vote, too, which must receive the sanction of the Electoral Colleges. On the day when this project of a Constitution was submitted to the Assembly (it was the 17th of April), Audinot rose to point out the necessity of enlightening Europe about the condition of the Roman States, the rights of the inhabitants, the acts and intentions of the representatives of the people. Audinot was the only person who, since the Republic had been proclaimed, had at all seasons striven to make manifest the serious perils that overhung the new-born State, from the eagerness of the European Potentates, Catholic and non-Catholic, to cloke their schemes with religious zeal. Accordingly, founding himself on the declarations, hesitating in form but positive in substance, which the Minister of Foreign Affairs had recently made in the Assembly of France about the Pope's restoration, Audinot proceeded to state the necessity of announcing that, without prejudice to the national right of freedom and independence, the Assembly was prepared to negotiate terms with all the Catholic Powers for securing the liberty and independence of the Church and of the Roman Pontiff. Although this speech aroused some opposition, because certain persons apprehended it was a trick to entangle them in political negotiations, still, the Assembly decided upon sending to the Governments and Parliaments of France and England a public remonstrance or manifesto, the composition of which was intrusted by the President to Audinot, Agostini, and Lisabe Ruffoni. At the sitting of the next day it was read and approved in the following terms: "REPUBLIC OF ROME. "The Constituent Assembly to the Governments and Parliaments of France and England. "The Representatives of the free Roman people address words at once of remonstrance and of trust to the Governments and Parliaments of the two most free and most powerful nations of Europe. "The world is aware that for many ages we were governed by the Church in matters temporal, according to those peculiar forms of absolute authority with which she rules in the spiritual sphere: hence it happened that here, amidst the light of the nineteenth century, the darkness of the middle age prevailed; civilisation was encountered often with open war, always with inert resistance, and it was a crime for us even to feel or call ourselves Italians. "The world likewise knows, that we repeatedly endeavoured to vindicate our freedom; but Europe forced us to expiate, by an heavier servitude, the efforts through which every other people gained renown. At length, after long tribulation, the day of redemption appeared to dawn; and we placed confidence in the power of ideas, in the overruling force of events, in the mild spirit of our Sovereign: yet we chose to be Italians first of all, and it was our sin: we thought we were free, and it was our delusion. The time arrived when our Sovereign deserted us, and we were left without a Government there lacked not those who sought for a compromise, but in vain; the very messages of the Parliament and the Municipality were spurned; the people still patiently prolonged the time; but the refugee Government never more pronounced one word of freedom or of kindness; it saddled three millions of men with the excesses of a handful; and when we set about the only measures open to us for reconstructing the authority which the Sovereign in effect had abdicated, we got curses from the Priest. "The world knows too that our Assembly took its rise from the vote of the whole community, which, exercising perforce an imprescriptible right, determined to quash for ever the theocracy, and to proclaim the Republic. No one resisted; no voice, but that of the ousted, made itself audible in complaint. "Yet Europe means to listen to that voice, and appears to forget the story of our woes, and she, too, seemingly confounds what belongs to the spiritual with what lies in the temporal sphere. "The Roman Republic has decreed the Pontiff's independence and the free exercise of his spiritual power, and has thus demonstrated to the Catholic world how deeply sensible it is of the right to liberty in religious action that is inseparable from the supreme Headship of the Church. To maintain it intact, the Roman Republic will add to the moral security supplied by the devotion of all our Catholic brethren, the material guarantee of whatever force is at her disposal. But Europe, so far as appears, is not satisfied with this, for the assertion is in fashion, that the continuance of the Roman Pontiff's temporal power is of moment to Catholicism. "In this view we invite the Governments and Parliaments of France and England to consider, what right any person whosoever can allege to impose any kind of Government whatever on an independent people; with what wisdom the idea can be cherished of restoring a Government by its own essence incompatible with civilisation and with freedom, a Government disqualified morally ages ago, and materially more than five months back, without an attempt by any one, not even by the clergy, to lift its flag anew; lastly, with what prudence an effort can be made to shore up an authority unanimously detested, and on this ground alone incapable of permanence, though capable of provoking afresh incessant disturbances, conspiracies, and overthrows. "If we go on to state, that such a Government cannot identify or reconcile itself with liberty and civilisation, we have ample grounds; since the experiment we have made of a Constitution proves, that the alleged affinity between spiritual and temporal matters hampers its working and its development. For here the Ecclesiastical Canons reduced the State-law to a nullity; public education and instruction, under the sway of the theocracy, were the privilege or monopoly of the clergy, the circulation of property was stopped by mortmain, ecclesiastics were exempt and privileged against the courts, while laymen were likewise subject to the courts spiritual; conditions all these so foreign to liberty and civilised society, that any free people would rather endure half a score of wars, than put up with any one of them. And Europe, which so often has been excited and disturbed by that priestly power, wont with the thunderbolts of the Church to set States on fire, how can she conceive it endurable, at this day, for three millions of men to submit to a sway, that not only awards temporal punishment to those who offend it by making use of a political right, but likewise threatens them with the damnation of the soul? Europe can never think a Sovereignty, which is able to abuse its enormous priestly authority by troubling consciences in favour of its political power, to be compatible with free institutions. "We rest assured, that England and France, so justly jealous of their independence, can never design that there should be in the centre of Italy an Italian people, without part or lot in the nation, politically subjected, as a fief, to the Catholic world at large, and accordingly shut out from the universal right of nations, and turned into an appanage for the clergy. For the people of Rome are the masters of the Roman State; and if the Catholic world be authorised to interfere as to matter of religion, it cannot do so without manifest injustice as to matter of politics, as to the social compact. Again, while the neutrality of an entire nation is intelligible and allowable, neutrality cannot in like manner be imposed upon a fraction of one, upon the central section, upon the State which, by its position, intersects and marches with almost all the other sections of Italy. This State never can be shut out, by treaties and protocols, from participating in the vitality of the nation. "The Representatives of the Roman people would consider they were casting a slur on the political wisdom of the Governments and Parliaments of France and England, if they supposed them capable of ignoring the rights, and the grounds, here summarily set forth, and the interest and profit of Europe itself, which must be concerned in insuring tranquillity, through insuring the termination of the Government by priests. Assuredly it would not be our fault, if the restoration be not resisted with fixed, hardy, and unconquerable determination; nor could Europe justly impute to us the unexampled calamities that might ensue, nor the damage which might result, from a forcible and sanguinary restoration, to the Catholic authority of the Popedom itself. We are certain that England and France will aid, by advice and action, in averting these evils, that so those bonds of friendship may progressively be drawn closer, which ought now to unite together all free nations." Some members, with the Prince of Canino at their head, wished the Assembly to transmit that manifesto through its own representatives and deputies to France and England; but the contrary opinion prevailed, which devolved on the Government the business of charging its Envoys in Paris and London with that duty. But these Envoys were not recognised as such, nor were their course and proceedings of a kind to turn to the advantage of the Republic; for in France they laid their account upon the patronage of the enemies of the Government, more than on that of the Government itself and the predominant party in the Assembly. The Triumvirs further despatched Leone Carpi to France, that he might set |