Between Revolutions - 1831-1846
From 1831 until 1846 Italy remained discontentedly and uneasily tranquil. The infamous misgovernment of Rome and Naples continued; and in Lower Italy numerous petty insurrections, caused by the misery of the people, and the cholera which raged in 1837, were easily suppressed. Yet it was clear to all competent observers that this state of things could not last. The Italian sovereigns were seated over a volcano, which vibrated to the least stir in its neighbor, France, and which was slowly accumulating explosive material. Among the most powerful instruments now invented by the party of independence must be reckoned the scientific congress. This body, ostensibly formed for the study of science, assembled every year in some Italian city. Its meetings really served to propagate liberal opinions and to establish relations between the patriots of different districts.Meanwhile the great men who were destined to achieve the future union of Italy had appeared upon the stage, and were busy through this period with their pen and voice. Giuseppe Mazzini, born in 1808 at Genoa, made himself the recognized head of a party called by the name of Young Italy. It was his aim to organize the forces of the revolution, and to establish the one and indivisible republic in Europe. Though he strove in the cause of Italy, his scheme for the regeneration of society far exceeded the limits of that country. He declared war upon established order in its ancient forms all over the world, and was willing to use conspiracy, if not assassination, in order to achieve his ends. Thus, though the spirit infused into the Italians by Mazzini's splendid eloquence aroused the people to a sense of their high destinies and duties, though he was the first to believe firmly that Italy could and would be one free nation, yet the means hesanctioned for securing this result, and the policy which was inseparable from his opinions, proved obstacles to statesmen of more practical and sober views.
It was the misfortune of Italy at this epoch that she had not only to fight for independence, but also to decide upon the form of government which the nation should elect when it was constituted. All right-thinking and patriotic men agreed in their desire to free the country from foreign rule, and to establish national self-government. But should they aim at a republic or a constitutional monarchy? Should they be satisfied with the hegemony of Piedmont? Should they attempt a confederation, and if so, how should the papacy take rank, and should the petty sovereigns be regarded as sufficiently Italian to hold their thrones? These and many other hypothetical problems distracted the Italian patriots.
It was impossible for them, in the circumstances, first to form the nation and then to decide upon its government; for the methods to be employed in fighting for independence already implied some political principle. Mazzini's manipulation of conspiracy, for instance, was revolutionary and republican; while those who adhered to constitutional order, and relied upon the arms of Piedmont, had virtually voted for Sardinian hegemony. The unanimous desire for independence existed in a vague and nebulous condition. It needed to be condensed into workable hypotheses; but this process could not be carried on without the growth of sects perilous to common action.
The party of Young Italy, championed by Mazzini, was the first to detach itself, and to control the blindly working forces of the Carbonari movement by a settled plan of action. It was the program of Young Italy to establish a republic by the aid of volunteers recruited from all parts of the peninsula. When Carlo Alberto came to the throne, Mazzini addressed him a letter, as equal unto equal, calling upon the king to defy Austria and rely upon God and the people. Because Carlo Alberto (who, in spite of his fervent patriotism and genuine liberality of soul, was a man of mixed opinions, scrupulous in his sense of constitutional obligation, melancholy by temperament, and supcrstitiouslv religious) found himself unwilling or unable to take this step, the Mazzinisti denounced him as a traitor to 1821 and a retrogressive autocrat.
In his exile at Geneva, Mazzini now organized an armed attempt on Savoy. He collected a few hundred refugees of all nations, and crossed the frontier in 1S33. But this feeble attack produced no result beyond convincing Carlo Alberto that he could not trust the republicans. Subsequent attempts on the king's life roused a new sense of loyalty in Piedmont, and defined a counter-body of opinion to Mazzini's. The patriots of a more practical type, who may be called moderate liberals, began, in one form or another, to aim at achieving the independence of Italy constitutionally by the help of the Sardinian kingdom.
What rank Sardinia would take in the new Italy remained an open question. The publication of Vincenzo Gioberti's treatise, "Primato morale e civile degli Italiani" in 1843, considerably aided the growth of definite opinion. His Utopia was a confederation of Italian powers, under the spiritual presidency of the papacy, and with the army of Piedmont for sword and shield. This book had an immense success. It made timid thinkers feel that they could join the liberals without sacrificing their religious or constitutional opinions. At the same date Cesare Balbo's Speranzn J'Italia exercised a somewhat similar influence, through its sound and unsubversive principles. In its pages Kalbo made one shrewd guess, that the Eastern Question would decide Italian independence.
Massimo d'Azeglio, who also was a Piedmontese; the poet Giusti, the Baron Ricasoli, and the Marchese Gino Capponi in Tuscany; together with Alessandro Manzoni at Milan, and many other writers scattered through the provinces of Italy, gave their weight to the formation of this moderate liberal party. These men united in condemning the extreme democracy of the Mazzinisti, and did not believe that Italy could be regenerated by merely manipulating the insurrectionary force of the revolution. On political and religious questions they were much divided m detail, suffering in this respect from the weakness inherent in liberalism.
Yet this party was a sufficient counterpoise to the republicans; and the man who was destined to give it coherence, and to win the great prize of Italian independence by consolidating and working out its principles in practice, was already there. The count Camill'i Benso di Cavour had been born in 1810, two years later than Mazzini. He had not yet entered upon his ministerial career, but was writing articles for the Risorgimento, which at Turin opposed the Mazinistic journal Concordia, and was devoting himself to political and economical studies.
It is impossible to speak of Mazzini and Cavour without remembering the third great regenerator of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi. At this date he was in exile; but a few years later he returned, and began his career of popular deliverance in Lombardy. Mazzini, the prophet, Garibaldi, the knight-errant, and Cavour, the statesman, of Italian independence, were all natives of Sardinia. But their several positions in it were so different as to account in no small measure for the very divergent parts they played in the coming drama. Mazzini was a native of Genoa, which ill tolerated the enforced rule of Turin. Garibaldi came from Nice, and was a child of the people. Cavour was born in the midst of that stiff aristocratical society of old Piedmont which has been described so vividly by D'Azeglio in his Ricordi.
The Piedmontese nobles had the virtues and the defects of English country squires in the 18th century. Loyal, truthful, brave, hard-headed, tough in resistance, obstinately prejudiced, they made excellent soldiers, and were devoted servants of the crown. Moreover, they hid beneath their stolid exterior greater political capacity than the more genial and brilliant inhabitants of Southern and Central Italy. Cavour came of this race, and understood it. But he was a man of exceptional quality, He had the genius of statesmanship - a practical sense of what could be done, combined with rare dexterity in doing it, fine diplomatic and parliamentary tact, and noble courage in the hour of need. Without the enthusiasm, amounting to the passion of a new religion, which Mazzini inspired, without Garibaldi's brilliant achievements, and the idolatry excited by this pure-hearted hero in the breasts of all who fought with him and felt his sacred fire, there is little doubt that Cavour would not have found the creation of United Italy possible.
But if Cavour had not been there to win the confidence, support and sympathy of Europe, if he had not lieen recognized by the body of the nation as a man whose work was solid and whose sense was just in all emergencies, Mazzini's efforts would have run to waste in questionable insurrections, and Garibaldi's feats of arms must have added but one chapter more to the history of unproductive patriotism. While each of these great men played a part in the liberation of their country, it is Cavour whom we must honor with the title of the Maker of United Italy.
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