The situation was brought to a head by the increasing acuteness of the struggle in Sicily where Depretis, the pro-dictator, was working for a plebiscite and Garibaldi opposing it. Depretis resigned and the struggle was taken by Cavour to Parliament where on October 2, after announcing the situation in Sicily and Naples and the revolt in Umbria and the Marches, he laid his policy of popular consultation before the Chamber and asked for a vote of confidence. There could be no clearer statement of repudiation of title by conquest or devotion to the principle of self-determination than this made by Cavour. After protracted discussion the government's bill passed the Chamber by a vote of 296-6 and the Senate by a vote of 84-12, the opposition being largely from the clericals, although this measure meant the annihilation of the revolution.

1

On October 5th, Mordini, the new pro-dictator of Sicily, working with the autonomists, issued a decree convoking the electors not for a plebiscite but to choose delegates to a representative assembly, hoping by means of the delay consequent on this method to stave off annexation. The primary assemblies were convoked for October 21. The attempt to interpose an assembly was repeated at Naples by Crispi, the leader of the republicans. Pallavicino, the Neapolitan pro-dictator, was for a plebiscite, Garibaldi supported Crispi; Pallavicino resigned. The next morning the city was strewn with white slips marked "Yes" and memorials supporting Pallavicino were signed by citizens and National Guards. When Garibaldi saw the strength of the popular demand for a plebiscite he yielded. Almost simultaneously news was received of Cavour's victory in parliament.

Pallavicino was restored to office and, on October 8, issued a decree calling the people of the continental provinces to meet in primary assemblies on October 21, the day already set for the elections in Sicily, in order to accept or reject the following "plebiscite": "The people wish Italy, united and indivisible, with Victor Emanuel as Constitutional King, and his legitimate descendants." The qualifications for suffrage are the same as those of northern Italy, for here where the rate of illiteracy was far higher than in the north, it was even more essential to omit a literacy qualification if a real expression of the popular will was desired. The rate of illiteracy in Naples was, however, not so high as that in Sicily, where only one in ten could read and write.

tator until all Italian questions were settled. To this Cavour answered that the sympathies of liberal Europe would be sacrificed as well as the legal liberty which he wished to be the inseparable companion of the independence of the nation. (Cavour to Salvagnoli, October 2, Chiala, vol. 4, p. 23.) "I am a son of Liberty, and it is to her that I owe all that I am. If it be necessary to put a veil upon her statue, it will not be for me to do it," he wrote, and again, "The parliamentary road is longer, but it is more secure." (Cavour to the Countess Anastasia de Circourt, ibid., p. 25.)

1 Documents, post, p. 623.

Hoping to forestall a demand for a plebiscite in Sicily, Mordini, on October 9, convoked the Sicilian Assembly for November 9, but Garibaldi, having yielded in Naples, abandoned the plan of the assembly in Sicily and caused a proclamation similar to the Neapolitan one to be issued there on October 15. By this proclamation the assemblies already convoked for the 21st were to cast their votes, not for representatives as first planned, but directly on the question of union. Then, unwilling that the royal title should be based wholly on a plebiscite and without formal recognition of his agency, Garibaldi, on the same day, issued another decree announcing the union of the two Sicilies with the constitutional kingdom of Victor Emanuel.2

The votes were held in both Naples and Sicily on October 21. The result was overwhelmingly for Sardinia, although the conditions surrounding the vote of Naples and the continental provinces were attacked with bitterness by those opposed to the result, and to some extent with reason. The question of whether order or anarchy reigned in the city of Naples was a matter of controversy. Disorder and violence of party feeling were to be expected as a legacy from the Bourbon rule. Although the Sardinian troops did not enter Naples until October 29, and Victor Emanuel had, from Ancona promised to defend the right of the people to legally and freely manifest their will, it was inevitable that the authenticity of the vote, taken as it was under Sardinian auspices, should be contested. In at least some of the country parts there appears to have been disorder. On October 27 Elliot reported a movement in favor of the Bourbons, about Isernia. It was supported chiefly by the peasants. Such attempts to restore the Bourbons were being ignored by the press and concealed by the authorities.3 The republicans had been. dealt a severe blow by Pallavicino who had suppressed the political clubs. Money and ships had been sent by Sardinia. It is asserted that the authorities clapped the reactionaries in prison, thus depriving the plebiscite of value. Intrigue was everywhere. The criminal classes were quick to make the most of the opportunity offered them by an interregnum and it was doubtless the desire to restore order and prosperity which won the support of the several parties to the cause of annexation.*

That there were suggestion and intimidation there is no doubt, and the method of voting whereby the elector must choose his ballot from one of the

1 Documents, post, p. 635.

2 Ibid., post, p. 637.

3 Parliamentary Papers, Affairs of Italy, 1861, vol. 67 [2757], p. 134.

4 Elliot, the British Minister at Naples, in a dispatch to Lord John Russell says that “many would wish autonomy if secure from the return of the Bourbons, but are obliged to vote in either the affirmative or the negative, and, to escape continued disorganization, many who are separatists at heart will give the affirmative vote." Parliamentary Papers [2757], P. 115.

baskets under the public inspection doubtless aided in bringing pressure,1 yet no coercion could account for the almost unanimous result.2 The figures, as announced by the Supreme Court on November 3, were 1,302,064 votes for union and 10,312 against, which, according to figures forwarded to the British Foreign Office represented a vote of 19 per cent. of the population, a figure only slightly less than those of Tuscany and Emilia.3

The vote of the mainland provinces was presented by Pallavicino to Victor Emanuel, on his entrance into the city. He acknowledged it by a proclamation to the Neapolitan and Sicilian peoples which read, "Universal suffrage has given me the sovereign power over these noble provinces, and in the royal decree of annexation of December 17 the plebiscite was again referred to as the basis of title.

The result of the plebiscite in Sicily was equally decisive, there having been 432,053 yeas and 667 nays. The result gave rise to far less discussion than did that of Naples, for Sicily had been much more evidently disposed to union, as Sardinian observers had agreed in April. Here, too, desire for a stable order had won over the opponents.

1 Elliott to Russell: "In fact, both the terms of the vote and the manner in which it is to be taken are well calculated to secure the largest possible majority for the annexation, but not so well fitted to ascertain the real wishes of the country." He admitted, however, that the annexionists were by far the strongest in numbers. Parliamentary Papers [2757], p. 115. 2 Fusinato, p. 133, quotes Stoerk, p. 127, to the effect that 3,000 Neapolitan women presented themselves at the polls to vote for union. There is no evidence that their vote was counted.

3" According to an analysis published here of the votes upon different occasions in which appeal has been made to universal suffrage, the votes given have been in the following proportion to the population of the countries:

Though the numbers who have here taken part in the vote may be considered rather small, the proportion of affirmative to negative votes amounted to no less than 99.21 per cent., which is greater than in any preceding instance, except in the Emilia, where they amounted to 99.64 per cent. of the votes recorded. Elliott to Lord J. Russell, Naples, November 10, Parliamentary Papers [2757], p. 161.

The population of the Neapolitan Provinces in 1861 was 6,787,289. Statistica del Regno d'Italia.

Documents, post, p. 649.

5 The formal minute of the vote of Sicily recites that many votes were declared void, through improper phraseology, and that the votes of Ustica and Mandanici were thrown out because there the populace had voted "without regard to age or sex." Documents, post, p. 644. The population of Sicily in 1861 was 2,392,414. Statistica del Regno d'Italia.

6 Chiala, vol. 4, p. cxxxv.

The union, however, did not bring order at once either in Sicily or in Naples. After the union the autonomists, the reactionaries, and the republicans, the priests and the remnants of the Bourbon party in Sicily kept up a conflicting propaganda. Rivalry for political plums led to rivalry between the Mazzinians and the Garibaldians.1 Brigandage flourished. Unification was difficult and the government had made itself unpopular. The climax was reached with the revolt of 1866 and the attack on Palermo. Since then there has been practically no separatist movement of any consequence.

Umbria and the Marches, 1860

The unrest in the southern part of the peninsula had spread into the Marches and Umbria. The papal troops were about to suppress it. Cavour, alarmed at the republican direction of affairs in southern Italy, had adopted the policy of the military participation of Piedmont in the liberation of these States, forestalled the papal troops by sending a Piedmontese force to occupy the provinces and at the same time interpose a barrier between the "Redshirts" and Rome. On September 11 the Piedmontese army crossed the frontier, on the 18th the papal forces were crushed at Castelfidardo and, with the fall of Ancona, on the 29th, the two provinces were in the hands of Victor Emanuel.

Over each province the King had, on September 12, appointed a commissioner-general. On October 21 each commissioner proclaimed a plebiscite for November 4 and 5 in his province, on the question of union with the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emanuel. The provisions for the registration and vote are almost identical in the two decrees. Manhood suffrage was established as in the other provinces, with the usual qualifications of six months' domicile and no judical inabilities. The commissioners made no pretense of neutrality, but in supplementary decrees urged the union with eloquence. But the union needed no urging, and although there were armed Sardinian forces throughout the provinces there is little doubt but that the vote was a sincere one. The result as proclaimed with great formality by the chief court of each province was, in the Marches 133,783 for, and 1,212

1 Thayer, vol. 2, p. 434. The British minister at Naples wrote to Lord John Russell on November 16 that the measures incident to annexation were difficult to carry out owing not only to the great corruption of the country, but also to the fact that although the several parties had compromised on union with Sardinia in order to get rid of the Bourbons, there was no general desire for the success of the annexation and the paths were already diverging. He speaks of the humiliation of the autonomists at the provincial status of the country as a matter of some moment. Parliamentary Papers [2757], p. 177.

2 Documents, post, pp. 655 and 656.

3 Documents, post, pp. 657 and 665.

against annexation, and in Umbria, 97,040 for, and 380 against.1 The votes were formally presented to the King in the same manner as those of Naples and Sicily and the provinces were incorporated in the kingdom with the same. formula.

Cardinal Antonelli sought by energetic protests to awaken the Catholic: countries in the interests of the Holy Father. In a letter of November 4, he said it was not a question of the conditions surrounding the vote, but the vote itself. He condemned the politics of Sardinia in seeking to introduce a principle eminently revolutionary and destructive of legitimate sovereigns.2 But much as this argument appealed to Austria and Prussia, it was of no avail against the overwhelming testimony of the vote itself. The protest of Lord John Russell was of another order. On October 27 he had won the adoration of the Italian patriots by defending, against the protests of Austria, France, Prussia and Russia, the action of Sardinia in support of the Sicilian and Umbrian expeditions, taking the ground that the people of the Roman and Neapolitan States were the best judges of their own interests. He required, however, that that judgment should be clear and free from pressure. In a letter to Hudson on January 21, he says that the votes of Naples, Sicily, Umbria and the Marches, cast by universal suffrage, had no great value in the eyes of the British government, as they were nothing but a formality following upon acts of popular insurrection, or of successful invasion, and did not imply in themselves any independent exercise of the will of the nation in whose name they were given. He, however, waived further objections, should representatives of the several different Italian states convoked for February 18 by a deliberate act constitute those States into one State. "When the formation of the State shall be announced to Her Majesty," he wrote, "it is to be hoped that the Government of the King will be prepared to show that the new monarchy has been erected in pursuance of the deliberate votes of the people in Italy and that it has all the attributes of a government prepared to maintain order within and relations of peace and friendship without.'

"4

On February 18 the first Italian Parliament met in.Turin, and, on February 26 gave the sanction desired by Lord John Russell. Victor Emanuel was voted King of Italy by a vote of 129 to 2 in the Senate and 292 to 1 in the

1 Documents, post, pp. 667 and 670. The population of the Marches in 1861 numbered 883,073. That of Umbria was 513,019. Statistica del Regno d'Italia.

2 Archives diplomatiques, 1861, part 1, p. 93.

3 Parliamentary Papers [2757], p. 125.

▲ Ibid., Affairs of Italy, 1861, vol. 67 [2804], p. 1. Cavour in a letter to Azeglio at Londom from Turin, March 16, chose to construe this as a question of the principle of universal suffrage and not of the conditions surrounding the vote. Ibid., p. 3.