OLIVER CROMWELL.
��117
��ings to Almighty God for his success, he would have been obliged to resume it
��were the spontaneous outpourings of a devout and grateful heart. His numer- ous speeches to his several parliaments are all characterized by the same zeal for religion ; the same earnest and apparent-
��the next." " Puritans or royalists, re- publicans or officers, there was no one but Cromwell who was in a state at this time, to govern with anything like order and justice." That fragment of a con-
��ly sincere desires for the highest good of stitutional assembly denominated by way
��the people. 'Tis true he spoke with great caution, because every word was treas- ured up, and would be made, if possible, a weapon for his own destruction. His sentences, are, therefore, sometimes in- volved, intricate, and obscure, encum- bered with repetitions, and frequently unfinished. We can find other motives fer this hesitancy and circumlocution be- sides fraud and intrigue. The critical position in which ne was placed suffi- ciently explains them all. But, says one, palliate his conduct as you will, he was still a usurper and a tyrant. Let us hold up this charge to the light of truth. We admit that he held power which the people had never delegated to him, and which he had not gained by hereditary descent. If no circumstauces will jus- tify such an assumption of authority, then Cromwell must rest under the stig- ma of exercising unjust power. Let us look at the state of society and the con- dition of the government. As Cromwell was situated, it was a question of life and death with him, whether he should put himself at the head of the State. Had he doubted, or hesitated, or shown fear he would have been crushed, and an- archy dark, fearful and bloody, would have followed. TheCommonwealth was rent with factions. No party had suffi- cient influence to lead the others. All were seeking for the supremacy. Roy- alists and Republicans, levelers and fifth monarchy men, Episcopalians and Pres- byterians, Independents and Quakers. The nation was one mighty seething pot of isms, political and religious. No man could control these hostile and turbulent factions but Cromwell. He saw it and acted accordingly. I do not mean to as- sert that while he acted from an evident necessity, that he did not act in accord- ance . ith a fully developed and inexcu- sable ambition ; but as Guizot asserts,
��of derision the " rump parliament," were as ambitious of power as the Pro- tector. They wished to make the power which the people delegated to them for a season, perpetual and perhaps heredi- tary. They were about to curse the na- tion with a permanent oligarchy. Crom- well saw it and resisted their usurpation. The violent dissolution of this parlia- ment was not generally ungrateful to the people. Cromwell says himself : '"So far as I could discern, when they were dis- solved, there was not so much as the barking of a dog, or any general and vis- ible repining at it." When he assumed the reins of government, though he act- ed arbitrarily, he did not assume unlim- ited power. •' For himself," says Ma- caulay. " he demanded indeed the first place in the Commonwealth; but with powers scarcely as great as those of a Dutch Stadtholder or an American Pres- ident. He gave the •'Parliament a voice in the appointment of ministers, and left to it the whole legislative authority — not even reserving to himself a veto on its enactments. And he did not require that the Chief Magistracy should be he- reditary in his family. * * * Had his moderation been met by corresponding moderation, there is no reason to think he would have overstepped the line which he had traced for himself." When the Parliament which he summoned began to question his authority to rule, the same authoiity, too. by which they were called, and under which they acted, he became more arbitrary and dismissed them ; and who would not have pursued the same course? The necessity under which the Protector lay of assuming des- potic power, does not prove him guilt- less in this matter, but it certainly palli- ates the crime, if crime it may be called. But, says an objector, why pull down one tyrant to set up another? The.domina-
��" if he bad abdicated his power one day tion of Cromwell was as odious and op-
�� �
