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Rise of the Dutch Republic, the — Volume 01: Introduction I by John Lothrop Motley
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of government. They decided all controversies, civil and criminal. To
rebel against their decrees was punished by exclusion from the
sacrifices--a most terrible excommunication, through which the criminal
was cut off from all intercourse with his fellow-creatures.

With the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great assembly of the
people. There were slaves, indeed, but in small number, consisting
either of prisoners of war or of those unfortunates who had gambled away
their liberty in games of chance. Their chieftains, although called by
the Romans princes and kings, were, in reality, generals, chosen by
universal suffrage. Elected in the great assembly to preside in war,
they were raised on the shoulders of martial freemen, amid wild battle
cries and the clash of spear and shield. The army consisted entirely of
volunteers, and the soldier was for life infamous who deserted the field
while his chief remained alive. The same great assembly elected the
village magistrates and decided upon all important matters both of peace
and war. At the full of the moon it was usually convoked. The nobles
and the popular delegates arrived at irregular intervals, for it was an
inconvenience arising from their liberty, that two or three days were
often lost in waiting for the delinquents. All state affairs were in the
hands of this fierce democracy. The elected chieftains had rather
authority to persuade than power to command.

The Gauls were an agricultural people. They were not without many arts
of life. They had extensive flocks and herds; and they even exported
salted provisions as far as Rome. The truculent German, Ger-mane,
Heer-mann, War-man, considered carnage the only useful occupation,
and despised agriculture as enervating and ignoble. It was base, in his
opinion, to gain by sweat what was more easily acquired by blood. The
land was divided annually by the magistrates, certain farms being
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