Congress of Verona

The Congress of Verona met at Verona on October 20, 1822 as part of the series of international conferences or congresses that opened with the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, which had instituted the Concert of Europe at the close of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Quintuple Alliance was represented by the following persons:
 * Russia: Emperor Alexander I and Count Karl Robert Nesselrode (minister of foreign affairs). Count George Mocenigo (Ambassador of Russia in Torino), was also present;
 * Austria: Prince Metternich;
 * Prussia: Prince Hardenberg and Count Christian Gunther von Bernstorff;
 * France: The duc de Montmorency-Laval (minister of Foreign Affairs) and François-René de Chateaubriand;
 * United Kingdom: The Duke of Wellington, who was taking the place of Viscount Castlereagh after his tragic suicide on the eve of the congress.

Issues
While the representatives of the United Kingdom and the European powers had at first, during the Congress of Vienna, acted largely in concert, the extent to which the concord epitomized in the expression the "Concert of Europe" had unraveled in seven years became apparent in the way in which the three main questions before this Congress were handled.

The instructions drawn up by Londonderry, as he then was, for his own guidance, had been handed to Wellington by George Canning without alteration. They defined the United Kingdom's position towards the three questions which it was supposed would be discussed: the Turkish Question (currently surfacing in the Greek insurrection), the question of intervention in favor of the Bourbon royal power in Spain and the revolted Spanish colonies, and the Italian Question.

Italian Question
The matter of the Italian Question dealt with the continued Austrian rule in Northern Italy. Since the United Kingdom could not undertake to support a system in which she had merely acquiesced, Wellington did not even formally present his credentials until the other Powers had disposed of the matter, a British minister (Castlereagh's half-brother and successor in the Londonderry title) attending merely to keep informed and to see that nothing was done inconsistent with the European system and the treaties.

Greek Question
In the Greek Question, the probable raising of which had alone induced the British government to send a minister plenipotentiary to the Congress, Wellington was instructed to suggest the eventual necessity for recognizing the belligerent rights of the Greeks, and, in the event of concerted intervention, to be careful not to commit the United Kingdom, beyond a supporting role. (See Greek War of Independence.)

As for Russia and Austria, the immediate problems arising out of the Greek Question had already been privately settled between the emperor Alexander and Metternich, to their mutual satisfaction, at the preliminary conferences held at Vienna in September.

Spanish Question
When the plenipotentiaries met in Verona, the only question raised was the Spanish Question, of the proposed French intervention in Spain, in which Wellington's instructions were to express the uncompromising opposition of the United Kingdom to the whole principle of intervention.

The discussion was opened by three questions formally propounded by Montmorency:
 * 1) Would the Allies withdraw their ministers from Madrid in the event of France being compelled to do so?
 * 2) In case of war, under what form and by what acts would the powers give France their moral support, so as to give to her action the force of the Quintuple Alliance, and inspire a salutary fear in the revolutionaries of all countries?
 * 3) What material aid would the powers give if asked by France to intervene, under restrictions which France would declare and they would recognize?

A series of gilt-copper medals apparently struck in England represent participants of the Congress in less than flattering lights: the "Count de Chateaubriand" (Ludwig Ernst Bramsen, Médallier) bears an inscription that offers the British view of the French position in a nutshell: THE KING OF FRANCE MY MASTER DEMANDS THE FREEDOM OF FERDINAND VII TO GIVE HIS PEOPLE INSTITUTIONS WHICH THEY CANNOT HOLD BUT FROM HIM, while the emperor Francis I of Austria asserts MY TROOPS OCCUPY NAPLES TO CHASTISE THE NEAPOLITANS FOR DARING TO CHANGE THEIR CONSTITUTION.

The reply of Alexander, who expressed his surprise at the desire of France to keep the intervention wholly French, was to offer to march 150,000 Russians through Germany to Piedmont, where they could be held ready to act against any Jacobins, whether in Spain or France. This solution appealed as little to Metternich and Montmorency as to Wellington; but though united in opposing it, four days of confidential communications revealed a fundamental difference of opinion. Wellington, firmly based on the principle of non-intervention, refused to have anything to do with the suggestion, made by Metternich, that the powers should address a common note to the Spanish government in support of the action of France. Finally, Metternich proposed that the Allies should hold a common language, but in separate notes, though uniform in their principles and objects. This solution was adopted by the continental powers; but Wellington, in accordance with his instructions not to countenance any intervention in Spanish affairs, took no part in the conferences that followed. On October 30 the powers handed in their formal replies to the French memorandum.

Russia, Austria and Prussia would act as France should in respect of withdrawing their ministers, and would give to France every assistance she might require, the details to be specified in a treaty. Wellington, on the other hand, replied on behalf of the United Kingdom that having no knowledge of the cause of dispute, and not being able to form a judgment upon a hypothetical case, he could give no answer to any of the questions.

Thus was proclaimed the open breach of the United Kingdom with the principles and policy of the Quintuple Alliance, as it had become with the admission of France in 1818, which development is what gives to the congress its main historical interest. The ensuing French intervention ended with the Battle of Trocadero, which reinstated Ferdinand VII of Spain and opened a reactionary period of Spanish and European politics that led to the Year of Revolutions, 1848.

The Treaty of Verona

This treaty, which has a main goal of stopping all representative governments, was put into the Congressional record of the United State Senate in 1916 and is as follows.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE. 64th CONGRESS, 1st SESSION VOLUME 53, PART 7 Page 6781 25 April 1916

I wish to put in the RECORD the secret treaty of Verona of November 22, 1822, showing what this ancient conflict is between the rule of the few and the rule of the many. I wish to call the attention of the Senate to this treaty because it is the threat of this treaty which was the basis of the Monroe doctrine. It throws a powerful white light upon the conflict between monarchial government and government by the people. The Holy Alliance under the influence of Metternich, the Premier of Austria, in 1822, issued this remarkable secret document : [American Diplomatic Code, 1778 - 1884,  vol. 2 ; Elliott,  p. 179.]

SECRET TREATY OF VERONA 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  monarchial  principles  as  the  maxim  of  the  sovereignty  of   the  people  with  the  high  divine  right,  engage mutually  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  to  use  all  their  efforts  to  put  an  end  to  the  system  of  representative  governments,  in  whatever  country  it  may  exist  in  Europe,  and  to  prevent  its  being  introduced  in  those  countries  where  it  is  not  yet  known.

ART. 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  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.

ART. 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  the  clergy  may  adopt,  with  the  aim  of  ameliorating  their  own  interests,  so  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.

ART. 4.  The  situation  of   Spain  and  Portugal  unite  unhappily  all  the  circumstances  to  which  this treaty  has  particular  reference. The high  contracting  parties,  in  confiding  to  France  the  care  of  putting  an  end  to  them,  engaged  to  assist  her  in  the  manner  which  may  the  least  compromit  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.

ART. 5.  In  order  to  establish  in  the  Peninsula  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.

ART. 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.

ART. 7.  The  present  treaty  shall  be  ratified  and  the  ratifications  exchanged  at  Paris  within  the  space  of  six  months. Made at  Verona  the  22d  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 reestablish the sovereignty of Spain in the Republics of South and Central America?

Mr. 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 Bourbon prince upon the throne of  France by force, then used France to suppress the constitution 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 to prevent their exercise of any measure of the right of self-government. The Holy Alliance immediately did the 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 and the country 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 in 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, 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 should 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 governments in the American Republics is the basis of the Monroe doctrine. This secret treaty sets forth clearly the conflict between monarchial government and popular government and the government of the few as against the government of 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. Official Records of the Union Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion