Date, 9th century

x x x But it was impossible to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the likeⒶalteration in the MS at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of other people's liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the hands of the prodigiously richⒶalteration in the MS and their hangers-on, the suffrage was become a mere machine, which they used as they chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket.Ⓐalteration in the MS From showily and sumptuously entertaining neighboring titled aristocraciesⒶemendation, and from trading their daughters to them, the plutocrats came in the course of timeⒶalteration in the MS to hunger for titles and heredities themselves. The drift towardⒶalteration in the MS monarchy, in some form or other, began; it was spoken of in whispers at first, later in a bolder voice.

It was now that that portent called “The Prodigy” rose in the far SouthⒶemendation. Army after army, sovereignty after sovereignty went downⒶalteration in the MS under the mighty tread of the shoemaker, and still he held his conquering way—North, always North. The sleeping republic awoke at last, but too late. It drove the money-changers from the temple, and put the government into clean hands—but all to no purpose. To keep the [begin page 396] power in their own hands, the money-changers had long beforeⒶalteration in the MS bought up half the country with soldier-pensions and turned a measure which had originally been a righteous one into a machine for the manufacture of bond-slaves—a machine which was at the same timeⒶalteration in the MS an irremovableⒶemendation instrument of tyranny—for every pensioner had a vote, and every man and woman who had ever been acquainted with a soldier was a pensioner; pensionsⒶalteration in the MS were dated back to the Fall, and hordes of men who had never handled a weapon in their lives cameⒶalteration in the MS forward and drew three hundred years' back-pay. The country's conquests, so far from being profitable to the Treasury, had been an intolerable burden from the beginning. The pensions, the conquests, and corruption together, had brought bankruptcy in spite of the maddest taxation, the government's credit was gone, the arsenals were empty, the country unprepared for war. The military and naval schools, and all commissioned offices in the army and navy, were the preserve of the money-changers; and the standing army—the creation of the conquest-days—was their property.

The army and navy refused to serve the new Congress and the new Administration, and said ironically, “What are you going to do about it?” A difficult question to answer.Ⓐalteration in the MS Landsmen manned such ships as were not abroad watching the conquests—Ⓐalteration in the MS Ⓐtextual note and sunk them all, in honest attempts to doⒶemendation their duty. A civilian army, officered by civilians, rose brimming with the patriotism of an old forgotten day and rushedⒶalteration in the MS multitudinously to the front, armed with sporting-guns and pitchforks—and the standing army swept it into space. For the money-changers had privately soldⒶalteration in the MS out to the shoemaker. He conferred titles of nobility upon the money-changers, and mounted the republic's throne without firing a shot.

It was thus that Popoatahualpacatapetl became our master; whose mastership descended in a little while to the Second of that name, who stillⒶalteration in the MS holds it by his Viceroy this day.