Blood and Iron Part 18

One must be willing to sacrifice brothers, mother, sister, father to the guillotine--for the good of one's country.

The Robespierre idea is that the supreme duty of a Nation is to repress "crime," as well as to uphold "virtue" and "crime" consists largely in not agreeing with the great central authority. He has had many followers since that day.

-- Robespierre was really a great man gone wrong; he had in many respects a brilliant mind; he was a profound orator; a born leader; but he was unsound at the core, like a rotten apple; taught bloodshed and violence, as expressions of National honor.

-- In one picture of the hour, he is represented as the Sun, rising over the Mountain, and Giving Light to the Universe.

-- The day dawns when Robespierre has his old friend and rival Danton on the scaffold. This was to be expected. Then followed many executions of Dantonists.

-- Robespierre now came on with his "new" religion; he boldly announced a Supreme Being and belief in immortality!

-- He applied the torch to the wooden images set up by his political predecessors. He made a speech that is unintelligible, all wind, sound and bombast, but was cheered to the echo.

-- Are you not growing weary of all these absurdities? Perhaps you think the details taken from the records of Bloomingdale Asylum?

No; French Const.i.tutionalism of 1789-93, the sort that the Radicals of Germany had in mind, (with some variations), and often extolled in fiery speeches of the German Liberal party that Bismarck decided to crush down, with a rod of iron. True, the old offensive historical details were kept out of sight and were not fresh in men's minds;--except reading men and thinking men, like Bismarck; men bold enough to stand out against mob-violence, called by whatever soft name you please.

-- A French cartoon of the Robespierre Regime made at the time by an admirer shows the earth around the guillotine heaped with heads, and at last the over-weary executioner, failing to find further victims, decides to execute himself! He is therefore seen lying under the axe, his head rolling on the floor.

-- Robespierre in the end went the way of all the other political fanatics; the day came when he was spat upon, struck, beaten by mobs, p.r.i.c.ked with knives.

According to his own theory, he needed no trial (said his new rivals and enemies in their l.u.s.t for power), for he has by his acts shown himself to be an enemy of his country.

They carried him down the great staircase; he fought back savagely, like the frightful animal that he was.

-- Eighty-two of his followers died that day, on the guillotine.

-- "Long live the Republic! Long live Liberty!" was the loud cry of the rabble.

-- Such is some of the work of the great legislators of the Republic of Equality as set forth by the various authors of the new French "political Millennium," during those terrible years 1789-93; we have seen their ideas on a grand scale; and it is for you to judge whether in setting himself squarely in favor of Discipline and respect for const.i.tuted Authority, as exemplified by the line of Prussian kings, and the Prussian system of education, Bismarck was to show himself a man or a mouse.

-- Bismarck, who was a deep reader on politics, knew well the frightful excesses of French mob-rule. He may also have recognized certain general excellent principles, but he would have nothing to do with the fungous growth. And as we follow his career, we see the virtue in his strong reliance on Militarism, as an arm to keep in check the turbulent German ma.s.ses, also, later, this same Militarism to be used to do battle for the German Empire.

-- For many years, all manner of rosy democratic plans had been voiced by the Liberals.

The thing had been done to death. Every manner of political Utopia had been planned by theorists, but Bismarck met them all with his ironical speeches, and bided his time.

-- Bismarck's idea was that the only hope for German unity came through accepting the King of Prussia as ordained of heaven.

In his arguments, he ignored the ma.s.ses, the villagers, the workers, the busy-bees, the regard for individual rights.

His whole programme seemed to the ma.s.ses to be anti-Christ in conception, that is to say, it harked back to political paganism.

-- It is very difficult for an American to comprehend this Prussian conception of Divine-right, as a political principle--but it should not be difficult from the point of human experience. Bismarck had no illusions concerning the power of the average man, and he held that the phrase "the people" was used by every political quack in Europe for any one of a thousand selfish motives.

Bismarck had absolutely no faith in the power of the average man to govern himself--much less to govern others!--or faith in the average man doing anything above the average, outside his own small trade or craft.

-- Americans are accustomed to make much of an alleged saying of Lincoln: "No man is good enough to govern another without that man's consent." It is all a beautiful dream, false in theory and false in fact, belied by every record since the Lord drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.

Beginning with that stupendous episode, certain it is that this act of government was not carried out with, but against the will of the ruled; and the point at issue was not the supreme goodness of the ruler, but the power to station an angel with a flaming sword at the gates, toward which Adam ever after looked backward with longing eyes--but looked in vain!

-- In the innumerable dynasties of Babylon, Nineveh, Egypt, Greece, Arabia, Armenia, what man ruled who did not force his leaders.h.i.+p?

It is not in the nature of human beings to accept new ideas without hostile objection.

This holds true also in the evolution of governments, for all life is founded on struggle, and the man who would rule must force his leaders.h.i.+p or remain unknown.

-- Lincoln is absolutely in error, and his much-quoted words are folly.

It is not a question of goodness, or badness, or fitness, on part of the man who has the ambition to rule, but it is very much a question of his courage, his craft or his cunning in compelling others to do his bidding.

Julius Caesar was not selected to rule, but he selected himself; and so did Charlemagne, and Bismarck--and so Lincoln, himself.

-- If some concession to the democratic system is sought on the ground that the voice of the people loudly "called" Lincoln, then it is to be set up that Lincoln on his part was one of the shrewdest political log-rollers this nation has ever seen; and if he did not originate the canva.s.s that busies itself kissing the babies, congratulating the wives and shaking hands with the farmers, then at least Lincoln was an apt pupil.

It is inconceivable that, without his own high ambition, his long and painstaking endeavors to trim sail to every favoring gale (for example his s.h.i.+fting positions on the slavery question), he would have been nominated for President of these United States.

-- It is an amiable conceit of human nature, looking backward, to profess to see what it blindly ignored, looking forward; and go to any penitentiary in America, ask the convicts, and you will find that, according to the stories, there are no guilty men behind the bars; invariably a peculiar complication of circ.u.mstances enabled the guilty man to escape, and justice was thereupon avenged by a human sacrifice; likewise in the United States Senate or in the House of Representatives, ask whom you please, "How came you to hold your seat?" and you will find no ambitious man. Some were forced to stand against their protests; others were away traveling when word was received, by telegraph, "You have been elected!" Still others appealed to the nominating committee, "For the love of G.o.d desist!"--but in vain.

Thus, without raising a finger to direct the movement of events, our leaders were selected by an omnipotent democracy to occupy the seats of the mighty.

-- Truly, no man is good enough to rule another without that other man's consent! Recast in terms of human experience, it would mean that we would go unruled; for no man yet has willingly selected his ruler, but has had dominion over him thrust upon him--even as Bismarck expressed his right to rule, backed by blood and iron.

Such is human nature since the world began; otherwise why was Christ, the gentlest ruler of all time, brought to the tree; Socrates forced to drink the hemlock by the very wise justice of his day; and Columbus called a madman because he wished to rule men's minds with a new truth, showing clearly that the world is not square or flat, but round like a ball?

-- Bismarck had the real clue--and forced his purpose through the power of his commanding personality.

29

In spite of the d.y.k.e-captain's denunciation of French Const.i.tutionalism, King Fr: Wm. IV marches with the Democrats!

-- The uprising of '48 was primarily a students' demonstration; the hot-bloods of the universities, aided by various political enthusiasts, were intent on doing something--and doing it right away.

There had been a preliminary meeting at Heidelberg, and this led to the Frankfort Convention; 600 disputatious delegates were going to build a liberal German const.i.tution--at last!

-- Thus, between 1815 and 1848 German Unity had been stimulated by a dozen causes, religious, commercial, literary, social--but the political lagged, for the fact is that about the last thing a man learns is to govern himself.

There was a rising sense of National faith, as predicted by Arndt, the poet of German brotherhood; also the call of blood, based on language; likewise a deep yearning, as yet unsatisfied, for a const.i.tutional form of government, as against the warring, insolent 39 states.