Thus far the developments were normal, and advanced civilization.
But Rome still retained the barbaric element of slavery in her bosom, and had conquered more barbaric nations than she had assimilated.These nations she at first governed as tributary states, with their own constitutions and national chiefs;afterwards as Roman provinces, by her own proconsuls and prefects.
When the emperors threw open the gates of the city to the provincials, and conceded them the rights and privileges of Roman citizens, they introduced not only a foreign element into the state, destitute of Roman patriotism, but the barbaric and despotic elements retained by the conquered nations as yet only partially assimilated.These elements became germs of anti-republican developments, rather of corruptions, and prepared the downfall of the empire.Doubtless these corruptions might have been arrested, and would have been, if Roman patriotism had survived the changes effected in the Roman population by the concession of Roman citizenship to provincials; but it did not, and they were favored as time went on by the emperors themselves, and more especially by Dioclesian, a real barbarian, who hated Rome, and by Constantine, surnamed the Great, a real despot, who converted the empire from a republican to a despotic empire.
Rome fell from the force of barba-
rism developed from within, far more than from the force of the barbarians hovering on her frontiers and invading her provinces.
The law of all possible developments is in the providential or congenital constitution; but these possible developments are many and various, and the reason and free-will of the nation as well as of individuals are operative in determining which of them shall be adopted.The nation, under the direction of wise and able statesmen who understood their age and country, who knew how to discern between normal developments and barbaric corruptions, placed at the head of affairs in season, might have saved Rome from her fate, eliminated the barbaric and assimilated the foreign elements, and preserved Rome as a Christian and republican empire to this day, and saved the civilized world from the ten centuries of barbarism which followed her conquest by the barbarians of the North.But it rarely happens that the real statesmen of a nation are placed at the head of affairs.
Rome did not fall in consequence of the strength of her external enemies, nor through the corruption of private morals and manners, which was never greater than under the first Triumvirate.She fell from the want of true statesmanship in her public men, and patriotism in her people.Private virtues and private vices are of the last consequence to individuals, both here and hereafter;but private virtues never saved, private vices never ruined a nation.Edward the Confessor was a saint, and yet be prepared the way for the Norman conquest of England; and France owes infinitely less to St.Louis than to Louis XI., Richelieu, and Napoleon, who, though no saints, were statesmen.What is specially needed in statesmen is public spirit, intelligence, foresight, broad views, manly feelings, wisdom, energy, resolution; and when statesmen with these qualities are placed at the head of affairs, the state, if not already lost, can, however far gone it may be, be recovered, restored, reinvigorated, advanced, and private vice and corruption disappear in the splendor of public virtue.Providence is always present in the affairs of nations, but not to work miracles to counteract the natural effects of the ignorance, ineptness, short-sightedness, narrow views, public stupidity, and imbecility of rulers, because they are irreproachable and saintly in their private characters and relations, as was Henry VI.of England, or, in some respects, Louis XVI.of France.Providence is God intervening through the laws he by his creative act gives to creatures, not their suspension or abrogation.It was the corruption of the statesmen, in substituting the barbaric element for the proper Roman, to which no one contributed more than Constantine, the first Christian emperor, that was the real cause of the downfall of Rome, and the centuries of barbarism that followed, relieved only by the superhuman zeal and charity of the church to save souls and restore civilization.
But in the constitution of the government, as distinguished from the state, the nation is freer and more truly sovereign.The constitution of the state is that which gives to the people of a given territory political existence, unity, and individuality, and renders it capable of political action.It creates political or national solidarity, in imitation of the solidarity of the race, in which it has its root.It is the providential charter of national existence, and that which gives to each nation its peculiar character, and distinguishes it from every other nation.
