Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/591

 Europe after the Congress of Viemia 553 critical circumstances, crowned with the most brilliant suc- cess, and strengthened by the conventions of 1814, 1815, , and 18 18, as it had prepared the way for, established, and assured the peace of the world, and delivered the European continent from the military representatives of revolution, so it would be able to check a new form of oppression, not less tyrannical and fearful, namely, that of revolt and crime. Such were the motives and the aim of the meeting at Troppau. The motives are too obvious to need further explanation. The aim is so honorable and justifiable that the best wishes of all right-minded persons will doubtless accompany the allied courts into the noble arena they are about to enter. . . . The powers are exercising an incontestable right in Right of the taking common measures in respect to those states in which powers to the overthrow of the government through a revolt, even if the internal it be considered simply as a dangerous example, may result affairs of in a hostile attitude toward all constitutions and legitimate states threat- ., ened by governments. The exercise of this right becomes an urgent revolution. necessity when those who have placed themselves in this situation seek to extend to their neighbors the ills which they have brought upon themselves and to promote revolt and confusion around them. . . . This is the incontestable fact which the allied courts have made their point of departure. Hence the representa- tives of the powers. . . agreed at Troppau upon the plan of action to be followed in regard to those states in which the governments had been overturned by violence ; and upon the pacific or coercive measures which might bring these states once more into the European alliance, in case the allies should succeed in exercising a salutary influence. . . . Nothing could menace more directly the tranquillity of Danger to the neighboring states than the revolution at Naples, gain- ^j^jjJJJ, ing ground as it did daily. In view of the fact that the the revolution allied courts could not be attacked so promptly and imme- at Naples, diately as these neighboring states, it was deemed expedient to proceed, in regard to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, according to the principles above enunciated.