" English historians would no doubt have
numerous remarks to offer on this strange untruth which dismiss a
remarkably interesting chapter of history in the most misleading
way, and which tells Chinese political students nothing about the
complete failure which military government--not republicanism--
must always have among the Anglo-Saxon peoples and which is the
sole reason why Cromwellism disappeared. Even when treating the
history of his own country Dr. Goodnow seems to take pleasure in
being absurd. For he says: "The mind of the American people was so
imbued with the idea of republicanism that a republican form of
government was the ideal of the whole race"; then adding as if to
refute his own statements, "Had General Washington--the leader of
the revolutionary army--had the desire to become a monarch he
would probably have been successful." We do not know how Americans
will like this kind of interpretation of their history; but at
least they will not fail to note what dismal results it hastened
on in China. With the experimental Eighteenth Century French
Republic; with the old Spanish Colonies of Central and South
America; and above all with Mexico, Dr. Goodnow deals in the same
vein. Vast movements, which can be handled only tentatively even
in exhaustive essays are dismissed in misleading sentences framed
so as to serve as mere introduction to the inevitable climax--the
Chinese Constitutional Monarchy of 1915 with Yuan Shih-kai as
Emperor.
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