[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical state.]
In short, the Germanic body is a vast mass of heterogeneous states, held
together by that heterogeneous body of old principles which formed the
public law positive and doctrinal. The modern laws and liberties, which
the new power in France proposes to introduce into Germany, and to
support with all its force of intrigue and of arms, is of a very
different nature, utterly irreconcilable with the first, and indeed
fundamentally the reverse of it: I mean the _rights and liberties of the
man_, the _droit de l'homme_. That this doctrine has made an amazing
progress in Germany there cannot be a shadow of doubt. They are infected
by it along the whole course of the Rhine, the Maese, the Moselle, and
in the greater part of Suabia and Franconia. It is particularly
prevalent amongst all the lower people, churchmen and laity, in the
dominions of the Ecclesiastical Electors. It is not easy to find or to
conceive governments more mild and indulgent than these Church
sovereignties; but good government is as nothing, when the rights of
man take possession of the mind.
Pages:
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460