Rome fell from the force of barbarism developed from within, far
more than from the force of the barbarians hovering on her
frontiers and invading her provinces.
The law of all possible developments is in the providential or
congenital constitution; but these possible developments are many
and various, and the reason and free-will of the nation as well
as of individuals are operative in determining which of them
shall be adopted. The nation, under the direction of wise and
able statesmen who understood their age and country, who knew how
to discern between normal developments and barbaric corruptions,
placed at the head of affairs in season, might have saved Rome
from her fate, eliminated the barbaric and assimilated the
foreign elements, and preserved Rome as a Christian and
republican empire to this day, and saved the civilized world from
the ten centuries of barbarism which followed her conquest by the
barbarians of the North. But it rarely happens that the real
statesmen of a nation are placed at the head of affairs.
Rome did not fall in consequence of the strength of her external
enemies, nor through the corruption of private morals and manners,
which was never greater than under the first Triumvirate. She
fell from the want of true statesmanship in her public men, and
patriotism in her people. Private virtues and private vices are
of the last consequence to individuals, both here and hereafter;
but private virtues never saved, private vices never ruined a
nation.
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