HOW THE SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY MAINTAINS ITSELF
The Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, acts
only by means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts
of the general will, the Sovereign cannot act save when the people is
assembled. The people in assembly, I shall be told, is a mere chimera.
It is so to-day, but two thousand years ago it was not so. Has man's
nature changed?
The bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less narrow than
we imagine: it is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that
confine them. Base souls have no belief in great men; vile slaves smile
in mockery at the name of liberty.
Let us judge of what can be done by what has been done. I shall say
nothing of the Republics of ancient Greece; but the Roman Republic was,
to my mind, a great State, and the town of Rome a great town. The last
census showed that there were in Rome four hundred thousand citizens
capable of bearing arms, and the last computation of the population
of the Empire showed over four million citizens, excluding subjects,
foreigners, women, children and slaves.
What difficulties might not be supposed to stand in the way of the
frequent assemblage of the vast population of this capital and its
neighbourhood. Yet few weeks passed without the Roman people being in
assembly, and even being so several times. It exercised not only the
rights of Sovereignty, but also a part of those of government. It dealt
with certain matters, and judged certain cases, and this whole people
was found in the public meeting-place hardly less often as magistrates
than as citizens.
If we went back to the earliest history of nations, we should find that
most ancient governments, even those of monarchical form, such as the
Macedonian and the Frankish, had similar councils. In any case, the one
incontestable fact I have given is an answer to all difficulties; it is
good logic to reason from the actual to the possible.