A Manual of the History of the Political System of Europe and Its Colonies

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: States; still they presuppose certain general points, in wliich the common interest was concerned. Of this nature were: a. the Italian wars; b. the affairs of religion after the Reformation; c. the necessity of opposing the advances of the Turks; d. the commerce of the colonies, which was constantly...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: States; still they presuppose certain general points, in wliich the common interest was concerned. Of this nature were: a. the Italian wars; b. the affairs of religion after the Reformation; c. the necessity of opposing the advances of the Turks; d. the commerce of the colonies, which was constantly increasing in value, and the commercial interests to which it gave rise. ? As to all this there remains to be added, e. the facility of communication which printing and the establishment of posts afford, the Christian nations of Europe became, in a manner, morally united into one community, which was only politically divided. C. Tim E'.irnpPP11 pol't'?1 system, notwithstanding its internal variety, was, till within these few years, .apystcni of predpjiuaaBt-BWBarclues.; where republics, with the exception of the United Netherlands, which alone attained to any great degree of power, were merely tolerated. This predominance of monarchies had a considerable influence on general politics. It was this, in the first place, that kept buck the people from taking a more actiye.part.in public aft airs. Powerful popular parties, and the disorders to which they gave rise, such as are met with in the great republics of antiquity, would have been wholly unknown, if religious dissensions had not produced effects which nearly resembled them. A second consequence of this predominance was, that the management of public affairs became more and more concentrated in the hands of princes and their ministers, and thus led to that cabinet policy which particularly characterizes the European states-system. 7. Notwithstanding this uniformity, which renders mo dern history so unlike the ancient, it yet displays all the variety of which it is susceptible. Every form of monarchical government ? hered...