That this is the condition of all Italy is shown on one side, in the fact that there the King of Naples holds fettered in dungeons 25,000 patriots, and Radetzky has sacrificed nearly 4,000 political martyrs on the scaffold; still the scaffold continues to be watered with blood, and still the dungeons receive new victims, evidently proving what spirit exists in the people of Italy.

And still Americans doubt that we are on the eve of a terrible revolution; and they ask, What use can I make of any material aid? when Italy is a barrel of powder, which the slightest spark may light.

In respect to foreign rule, GERMANY is more fortunate than Italy.  From the times of the treaty of Verdun, when it separated from France and Italy, through the long period of more than a thousand years, no foreign power ever has succeeded to rule over Germany; such is the resistive power of the German people to guard its national existence.  The tyrants who swayed over them were of their own blood.  But to subdue German liberty, those tyrants were always anxious to introduce foreign institutions.  First, they swept away the ancient Germanic right, the common law so dear to the English and American, an eternal barrier against the encroachments of despotism, and substituted for it the iron rule of the imperial Roman law.  The rule of papal Rome over the minds of Germany crossed the mountains together with the Roman law, and a spiritual dependency was to be established all over the world.  The wings of the German eagle were bound, that it should not soar up to the sun of truth.  But when the oppression became too severe, the people of Germany rose against the power of Rome;—­not the princes,—­though they too were oppressed:  but the son of the miner of Eisenach, the poor friar, Martin Luther, defied the Pope on his throne, and at his bidding the people of Germany proved, that it is strong enough to shake off oppression; that it is worthy, and that it knows how, to be free.  And again, when the French, under their Emperor, whose genius comprehended everything except freedom, extended their moral sway over Germany, when the princes of Germany thronged around the foreign despot, begging kingly crowns from the son of the Corsican lawyer, with whom the Emperors were happy to form matrimonial alliances—­with the man who had no other ancestors than his genius,—­then it was again the people, which did not join in the degradation of its rulers, but jealous to maintain their national independence, turned the foreigner out though his name was Napoleon, and broke the yoke asunder, which weighed as heavily upon their princes as upon themselves.  And still there are men in America who despair of the vitality of the Germans, of their indomitable power to resist oppression, of their love of freedom, and of their devotion to it, proved by a glorious history of two thousand years.  The German race is a power, the vitality and influence of which you can trace through the world’s history for two thousand years; you can trace it through the history of science and heroism, of industry, and of bold enterprizing spirit.  Your own country, your own national character, bear the mark of German vitality.  Other nations, now and then, were great by some great men—­the German people was always great by itself.