DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0402
392
APPENDIX.
a constitution to his people, the Popes, we should
imagine, could have wanted neither.
In the middle ages when even Rome itself
was infected with the barbarism and the licen-
tiousness of the times, the Romans may perhaps
have been incapable of governing themselves
with prudence and consistency. The Barons
were perhaps too powerful, the people too ig-
norant, to bear, or to appreciate the blessings of
equal laws and of representative administration.
(I have said perhaps, because experience has
long since proved that the best instrument of
civilization is liberty.) But surely this objection
is not applicable to the Romans of the present
age, whether nobles or plebeians; the former, are
calm and stately; the latter, serious and reason-
able ; forming a nation well calculated to exercise
the rights and to display the energies of a free
people. The cardinals and the first patricians
would constitute a wise and illustrious senate,
and the people might exercise their powers by
a representative body, the materials of which
may be discovered in every street in Rome, and
in every town and almost village in its dependent
provinces. The Pontiff, a prince without passions,
without any interest but that of his people, with-
out any allurement to vice, and any bias to in-
justice, must surely be a fit head to such a
APPENDIX.
a constitution to his people, the Popes, we should
imagine, could have wanted neither.
In the middle ages when even Rome itself
was infected with the barbarism and the licen-
tiousness of the times, the Romans may perhaps
have been incapable of governing themselves
with prudence and consistency. The Barons
were perhaps too powerful, the people too ig-
norant, to bear, or to appreciate the blessings of
equal laws and of representative administration.
(I have said perhaps, because experience has
long since proved that the best instrument of
civilization is liberty.) But surely this objection
is not applicable to the Romans of the present
age, whether nobles or plebeians; the former, are
calm and stately; the latter, serious and reason-
able ; forming a nation well calculated to exercise
the rights and to display the energies of a free
people. The cardinals and the first patricians
would constitute a wise and illustrious senate,
and the people might exercise their powers by
a representative body, the materials of which
may be discovered in every street in Rome, and
in every town and almost village in its dependent
provinces. The Pontiff, a prince without passions,
without any interest but that of his people, with-
out any allurement to vice, and any bias to in-
justice, must surely be a fit head to such a