Athens, whatever other faults she may have had, stood ready to extend
these benefits. As she alone had awakened for herself an echo of
Hellenic victory in her world of Art, so was she alone prepared, through
a world-wide extension of this victory over slavery, to multiply
the intellectual reflexes of so splendid a triumph; hers it was to
disenthrall and illuminate the world. And here, where she had a right to
look for the cooeperation of all Greece, as hitherto, was she thwarted;
here, holding the van in a procession of triumph, which, as carrying
forward a glorious disinthralment into Asia and into Egypt, and as
outfacing the most inveterate of all despotisms, should far out-rival
the fabled procession of Dionysus,--here was she not merely hindered by
the _vis inertias_ of her southern neighbor, but was actually stopped in
her movement by a newly revealed force of opposition, was flanked by an
ancient ally, now turned traitor, in the summertime of a most auspicious
peace; and in her efforts to disembarrass herself of this enemy in the
rear, were her energies totally exhausted.
A position precisely similar, in its main features, does Republican
America hold to-day. She has established her own freedom against all
European intrusion; and in her efforts to do this she arrived at
political union as an indispensable necessity, and merged all separate
interests in a common one.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293