There is one which was proposed in 1814 by Count Aldini, in 1831 by Rossi, in 1855 by Count Cavour.  These three statesmen, comprehending the impossibility of limiting the authority of the Pope within the kingdom in which it is exercised, and over the people who are abandoned to it, advised Europe to remedy the evil by diminishing the extent of, and reducing the population subjected to, the States of the Church.

Nothing is more just, natural, or easy than to free the Adriatic provinces, and to confine the despotism of the Papacy between the Mediterranean and the Apennines.  I have shown that the cities of Ferrara, Ravenna, Bologna, Rimini, and Ancona are at once the most impatient of the Pontifical yoke and the most worthy of liberty.  Deliver them.  Here is a miracle which may be wrought by a stroke of the pen:  and the eagle’s plume which signed the treaty of Paris is as yet but freshly mended.

There would still remain to the Pope a million of subjects, and between three and four millions of acres; neither the one nor the other in a very high state of cultivation, I must admit; but it is possible that the diminution of his revenue might induce him to manage his estates and utilize his resources better than he now does.  One of two things would occur:  either he would enter upon the course pursued by good governments, and the condition of his subjects would become endurable, or he would persist in the errors of his predecessors, and the Mediterranean provinces would in their turn demand their independence.

At the worst, and as a last alternative, the Pope might retain the city of Rome, his palaces and temples, his cardinals and prelates, his priests and monks, his princes and footmen, and Europe would contribute to feed the little colony.

Rome, surrounded by the respect of the universe, as by a Chinese wall, would be, so to speak, a foreign body in the midst of free and living Italy.  The country would suffer neither more nor less than does an old soldier from the bullet which the surgeon has left in his leg.

But will the Pope and the Cardinals easily resign themselves to the condition of mere ministers of religion?  Will they willingly renounce their political influence?  Will they in a single day forget their habits of interfering in our affairs, of aiming princes against one another, and of discreetly stirring up citizens against their rulers?  I much doubt it.

But on the other hand, princes will avail themselves of the lawful right of self-defence.  They will read history, and they will there find that the really strong governments are those which have kept religious authority in their own hands; that the Senate of Rome did not grant the priests of Carthage liberty to preach in Italy; that the Queen of England and the Emperor of Russia are the heads of the Anglican and Russian religions; and they will see that by right the sovereign metropolis of the churches of France should be in Paris.