SECRET TREATY OF VERONA
AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC CODE, 1778-1884, vol. 2; Elliott, p. 179.
The
undersigned, specially authorized to make some additions to the treaty
of the Holy Alliance, after having exchanged their respective
credentials, have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1. The high
contracting powers, being convinced that the system of representative
government is equally as incompatible with the monarchical principles as
the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right,
engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all that their
efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments, in
whatever county it may exist in Europe, and to prevent it being
introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.
ARTICLE 2. As it can not be doubted that
the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the
pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those
of princes, the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to adopt
all proper measures to suppress it, not only in their own States but
also in the rest of Europe.
ARTICLE 3. Convinced that the principles of
religion contribute most powerfully to keep nations in the state of
passive obedience which they owe to their princes, the high contracting
parties declare it to be their intention to sustain in their respective
States those measures which clergy may adopt, with the aim of
ameliorating their own interests, intimately connected with the
preservation of the authority of the princes and the contracting powers
join in offering their thanks to the Pope for what he has already done
for them, and solicit his constant cooperation in their views of
submitting the nations.
ARTICLE 4. The situation of Spain and
Portugal unite unhappily all the circumstances to which this treaty has
particular reference. The contracting parties, in confiding to France
the care of putting an end to them, engaged to assist her in the matter
which may the least compromit (sic) them with their own people and the
people of France by means of a subsidy on the part of the two empires of
20,000,000 of francs every year from the date of the signature of this
treaty to the end of the war.
ARTICLE 5. In order to establish in the
Peninsula in the order of things which existed before the revolution of
Cadiz, and to insure the entire execution of the articles of the present
treaty, the high contracting parties give to each other the reciprocal
assurance that as long as their views are not fulfilled, rejecting all
other ideas of utility or other measure to be taken, they will address
themselves with the shortest possible delay to all the authorities
existing in their States and to all their agents in foreign countries,
with the view to establish connections tending toward the accomplishment
of the objects proposed by this treaty.
ARTICLE 6. This treaty shall be renewed
with such changes as new circumstances may give occasion for, either at a
new congress or at the court of one of the contracting parties, as soon
as the war with Spain shall be terminated.
ARTICLE 7. The present treaty shall be ratified and the ratifications exchanged at Paris within the space of six months.
Made at Verona the 22nd November, 1822.
for Austria: METTERNICH
for France: CHATEAUBRIAND
for Prussia: BERNSTET
for Russia: NESSELRODE
I ask
to have printed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD this secret treaty, because I
think it ought to be called now to the attention of the people of the
United States and of the world. This evidence of the conflict between
the rule of the few verses popular government should be emphasized on
the minds of the people of the United States, that the conflict now
waging throughout the world may be more clearly understood, for after
all said the great pending war springs from the weakness and frailty of
government by the few, where human error is far more probable than the
error of the many where aggressive war is only permitted upon the
authorizing vote of those whose lives are jeopardized in the trenches of
modern war.
Mr. SHAFROTH, Mr. President, I should like to have the senator state
whether in that treaty there was not a coalition formed between the
powerful countries of Europe to re-establish the sovereignty of Spain in
the Republics of South and Central America?
Senator Owen: "I was just going to comment upon that, and I am going to
take but a few moments to do so because I realize the pressure of other
matters. This Holy Alliance, having put a Bourdon prince upon the throne
of France by force, then used France to suppress the condition of
Spain, immediately afterwards, and by this very treaty gave her a
subsidy of 20,000,000 francs annually to enable her to wage war upon the
people of Spain and prevent their exercise of any measure of the right
of self-government.
The Holy Alliance immediately did not same thing in Italy, by sending
Austrian troops to Italy, where the people there attempted to exercise a
like measure of liberal constitutional self-government; and it was not
until the printing press, which the Holy Alliance so stoutly opposed,
taught the people of Europe the value of liberty that finally one
country after another seized a greater and greater right of
self-government, until now it may be fairly said that nearly all the
nations of Europe have a very large measure of self-government. However,
I wish to call the attention of the Senate to this important history in
the growth of constitutional popular self-government.
The Holy Alliance made its powers felt by the wholesale drastic
suppression of the press in Europe, by universal censorship, by killing
free speech and all ideas of popular rights, and by the complete
suppression of popular government."
"The Holy Alliance having destroyed popular government in Spain, and
Italy, had well-laid plans also to destroy popular government in the
American Colonies which had revolted from Spain and Portugal in Central
and South America under the influence of the successful example of the
United States."
"It was because of this conspiracy against the American Republics by the
European monarchies that the great English statesman, Canning, called
the attention of our government to it, and our statesmen then, including
Thomas Jefferson, who was still living at that time, took an active
part to bring about the declaration by President Monroe in his next
annual message to the Congress of the United States that the United
States would regard it as an act of hostility to the government of the
United States and an unfriendly act, if this coalition, or if any power
of Europe ever undertook to establish upon the American continent any
control of any American republic, or to acquire any territorial rights."
"This is the so-called Monroe Doctrine. The threat under the secret
treaty of Verona to suppress popular government in the American
republics is the basis of the Monroe Doctrine. This secret treaty sets
fourth clearly the conflict between monarchial government and popular
government, and the government of the few as against the government on
the many. It is a part, in reality, of developing popular sovereignty
when we demand for women equal rights to life, to liberty, to the
possession of property, to an equal voice in the making of the laws and
the administration of the laws. This demand on the part of the women is
made by men, and it ought to be made by men as well as by thinking,
progressive women, as it will promote human liberty and human happiness.
I sympathize with it, and I hope that all parties will in the national
conventions give their approval to this larger measure of liberty to
the better half of the human race".
(Senator Owen, Congressional Record 1916)
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