The Netherlands contained a population united only under a Government maintained by the combinations which had arisen out of the "Holy Alliance." In the north, Protestantism had the ascendency; in the south, Roman Catholicism prevailed. This latter part of the population, imitating their Christian brethren in France, desired separate independence, so that their civil institutions should be placed under their own control. They desired a constitution by which proper restraints could be placed upon the royal power, while, at the same time, they did not desire to destroy entirely the principle of monarchism; but rather that it should continue to exist under proper limitations, so as to escape from the absolutism which had hitherto borne so heavily upon them. Being unable to accomplish their object in any other way, they inaugurated an insurrection in Brussels, which soon became a revolution, and resulted in a declaration of independence. The revolution soon acquired strength enough to establish the Government of Belgium, which then became separated from Holland. A king was chosen by an elected Congress, but the constitution tied his hands, and instead of being an absolute, he became a dependent monarch. In this there was no attempt to escape from the just and rightful influence of the Church, for which the population retained the attachment they had long felt. But it severed the bond of union between Church and State by placing in the hands of the people such portion of the powers of Government as they deemed it proper to assert, so that instead of submitting to the absolute domination of the papacy, they protected their own rights and interests by constitutional guarantees. It practically condemned the doctrines of the Jesuits, which denounce revolution against absolute monarchism as sin, and laws proceeding from a tribunal of the people as heresy, and rightfully subject to resistance.
France and Belgium having, therefore, both accepted revolution as a remedy for grievances which could no longer be endured, it excited no surprise when the same sentiment was imparted to other Roman Catholic populations of Europe. The masses were moved, almost everywhere, by the impulse to escape the influences of the old régime, and place themselves under institutions of their own creation, responsible only to themselves. The people of the different nations were beginning to understand and to sympathize with each other more than ever before. They were coming nearer together by means of the facilities of intercommunication, for which they were indebted to the spirit of Protestant progress. They were learning, from the marvelous successes of the advancing nations, that the real sources of national greatness were in their own hands, and depended for proper development upon themselves alone. In whatsoever direction they looked, they found evidences to assure them that these same successes could not be obtained without the constitutional guarantee of the right of self-government. And having been brought to the conviction—no matter whether from choice or necessity—that they could more safely confide their temporal welfare to governments of their own construction than to either ecclesiastical or secular monarchs who traced the prerogatives of absolute imperialism to the divine law, they accepted revolution as a just and rightful remedy for their wrongs.
When France and Belgium had each broken the scepter of absolutism, their influence was soon imparted to the Roman Catholic populations in the south of Europe; and they, too, brooding also over their wrongs, began to gather up the weapons of revolution and prepare to use them. They moved slowly at first, because the chains which bound them were tightly riveted. But they kept their eyes steadily fixed upon the constitutional governments, and advanced cautiously towards a like fortune for themselves. They could not expect to go at once to the whole extent of establishing popular institutions, in the American sense. Their education and the forms of government to which they had been accustomed, had left them in a condition which made extreme caution indispensable, for fear that by rash and precipitate action the principles of the "Holy Alliance" might become so permanently established that Church and State could not be separated, and they would be compelled to acquiesce in the doctrine of the divine right of kings as an essential part of Christian faith, or make war upon the Church, which they had been taught to revere, and did, in fact, revere. The pope was the recognized spiritual head of the Church, and with that they were content. But he was also a temporal king in the States of the Church, and claimed that the authority pertaining to that position was divinely conferred, and included such spiritual sovereignty over the world as God himself possesses; and that he was thereby made the infallible "master of truth," and was entitled to uninquiring and absolute obedience, not merely in spirituals, but in such temporal matters as he alone should declare to be essential to the preservation and exercise of his imperial prerogatives. They had endured the evils of that form of government long enough, and having contrasted their condition with that of peoples who had entered upon the experiment of governing themselves—such as those of the United States—they became convinced that they owed to themselves and their posterity the duty of undertaking the same experiment, even at the cost of revolution. All they could hope to do, under the conditions surrounding them, was to separate Church and State, disavow and discard the doctrine of the divine right of kings as temporal rulers, whether ecclesiastical or secular, and substitute constitutional governments for absolute monarchism; in other words, to try political institutions of their own creation in place of the "paternal government" by which the papacy had kept them from advancing along with the progressive peoples who had asserted and maintained the right of self-government.
Had not these populations the right to do this? The American Declaration of Independence asserts that this right is derived from the law of nature, and is inalienable. The "Holy Alliance" of European sovereigns was organized to suppress it. The papacy and the Jesuits combined their energies to resist it as heresy. There was, therefore, no middle ground between constitutional government and submission—between the continuance of the old order of things and the infusion of new life into decrepit and decaying institutions. Consequently, the people of Southern Europe had to make choice between these alternatives, at the risk of being denounced and punished as unfaithful and heretical revolutionists. They patriotically chose the latter.
FOOTNOTES:
[161] This gave rise to what is known as the Monroe Doctrine, which declares that the United States will consider it threatening to their own independence if European Governments shall interfere with that of any of the American States.
[162] Greisinger, pp. 670 to 674.
[163] Cormenin, Vol. II, pp. 424-425.
[164] De Montor, Vol. II, pp. 614 to 620.
[165] Cormenin, Vol. II, pp. 426-427.