“The people never desire, and never can desire, anything but
Liberty and Equality.”[166]
Advancing in time, the Republic becomes more manifest. Omitting the
fervid words of Jean Jacques Rousseau, I adduce Condorcet, whose
consecration to truth was sealed by a tragical death:--
“I have ever thought that a Republican Constitution, _having
Equality for its basis_, was the only one in conformity with
Nature, with reason, and with justice,--the only one which
could preserve the liberty of the citizens and the dignity of
the human race.”[167]
Belonging to the ancient system of France, and, like Lafayette, with
the rank of Marquis, Condorcet, again like Lafayette, not only accepted
the Republic, but declared its true basis.
Another French authority, of eminent experience in diplomacy, who wrote
coldly and only according to the requirement of reason, Gérard de
Rayneval, asserts the same law of Equality:--
“Political Liberty consists in the right to participate in
public affairs. This participation is direct or indirect,
and it is more or less extended according to the form of
government. It is, then, necessarily unequal. For example, _in
a Democracy all the citizens participate in the legislative
power_. If they delegate it, they have only a very indirect
part in it; but all can become delegates or representatives,
all can arrive at administrative employments, and all have the
right to protest against abuses. In aristocratic republics
political liberty is exclusively concentrated in the body of
Notables; they alone exercise all the power; subjects have only
civil liberty.”[168]
Such, in France, is the voice of political science.
It is also the voice of the French Revolution. The one idea which that
great event taught with prevailing influence was the Equal Rights of
All, explained and defined by the new-born formula, that “all are equal
before the Law.” Napoleon recognized the supremacy of this principle,
when, in an official address to the Council of State, he said, “France
loves Equality above everything”;[169] and he sought to enforce it,
when, in an early proclamation, he declared, “Let there be no head
which does not bend under the empire of Equality.”[170] Such is human
inconsistency, that shortly afterwards his own ambition refused to bend
under this empire, which none the less disowned the sceptre he assumed
and the nobles he created. But the great truth, though trampled down,
survived in the hearts of the French people, to rise again and resume
its heritage.
As the Provisional Government of 1848 proclaimed the Republic, it
was careful, after proper deliberation, to proclaim at the same time
“universal suffrage,” which Lamartine, standing on the steps of the
Hôtel de Ville, and speaking in the name of the Government, said was
“the first truth and only basis of every National Republic.”[171] This
proclamation was itself submitted to the vote of “all the citizens”;
and on the terms of this submission another member of the Government,
of solid sense and perfect fidelity, thus expresses himself:--
“By these words--_all the citizens_--the Provisional Government
intended to consecrate definitively the fundamental principle
of democracy; it intended to proclaim boldly and forever the
inalienable, imprescriptible right inherent in each member
of society to participate directly in the government of his
country; it intended to put in practice really and loyally the
great principles hitherto shut up in the domain of the abstract
theories of philosophy.”[172]
The same person, M. Garnier-Pagès, who was at once an eminent actor in
these scenes and their most authentic historian, thus again dwells on
the true idea of a Republic:--
“The Republic, that government of _all by all_, where each has
his place, his duty, and his right; the Republic, that is to
say, Liberty itself, the liberty to do every act and to give
utterance to every thought not prejudicial to others; the
Republic, that fraternal ground where are admitted all parties,
the representatives of the past as well as of the future, where
all minds, all associations, can have free scope.”[173]
This precise definition is fitly crowned by the remarkable words
revealing the soul of De Tocqueville:--
“I should, I think, have loved Liberty at all times, but in the
times in which we live I feel inclined to adore it.… There is
no legislator sufficiently wise and sufficiently powerful to
maintain free institutions, _if he does not take Equality for
first principle and symbol_. All our contemporaries, then, who
would create or assure the independence and dignity of their
fellow-men, must show themselves the friends of Equality; and
the only worthy way of showing themselves such is to be so.
Upon this depends the success of their holy enterprise.”[174]
To the authentic testimony of modern France, in harmony with our own
country, I add the definition of a very recent foreign publicist, who,
after dwelling on Equality as the idol sentiment of a Republic, says:--
“This shows us the nature and the end of republican government.
It is a government founded on the general interest and
equality.”[175]
Admirable words!--in themselves a definition. And here, before
closing this testimony, let me call attention to two authorities,
contemporary with our fathers, which stand apart,--one English, and the
other German. The first is that of Dr. Richard Price, the friend of
John Adams, who very early appreciated the American Revolution, and
vindicated it before the world. Here is his idea of good government,
compendiously expressed:--
“Legitimate government, as opposed to oppression and tyranny,
consists only in the dominion of _Equal Laws_ made with _common
consent_, or of men over _themselves_; and not in the dominion
of communities over communities, or of any men over other
men.”[176]
The German was none other than the great thinker, Emanuel Kant, who, in
his speculations on Perpetual Peace, says, that to this end every state
should be a Republic, which he defines:--
“That form of government where _every citizen_ participates by
his representatives in the exercise of the legislative power,
and especially in that of deciding on the questions of peace
and war.”[177]
The statement of Kant is as simple as Pure Reason, which is the title
of his great work. It claims plainly for “every citizen” a share in the
government, and is the deliberate conclusion furnished by this eminent
philosopher, whose name, rarely quoted in politics, is an unimpeachable
authority.
* * * * *
Such is the definition of a republican form of government, as found in
the history, declarations, opinions, and public acts of the Fathers of
our country, reinforced by the authority of foreign intelligence and
the example of France. From this presentation of authorities not to be
questioned we pass easily to another stage of the discussion, where the
conclusion is the easy and irresistible sequence.