Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/276

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS go there in concert with France, otherwise the union of Rome with the rest of Italy would be interpreted by the great mass of Catholics, within Italy and without it, as the signal of the slavery of the Church. We must go, therefore, to Rome in such a way that the true independence of the pontiff shall not be diminished. We must go to Rome, but the civil power must not extend to spiritual things. These are the two conditions that must be fulfilled if united Italy is to exist.

At the risk of being considered utopian, I believe that when the proclamation of the principles which I have just declared, and when the indorsement of them that you will give shall become known and considered at Rome and in the Vatican, I believe, I say, that those Italian fibers which the reactionary party has, as yet, been unable to remove from the heart of Pius IX. will again vibrate, and that there will be accomplished the greatest act that any people have yet performed. And so it shall be given to the same generation not only to have restored a nation, but to have done what is yet greater, yet more sublime—an act of which the influence is incalculable, and which is to have reconciled the papacy with the civil power, to have made peace between Church and State, between the spirit of religion and the great principles of liberty. Yes, I hope that it will be given us to compass these two great acts which will most assuredly carry to the most distant posterity the worthiness of the present generation of Italians.