Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's
Civis Romanus sum--I am a Roman citizen--was something more than
verbal vapouring; it was a protective talisman--a buckler no less
than a sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular
privilege no barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad
humanitarian level any alien race, either allied to or under the
protection of that world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the
foremost orators and statesmen among the conquerors of the then known
world, the allusions to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by
a decorous observance of the proprieties which should mark any
reference to those who had the dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or
the privilege of her august protection. Observations, therefore,
regarding individuals of rank in these alien countries had the same
sobriety and deference which marked allusions to born Romans of
analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we grieve to say, is not
characteristic of the race which now replaces the Romans in the
colonizing leadership of the world. We read with feelings akin to
despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in which, in both
Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of non-European
countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary aristocracy and
the first gentlemen of the British Empire.
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