The President desired him to read out the business done during the last sitting.
It concerned the working out of a plan of constitutional government for the whole Russian empire; its title—"Ruskaja Pravda." It was a republic in which every province that the Russian despot had annexed to form one vast empire was to arise as an independent state under its individual president—Great Russia, Little Russia, Finland, Poland, Livland, Kasan, Siberia, the Crimea, the Caucasus; nine republics with one government and one army, under the control of one Directorate, to hold its sittings at Moscow.
The Republic needed no St. Petersburg. Neither the "Saint," nor the "Peter," nor the "burg" (city).
The device upon the plan was—
Question: "Will Europe in fifty years' time be republican or Russian?"
To which the answer was—"Both."
This plan of constitution was painted with the colors of a glowing fancy. First, to free every people, and then to unite all free peoples! None to be oppressed by the other. Each to be left to choose his own way to prosperity, speak his own tongue, cultivate his own land. No more hatred or jealousy among nations.
So it stood in "the green book."
Prince Ghedimin was the first to speak.
"It is a grand idea; but the greatest obstacle in the way of freeing the people is that the people are unconscious of their servitude. Let it be our part to make it clear to them. Let us flood the land with catechisms of the 'free man'; let us study the special grievances of every race in the provinces; learn to know their want and misery, and win them to the cause of freedom by promising them redress. A people suffers when it is hungry; has to submit to blows; has its sons taken off to be soldiers; but it is ignorant of the yoke that is bowing down its neck."