Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/110

 and the frame of mind, unfortunately, I find, has been consistent with the policy of which I have given you some illustrations—the policy of denying to others the rights that we claim ourselves.

No doubt, gentlemen, Rome may have had its work- to do, and Rome did its work. But modern times have brought a different state of things. Modern times have established a sisterhood of nations, equal, independent, each of them built up under that legitimate defense which public law affords to every nation, living within its own borders, and seeking to perform its own affairs; but if one thing more than another has been detestable to Europe, it has been the appearance upon the stage from time to time of men who, even in the times of the Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at universal dominion. It was this aggressive disposition on the part of Louis XIV., king of France, that led your forefathers, gentlemen, freely to spend their blood and treasure in a cause not immediately their own, and to struggle against the method of policy which, having Paris for its center, seemed to aim at an universal monarchy.

It was the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was the charge launched, and justly launched, against Napoleon: that under his dominion France was not content even with her extended limits, but Germany, and Italy, and Spain, apparently without any limit to