In reviewing Cavour's conduct of affairs at this point, it is important to dwell on his unwavering fidelity to constitutional methods. We know now that he was strongly urged to take an opposite course. Ricasoli telegraphed to him: "The master stroke would be to proclaim the dictatorship of the king." The Iron Baron told Victor Emmanuel to his face that it was humiliating for him to accept half Italy as the gift even of a hero. It was no time for scruples; the _coup d'état_ would be legitimised afterwards by universal suffrage; Garibaldi himself would approve of the king's dictatorship if it were accompanied by a thoroughly Italian policy. This was perfectly true; as Cavour said, the conception was really the same as Garibaldi's own: a great revolutionary dictatorship to be exercised in the name of the king without the control of a free press, and with no individual or parliamentary guarantees. But Cavour would have none of it. What, he asked, would England say to a _coup d'état?_ His hope had always been that Italy might make herself a nation without passing through the hands of a Cromwell; that she might win independence without sacrificing liberty, and abolish monarchical absolutism without falling into revolutionary despotism. From parliament alone could be drawn the moral force capable of subduing factions.
Not from his fellow-countrymen only, but from some who believed themselves to be Italy's best friends abroad, came the prompting of the tempter: more power! Few ministers in a predicament of such vast difficulty would have resisted the evil fascination of those two words. Cavour heard them unmoved. He told his various counsellors that they counted too much on his influence, and were too distrustful of liberty. He had no confidence in dictatorships, least of all in civil dictatorships; with a parliament many things could be done which would be impossible to absolute power. The experience of thirteen years convinced him that an honest and energetic ministry, which had nothing to fear from the revelations of the tribune, and which was not of a humour to be intimidated by extreme parties, gained far more than it lost by parliamentary struggles. He never felt so weak as when the Chambers were closed. In a letter to Mme. de Circourt, he said that, if people succeeded in persuading the Italians that they needed a dictator, they would choose Garibaldi, not himself, and they would be right. He summed up the matter thus: "I cannot betray my origin, deny the principles of all my life. I am the son of liberty, and to it I owe all that I am. If a veil is to be placed on its statue, it is not for me to do it."