Let the English Sons of Toil—oppressed, ground down by taxation, half-starved, and deprived of their electoral rights as they are,—let the Industrious Classes of the British Islands, trampled upon and made tools of by the wealthy few as we know them to be,—let them do honour, at least by words to the working men of France who have dared to expel a demon-hearted tyrant and his bravo-hirelings.
The States of Italy—Bavaria—and France have all, within the last few weeks, manifested their scorn and contempt for the doctrine of “the divine right of kings;”—the People in those realms have exercised the power which they possess:—the cause has been righteous—the despots have yielded—and one has been overthrown altogether.
For the cause is always righteous when the People seek to wrest from their rulers that freedom which has been basely usurped, and which the tyrannical oligarchy refuses to surrender by fair means to the millions.
It is a monstrous absurdity and a hideous mockery to prate of treason, and sedition, and rebellion, when a people rises up in its might and its power to demand the privileges which are naturally its own.
The few cannot possibly possess an inherent or hereditary right to enslave the many: nor is the present generation to be bound by the enactments of the preceding one. If that preceding one chose to have a Monarchy, the present one is justified in declaring its will that a Republic shall exist;—and so long as the great majority of the inhabitants of a country are of accord in this respect, they have a right to upset the existing government at any moment and establish another. Nay, more; we will assert that the people need not even be wise or prudent in order to legitimatise their actions:—the great majority may act as they think fit, although they should be unwise or imprudent in respect to the institutions they choose to build up!
We are averse to the exercise of physical force;—but France has shown that when moral agitation fails, violence must be used;—and if freedom can be gained by the loss of a few drops of blood—why, then those drops should be shed cheerfully.
Suppose that in any country the great majority of the people sign a document addressed to the sovereign in these terms:—“We are very much obliged to you for having reigned over us hitherto; but we do not require your services farther. It pleases us to establish another form of government and raise up another ruler; and therefore we request you to descend from the throne and surrender up the power delegated to you.” Were the sovereign to refuse compliance with this demand, then force should be used; and all the antiquated farces of “hereditary rights,” and “treason,” and “sedition,” and such-like nonsense, would of course be disregarded by an insurgent people.
On the other hand, so long as a nation remains tranquil, and addresses to the sovereign no demand of the kind supposed above, that sovereign may continue to occupy the throne, as the people’s executive magistrate; for it is the fault of the millions themselves if they be foolish enough to tolerate either a king or a queen.
Republicanism is the “order of the day;” and there is not a throne in Europe that is worth twenty years’ purchase,—no—not even that of the Austrian Kaiser or the Muscovite Czar;—and from the banks of the Thames to the confines of Asia—from the cheerless regions of the North to the sunny shores of the tideless Mediterranean, the prevailing sentiment is adverse to the antiquated, useless, oppressive institutions of Monarchy.
Honour To the Great and Glorious French Nation! And let the Royalty which still exists in England beware how it caress, and pet, and openly sympathise with the ex-Royalty which has taken refuge on this soil. For the Queen of England to adopt such a course, were to offer a gross and flagrant insult to the people of France, and inevitably provoke a war. Besides—is not Louis-Philippe a miscreant deserving universal execration? Did he not calmly and deliberately calculate upon butchering the brave Parisian people, in order to consolidate the power of his despot-throne? Are not his hands imbrued with blood? No sympathy, then—no pity for this royal Greenacre—this horrible assassin!