608 



PALMER, JAMES S. 



PAPAL STATES. 



PALMER, Rear- Admiral JAMES S., United 

 States Navy, commander of the North Atlantic 

 squadron, born in New Jersey, in 1810; died of 

 yellow fever at St. Thomas, West Indies, Decem- 

 ber 7, 1867". In January, 1825, he entered the 

 Navy as a midshipman, subsequently he has 

 been assigned to the usual routine of duties 

 of a naval officer, and has passed through the 

 various grades from lieutenant to admiral. In 

 1838 he served as a lieutenant on board of the 

 Columbia in the attack on Qaallah Battoo and 

 Mushie, in the island of Sumatra. In the Mex- 

 ican "War he commanded the schooner Flirt, 

 engaged in blockading the Mexican coast. In 

 1861 he commanded the Iroquois, then one of 

 the vessels of the Mediterranean squadron, but 

 was soon ordered home, and attached to the 

 South Atlantic blockading fleet, under Admiral 

 Dupont. In the summer of 1862 the Iroquois, 

 still under Captain Palmer's command, was 

 transferred to the Gulf squadron, and led the ad- 

 vance in the passage of the Vicksbnrg batteries. 

 He was also engaged in the fight with the Con- 

 federate ram Arkansas, and again led the ad- 

 vance in passing the Vicksburg batteries later in 

 the same year. In 1863 he commanded Admi- 

 ral Farragut's flag-ship, the Hartford, when it 

 passed the batteries at Port Hudson and Grand 

 Gulf, and was present at the naval operations 

 incident upon the siege and reduction of Port 

 Hudson. He commanded the first division of 

 iron-clads at the attack and reduction of Mo- 

 bile, and won from the admiral the highest 

 commendations. In December, 1865, he was 

 assigned to the command of the North Atlantic 

 squadron. 



PAPAL STATES, THE. The spiritual 

 power of the Roman Pontiff over all the 

 world, in matters concerning faith, or the 

 hierarchy, administration, and discipline of the 

 whole Catholic Church, whose head he is, 

 has been touched upon in another article of 

 this volume. But, since he is possessed also of 

 a considerable extent of territory, thickly set 

 with cities, town's, and villages, inhabited by a 

 large number of people of all conditions, over 

 which he enacts civil, penal, a.nd commercial 

 laws in short, exercises all those acts of su- 

 preme authority which the rulers of other gov- 

 ernments, of whatever form or name empires, 

 kingdoms, republics exercise within their re- 

 spective limits ; since, finally, he is at present, 

 as long before he has been, recognized and 

 treated by them, not as Pope only, but as sov- 

 ereign ; it is not amiss to give here (for the 

 first time in this CYCLOPAEDIA) a separate 

 notice of the Pontifical Government as re- 

 gards the civil and political condition of what 

 is commonly styled the Temporal Dominion of 

 the Popes. This seems the more proper to 

 do, as the subject has been of late years much 



spoken and written upon by everybody, even 

 those who appear to have known either very 

 little or nothing at all about it. 



Origin, Extent, and Population, of the Pa- 

 pal States. The temporal power of the Roman 

 Pontiff, as an independent monarch, is traced by 

 history back to the year 753, when Pepin, King 

 of the Franks, by a solemn act of cession, grant, 

 or donation, or by whatever name it may be 

 called, bestowed on Pope Stephen and his succes- 

 sors in the Apostolic See the territory comprised 

 within the Exarchate of Ravenna, with all its 

 appurtenances and rights, in full sovereignty. 



Moved by the repeated embassies and prayers 

 of its inhabitants, he had twice crossed the 

 Alps with a powerful army, and, by fighting 

 in lawful war, twice retaken that territory 

 from the rapacious hands of Astolphus, King 

 of the Lombards, who, against the will and 

 vain opposition of its defenceless people, had 

 invaded and usurped it by force of arms, as he 

 had done before with other portions of north- 

 ern Italy. Being free by the laws of nations 

 and of war to do with his own conquest as he 

 pleased, Pepin ceded it, as we have just said, 

 to the Popes of Rome. In doing which, he 

 did only execute the wish of the Exarchate's 

 inhabitants, who, like all their neighbors around 

 them, had always regarded and found in the 

 Pope their only effectual protector and help- 

 er in want or oppression, from whatever quar- 

 ter. But the Emperors themselves of Con- 

 stantinople, to whom the said territory and 

 the rest of Italy (as portion of the Roman em- 

 pire) had previously belonged, and who, for 

 this reason, had maintained in Ravenna a resi- 

 dent vicegerent with the title of Exarch, but 

 who, notwithstanding the long and loud sup- 

 plications of their subjects to corne and protect 

 them against the incursions and yoke of the 

 barbarians, either would not, or could not help 

 them, and so had abandoned them to their fate, 

 subsequently ratified the deed of Pepin, and 

 recognized the Pope of Rome as independent 

 sovereign of their quondam Exarchate. 



This grant to the Apostolic See was after- 

 ward not only confirmed by Charlemagne, 

 the son and successor of Pepin, but increased, 

 by a similar cession of the provinces of 

 Spoleto and Perugia. These provinces, to- 

 gether with the rest of the lands usurped by 

 the Lombards in Italy, he conquered in an 

 equally just battle against their king Deside 

 rius. As this prince obstinately refused to abide 

 by the treaty which his predecessor Astolphu? 

 had concluded with Pepin a quarter of a cen- 

 tury before, and intended to invade Rome it- 

 self, Charlemagne was compelled to make a 

 fresh expedition into Italy, when, by much 

 fighting, and finally taking the city of Pavia, 

 after a siege of six months, he dethroned the 



