While the United States remain the great American
power, that system, or its kindred system, democratic centralism,
can never become an American system, as Maximilian's experiment
in Mexico is likely to prove.
Political propagandism, except on the Roman plan, that is, by
annexation and incorporation, is as impracticable as it is
wanting in the respect that one independent people owes to
another. The old French Jacobins tried to propagate, even with
fire and sword, their system throughout Europe, as the only
system compatible with the rights of man. The English, since
1688, have been great political propagandists, and at one time it
seemed not unlikely that every European state would try the
experiment of a parliamentary government, composed of an
hereditary crown, an hereditary house of lords, and an elective
house of commons. The democratic Americans are also great
political propagandists, and are ready to sympathize with any
rebellion, insurrection, or movement in behalf of democracy in
any part of the world, however mean or contemptible, fierce or
bloody it may be; but all this is as unstatesmanlike as unjust;
unstatesmanlike, for no form of government can bear
transplanting, and because every independent nation is the sole
judge of what best comports with its own interests, and its
judgment is to be respected by the citizens as well as by the
governments of other states.
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