The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom, Hendrik van Loon [books to read this summer .TXT] 📗

The revolutionists in Holland had not followed the example of the French in abolishing the Lord. All denominations received full freedom of worship, and, faithful to an old tradition, the meetings of the assembly were invariably opened with prayer. As an ideal text for this daily supplication one of the members of the assembly offered the following invocation, short and much to the point: "O Lord, from trifling, dilly-dallying, and procrastination save us now and for ever-more. Amen."

Posterity seconds this motion.

The temple of national liberty became an elocution institute where beribboned and besashed members idled their time away making heroic speeches for the benefit of some ancestral Buncomb County.

Let us be allowed to use a big word—the Psychological Moment. The leaders of the revolution had allowed this decisive moment to go by, and the day came when they were to pay dearly for their negligence. If, immediately after the flight of the Prince in the first glory of victory, they had dared to declare the old order of things abolished, if they had trusted themselves sufficiently to abrogate the union of Utrecht, to annul the provincial sovereignty and destroy the old power of the provincial Estates, they could, assisted by the French armies, have transformed the old republic into a new united nation. But a century of vacillation and indecision had ill prepared them for such a decisive step. The Amsterdam Patriots, trained in the energetic school of a commercial city, wanted to go ahead and draw the consequences of their first act. But the other cities had not dared to go as far as that. And now, after a year of hesitation, it was too late. Radicalism was no longer fashionable. The old conservative spirit momentarily subdued, but by no means dead, had had three hundred and sixty-five days in which to regain its hold on the mass of the people. Incessantly, although guardedly, the conservatives kept up their agitation against a united country. "Unity merely means the leadership of Holland." This became the political watchword of all those who were opposed to the Patriots. "Unity will mean that our dear old sovereign provinces will have to take orders from some indifferent official in The Hague. Unity will mean that we all shall pay an equal share in the country's expenses and that Holland, with its majority of 400,000 inhabitants, will pay no more than the smallest province." And with all the stubbornness of people defending a losing cause, the old regents fought this terrible menace of a united country. They fought it in the market-place and in the rustic tavern. They offered resistance in every town hall and in the national assembly. Every question which entered the assembly (and questions and bills and decrees entered this legislative body by the basketful) was looked at from this one single point of view, was discussed with this idea uppermost in people's minds, and finally was decided in a way which would work against the unity of the country and the leadership of Holland. The acts of the national assembly fill eight large quartos; the decrees issued by the national assembly fill twenty-three. Certainly here was no lack of industry. Every imaginable question was touched upon by this enthusiastic body of promising young statesmen. Every conceivable problem, however difficult, was discussed with ease and eloquence. The separation of Church and State, something which has baffled statesmen for many centuries, was number one upon the new program. The sluices of oratory were opened wide. Each member in turn came forward with his observations. Nor did he confine himself to a few words directed to the Speaker of the assembly. No—a speech to the entire nation, to say the very least—a speech divided and subdivided in paragraphs like a Puritan sermon and delivered in the most approved pulpit style, sacred gestures, nasal twang, and all. At times, such as when the clown of the assembly (appropriately named Citizen Chicken) went forth to talk down the rafters of the ancient building, the Speaker tried to put a stop to the overflow of eloquence.

But the speakership was a movable office. Every two weeks the entire assembly changed seats and elected a new Speaker. By voting for the right kind of man (from their point of view) the loquacious majority could always arrange matters in such a way that their stream of babbling oratory was kept unchecked. In August, after a lengthy debate, the separation of Church and State was made a fact. Immediately thereupon a law was passed giving the franchise to the Jews. Eighty thousand citizens of the Hebrew persuasion now obtained the right to vote. Another grave problem, agitated for more than fifty years, was the creation of a national militia. Theoretically everybody was in favour of it. In practice, however, most Hollanders would rather dig ditches than play at soldier. The definite abolition of the uncountable mediæval feudal rights which in the year 1795 covered the country in a most complicated maze then came in for prolonged discussion.

Most painful of all, because most disastrous to the pockets of the people, was the question of what should be done with the East India Company. This ancient institution, threatened for several years with bankruptcy, must in some way be provided for. While finally the problem of a new system of national finances, satisfactory to all the provinces, was to engage the discordant attention of the assembly.