough to enforce industry. Even Victor Hugo admitted that the experiment had failed. The National Assembly, of which he was a member, notified the men in the shops that they must enlist in the army, or go to work at a safe distance from Paris on state pay, or look out for themselves. They rose in arms against the Republic, and took possession of nearly one-half of the city on June 23, 1848. "Bread or Lead" was the motto on their red flags; and two of their terrible barricades are described at the beginning of the last Part of Les Misérables. They held out against regular troops and cannon during four days of such fighting as had never been seen before in Paris. More Frenchmen are supposed to have fallen than in any of Napoleon's battles. Two thousand of the soldiers were slain; but no one knows how many times that number of insurgents perished in the fight or in penal colonies.

Thenceforth the French Government was much more desirous to repress insurrection at home than to sustain it abroad. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected President that same year, partly on account of his name, and partly on account of his promise that he would defend the right of private property against Socialism. Austrian generals of the rough and reckless type which Carlyle loved forced Lombardy and Bohemia back into the Empire, and restored absolute monarchy at Vienna, while the King of Sardinia was obliged to abdicate after such a defeat in March, 1849, as almost extinguished liberty in Italy. Venice alone held out against them under that purest of patriots, Manin, and suffered terribly during a siege of twenty-one weeks. Hungary was subdued that summer with the aid of Russia. France did nothing except to revive the papal despotism at Rome. Mazzini's republic was crushed by that which had a Bonaparte for President. His power had been increased by the disfranchisement of several million French voters of the poorer class. His promise to restore universal suffrage joined with memory of the massacres of June, 1848, in preventing much resistance to his usurpation of absolute power on December 2, 1851. There was a monstrous vote, next November, for an empire, where the centralisation of administration was complete, and the legislature merely ornamental. Thus the liberation of Europe was prevented, partly by race prejudices, but mainly by attempts to benefit the poor by overtaxing the rich. France and Hungary were left with less political liberty than before; and Italy gained very little; but some of the constitutional freedom acquired in 1848 was retained in Prussia and other parts of Western Germany.

II. It was contrary to the general tendency of wars, that those of the latter half of the century aided the growth of free institutions in Italy. An honoured place among nations was given by the Crimean war to Sardinia. Then her patriotic statesman, Cavour, persuaded Napoleon III. to help him rescue Lombardy from Austria. Garibaldi took the opportunity to liberate Naples; and Victor Emanuel made himself King over all Italy except Rome and Venice. The latter city also was brought under a constitutional and friendly government by a third great war, which made the King of Prussia and his successors Emperors of Germany, while Austria was compelled to grant home rule to Hungary. The liberation and secularisation of Italy were completed in 1870 by the expulsion from Rome of the French garrison. The Emperor had lost his throne by waging war wantonly against a united Germany.