The National Review Volume 9 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859 Excerpt: ...independence of Tuscany will be safe against foreign force or intrigues, and her Government strong enough to make all attempts at internal disturbance hopeless; advantages which municipal independence might not a little endanger. The safest, as well as the most patriotic, plan seems to us to be that of the Unionists, both for the sake of Tuscany, of Italy, and of Europe. It is of no trifling importance to the world that the north of Italy should be in the hands of a single Power, strong enough to hold its own against the ambition of any neighbour who may be tempted to repossess himself of dominion or influence formerly enjoyed within the Peninsula. But the great difficulty of Italy lies elsewhere; the difficulty which embarrasses at once the foreign diplomatist and the Italian patriot, which renders foreign interference in the affairs of the Peninsula a matter of necessity all but absolute. That difficulty is not in Lombardy, which may be wrested from Austria by force, and which needs only independence to render it happy and prosperous; not in Naples, which will be contented with such degree of liberty as is essential to security and self-respect; not in Tuscany, which will be at rest under any Italian government that is not intolerably bad or insufferably mean and treacherous. The difficulty is in Rome, in the States of the Church; in the contest perpetually pending between three millions of Italians and an old man in the palace of the Vatican, who claims to be at once the Vicar of Christ and an earthly sovereign. Force, or diplomacy, or the progress of events, may solve all other embarrassments, and set the remainder of the Italian question at rest for ever. But force has been tried at Rome to the utmost, and without effect; the Pope has been forcibly exp...