To this spirit is opposed the principle of Despotism, claiming sovereignty over mankind, and degrading nations from the position of a self-conscious, self-consistent aim, to the condition of tools subservient to the authority of ambition.

One of these principles will and must prevail.  So far as one civilization prevails, the destiny of mankind is linked to a common source of principles, and within the boundaries of a common civilization community of destinies exists.  Hence the warm interest which the condition of distant nations awakes now-a-days in a manner not yet recorded in history because humanity never was yet aware of that common tie as it now is.  With this consciousness thus developed, two opposite principles cannot rule within the same boundaries—­Democracy and Despotism.

In the conflict of these two hostile principles, until now it was not Right, not Justice, but only Success which met approbation and applause.  Unsuccessful patriotism was stigmatized with the name of crime.  Revolution not crowned by success was styled Anarchy and Revolt, and the vanquished patriot being dragged to the gallows by victorious despotism, men did not consider why he died on the gallows; but the fact itself, that there he died, imparted a stain to his name.

And though impartial history, now and then, casts the halo of a martyr over an unsuccessful patriot’s grave, yet even this was not always sure.  Tyrants have often perverted history by adulation or by fear.  But whatever that late verdict might have been; for him who dared to struggle against despotism at the time when he struggled in vain, there was no honour on earth.—­Victorious tyranny marked the front of virtue with the brand of a criminal.

Even when an existing “authority” was mere violence worse than that of a pirate, to have opposed it unsuccessfully was sufficient to ensure the disapproval of all who held any authority.  The People indeed never failed to console the outcast by its sympathy, but Authority felt no such sympathy, and rather regarded this very sympathy as a dangerous symptom of anarchy.

When the idea of justice is thus perverted—­when virtue is thus deprived of its fair renown, and honour is thus attacked—­when success like that of Louis Napoleon’s is gained through connivance—­all this becomes an immeasurable obstacle to the freedom of nations, which never yet was achieved but by a struggle,—­a struggle, which success raised to the honour of a glorious revolution, but failure lowered to the reputation of a criminal outbreak.

Mr. President, I feel proud at the accident, that in my person public honours have been restored to that on which alone they ought to be bestowed—­righteousness and a just cause; whereas, until now, honours were lavished only upon success.  I consider this as a highly important fact, which cannot fail to encourage the resolution of devoted patriots, who, though not afraid of death, may be excused for recoiling before humiliation.