Only three years thereafter (in A. d. 1822) the great powers of Europe held a congress at Vienna, and among the conclusions then and there reached, and which formed a part of their treaty stipulations, the two following cannot but strike Americans with great force:
"Article I. The high contracting powers being convinced that the system of representative governments is equally as incompatible with monarchical principles, as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right of kings, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced into those countries where it is not known.
"Article II. As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those princes, the high contracting powers promise reciprocally to adopt all proper means to suppress it."
The representatives of this government in Europe got hold of these articles soon after, and duly communicated them to the State Department at Washington; and the newspapers of this country also got hold of them, and for awhile had considerable to say about them; but erelong the excitement of both government and people died out, and things went on in their usual way. How many times since then the powers of Europe have met in secret conclave and reaffirmed what they then said, and adopted secret measures whereby to carry out these resolves, is not generally known, for the reason that the excitement following their first promulgation gave them warning that whatever they said or did in that direction thereafter had better be with closed doors, and under the most sacred pledges of profound secrecy.
The congress at Vienna was held soon after they had lodged the First Napoleon safely at St. Helena, and when all the world seemed to be applauding them for the act, and hence their outspoken boldness in denouncing representative forms of government and the liberty of the press. Indeed, in view of what they had all just witnessed, and some of them severely felt, it was not at all unnatural that they should have adopted the two articles quoted; and that they should have ever since felt that there was an irrepressible conflict between the "divine right of kings" and representative forms of government--between the absolute rule of kings and the liberty of the press, and that one or the other must eventually supersede the other. Hence, with them it became a question of self preservation--the very first law of nature--and under such circumstances it was not at all wonderful that they resolved just as they did.