OCR Text |
Show LATIN REPUBLICS. Our eastern exchanges are again ! exercised over the condition of France j and Spain, as Republics. A republic ! is usually considered to bo a kind ol J popular government, in which the j people directly express their choice of Lheir servant-, or tho men chosen to rule over them, whom, in latter years, j even in this country, it has been a ' Eross fiction to call "public servants." j Yet that is only one k ind of a repub- j lie. It is the freest, bcst,mo.st liberal, ', and comes nearer the advanced idea of universal freedom than any other. Still, Voniee was a republic when the Doge was a despot, and her Council of Ton ruled her with most tyrannic and barbarous sway. Rome was called a republic when she invested a pro-consul with absolute power, as a dictator, the enemy in front calling. as was deemed, for such act.on in an hour of emergency. Aristocratic and oligarchic republics are its different to our democratic republic that is,what was our democratic repub! io-as are autocracies from constitutional monarchies. mon-archies. And yet in France and Spain there are now existing so-called republics, which are so different to every thing beforetime viewed as such that one is in doubt how to designate theni. They are not oligarchies, for the moneyed men of either country do not control them. They cannot be aristocracies, where the nobles of the country are studiously ignored. And they certainly are not democratic republics, re-publics, the people never having been consulted in regard to the present organization. or-ganization. What, then, can they be called? Republics? Emphatically' No! France elected an Assembly to decide on whether tho German war should be continued, and that Assembly Assem-bly usurped powers never committed to it. Thiers was elected by its voice, and deposed by its voict ; the same power conferring authority . upon XIcMahon, amounting almost . to monarchical, or imperial power. pow-er. And all this, liko Cromwell's Crom-well's Rump parliament, without with-out ever consulting thoso most interested inter-ested the people. Spain is ealled a republic, while its republicans are, and have been, at war for months, and its chief officer in Cuba, Jovellar, has been summoned sum-moned to appear at Madrid to answer charges preferred by Castelar's 'administration; 'ad-ministration; while now we are informed in-formed that Serrano is the coming man to supersede Castelar and direct the destinies of the country. j And it is to sustain such republics as theae, and bolster up such empty usurpations, that we are called upon to bear humiliation, and forego the proper defence of our National rights! Ls it that our administration so sympathizes sym-pathizes with autocratic despotisms bearing the name of republics, or that we are afraid of periling our chances for a third term, that we dare not demand and obtain just reparation re-paration for injured honor and an ia-. ia-. suited flag? Let the people answer. . |