Many other receptions there were of societies belonging to several ranks and classes of men.  Particularly impressive was the welcome given to the deputation which came from the Senate and Chamber at Turin in honor of so great an event as the union of Southern with Northern Italy under the constitutional rule of one sovereign.  On December 1st Victor Emmanuel embarked for Palermo, where he was received with an enthusiasm at least as great as that which marked his arrival in Naples.  In the capital of Sicily all orders of citizens pressed forward to pay him their willing homage.

These great results were not, however, achieved without difficulty, for there was considerable diversity of opinion and not a little jealousy between those that surrounded Garibaldi and those that followed the lead of Cavour in Parliament and in the country.  Nor can it be denied that faults and mistakes may fairly be laid to the charge of both those parties, despite their sincere attachment to the cause of their common fatherland.  A mistake was made by Garibaldi himself when he wished to postpone the immediate annexation of the Southern Provinces to the Northern Kingdom, and asked to be named Dictator of Naples for two years by Victor Emmanuel, whom he further requested to dismiss Cavour and his actual advisers.

The King rightly refused to agree to a course so subversive of all constitutional proceedings and liberties.  He could not even entertain the idea of dismissing ministers at the request of any citizen, however illustrious, or however great the services he had rendered his country.  It was for the national representatives alone to decide to what minister the King should give his confidence, and what course should be taken as to the annexation of Naples and Sicily.  Garibaldi’s good sense and honesty of purpose led him to give in to the King’s judgment.  Victor Emmanuel took the right view of the course to be pursued in this matter, just as he had taken the right view of the course to be pursued at the moment of the Peace of Villafranca.  In the one case he showed himself wiser than Cavour, and in the other wiser than Garibaldi.  The single-minded patriotism of the latter, and the statesmanship of the former, combined with the remarkably sure judgment and unfailing honesty of the King, gradually overcame all the difficulties of the situation.  Victor Emmanuel ever kept aloof from political coteries, while deferring to the advice of his responsible ministers so long as they had the confidence of Parliament.  He ever showed himself to be the head of the nation, not the head of a party.