The Supreme Indignity
Lord Salisbury tells his fellow statesmen that no country should have its laws dictated from abroad.
1864
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Lord Salisbury tells his fellow statesmen that no country should have its laws dictated from abroad.
1864
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
In 1863, Copenhagen announced the first joint Constitution for Denmark and the Danish King’s duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Amid rising German nationalism, Prussia demanded the two duchies for the German Confederation, and invaded in February 1864. London hosted a meaningless Conference, and that August the Danes gave in.
by Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903)
GREAT efforts were made to induce Denmark to repeal the obnoxious Act. It is not wonderful that this advice should have been unpalatable to the Danes: it was affixing to their necks the badge of foreign servitude in its most undisguised and offensive form.
The freedom of internal legislation is the embodiment and the symbol of national independence. To receive any kind of legislation at the hands of the foreigner is a degradation; to submit to his dictation the fundamental laws of the country is a more galling ignominy still. But to have to modify such institutions at a moment’s notice, under the most insolent and shameless threats of violence, is an insult to which a people retaining any spark of patriotism can hardly submit except under the most extreme necessity.
It needed the all but open promise of material assistance as a bribe to induce the Danes to give way once again, and to submit even the solemn enactments of their legislature to the insolent dictation of Vienna and Berlin.
by Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903)
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.