POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL PEACE IN FRANCE.
Whenever it shall have been distinctly perceived and fully admitted that
the different classes which exist among us, and the political parties
which correspond to those classes, are natural and deeply-rooted
elements of French society, a great step will have been made towards
social peace.
This peace is impossible so long as each of the different classes and
the great political parties into which our society is divided cherishes
the hope of annihilating the others, and of reigning alone. That is the
evil which, ever since 1789, has periodically agitated and convulsed
France. Sometimes the democratic element has aimed at the extinction of
the aristocratic; at other times the aristocratic element has tried to
crush the democratic, and to regain its former predominance.
Constitutions, laws, and the administration of the government have been
by turns directed, like engines of war, to one or the other of these
ends--a war to the death, in which neither combatant believed his life
compatible with that of his rival.
This war was suspended by the Emperor Napoleon. He rallied around him
the classes which had formerly possessed, and those which actually
enjoyed, power and influence; and by the security which he offered them,
by the continual turmoil in which he kept them, or by the yoke which he
imposed upon them, he established and maintained peace.
After him, from 1814 to 1830, and from 1830 to 1848, this war was
renewed. A great progress had been made. Liberty had become real. Both
the ancient aristocratic, and the modern democratic elements acquired
strength; but though neither could succeed in suppressing the other,
each was impatient of its adversary’s existence, and eagerly strove for
the mastery.
And now a third combatant has entered the arena. The democratic party
having divided itself into two conflicting sections, the workmen are now
arrayed against their masters, or the people against the middle classes.
This new war, like the former, is a war to the death; for the new
aspirant is as arrogant and exclusive as the others can have ever been.
The sovereignty, it is said, belongs of right to the people only; and no
rival, ancient or modern, noble or bourgeois, can be admitted to share
it.
Every pretension of this kind must be withdrawn, not by one only, but by
all of the contending parties. The great elements of society among
us--the old aristocracy, the middle classes, and the people--must
completely renounce the hope of excluding and annihilating each other.
Let them vie with each other in influence; let each maintain its
position and its rights, or even endeavour to extend and improve them,
for in such efforts consists the political life of a country. But there
must be an end of all radical hostility: they must resign themselves to
live together, side by side, in the ranks of the government as well as
in civil society. This is the first condition of social peace. How, it
may be asked, can this condition be satisfied? How can the different
elements of our society be brought to tolerate each other’s existence,
and to fulfil their several functions in the government of the country?
I reply, by such an organization of that government as may assign to
each its place and functions; may concede something to the wishes, while
it imposes limits to the ambition, of all.
I am here met by an idea, perhaps the most false and fatal of all those
current in our days on the subject of constitutional organization. It is
this:--“National unity involves political unity. There is but one
people: there can exist at the head and in the name of this people, but
one power.”
This is the idea which most completely characterizes both revolution and
despotism. The Convention and Louis XIV. exclaimed alike, “L’Etat, c’est
moi.”
It is as false as it is tyrannical. A nation is not a vast aggregate of
men, consisting of so many thousands or millions, occupying a certain
extent of ground, and concentrated in, and represented by, a unit,
called king or assembly. A nation is a great organic body, formed by the
union within one country of certain social elements which assume the
shape and constitution naturally impressed upon them by the primitive
laws of God and the free acts of man. The diversity of these elements
is, as we have just seen, one of the essential facts resulting from
those laws; and is absolutely inconsistent with the false and tyrannous
unity which it is proposed to establish at the centre of government, as
representative of that society in which it never exists.
What then, it is said, must all the elements of society, all the groups
of which it is naturally composed, all the various classes, professions,
and opinions it contains, be represented in the government by powers
corresponding to each?
No, certainly: society is not a federation of professions, classes, and
opinions, which treat, by their several delegates, of the affairs which
are common to them all; any more than it is a uniform mass of exactly
similar elements, which send their representatives to the centre of
government only because they cannot all repair thither themselves, and
are compelled to reduce themselves to a number which can meet in one
place and deliberate in common. Social unity requires that there should
be but one government; but the diversity of the social elements equally
requires that this government should not be one sole power.
There is a natural process of attraction and concentration at work in
the heart of society, and among the numberless particular associations
which it contains (such as families, professions, classes, and parties),
by which all the smaller associations are successively absorbed into the
larger. The multitude of particular and different elements are thus
reduced to a small number of principal and essential elements, which
include and represent all the rest.
I do not think that these principal elements of society ought to be all
specially represented in the government of the state by several
authorities; I only maintain that their diversity is inconsistent with
the unity of the central power.
To this reasoning it has often been confidently replied--that the
various elements of society are congregated, by the process of free
election, in a single assembly which represents the whole nation; and
which affords them an arena for free discussion, where they can maintain
their opinions, their interests and their rights, and exert their proper
influence over the resolutions of the assembly, and consequently over
the government of the state.
We are then to infer from this that we have discharged the claims of
the most varied, weighty, and essential social elements when we have
said, “Get yourselves elected, then give your opinion, and try to make
it the prevalent one!” Election and discussion constitute the entire
basis which is to sustain the social edifice; election and discussion
afford a sufficient guarantee for all interests, rights, and liberties!
Such a theory betrays a strange ignorance of human nature, human
society, and the French people.
I will put a single question. The interests of society are twofold;
those of stability and conservation on the one hand, and those of
activity and progress on the other. If you wanted to secure the
interests of activity and progress, would you seek this security among
the social elements in which the interests of stability and conservation
are peculiarly strong? Undoubtedly not: you would commit the interests
of activity and progress to the care of their natural and willing
protectors, and you would do well. But all these various interests have
equal wants and equal claims. There is no safety for any of them but in
its appropriate power; that is to say, in a power analogous to it in its
nature and in its relations to other powers. If the interests of
stability and conservation are committed wholly to the chances of the
composition of a single elective assembly, invested with the sole and
final decision of all questions, and to the chances of the discussions
in that assembly, be assured that sooner or later, after numerous
oscillations between tyrannies of different kinds, those interests will
be sacrificed or lost.
It is absurd to seek the principle of the political stability of
government in the mobile elements of society. The permanent elements of
society must find in the government itself, powers corresponding to
them, and offering a pledge for their security. A diversity of powers is
equally indispensable to conservation and to liberty.
It is matter of amazement that this truth should be disputed, for the
very men who dispute it have made a great step towards its admission and
application. After establishing unity of power at the head of the state,
they have admitted a division of powers lower down, on account of the
diversity of functions. They have carefully separated the legislative,
executive, administrative, and judicial powers; thus practically
acknowledging the necessity of giving guarantees to different interests,
by the separation and the different constitution of these powers. How is
it that they do not see that this necessity has a higher application,
and that the diversity of the general interests of society and of the
duties of the supreme power, imperatively requires a diversity of powers
in the highest as well as in the subordinate spheres of government?
But to constitute a real and efficient diversity of powers, it is not
enough that each should have a distinct place and name in the
government; it is also necessary that all should be strongly organized,
all fully competent to fill and to maintain the place they occupy.
It is the fashion of the day to think that harmony among the powers of
the state, and security against their excess, is to be found in their
weakness. People are afraid of every kind of authority; and in order to
prevent their destroying each other, or encroaching upon liberty, they
ingeniously endeavour to undermine them all in turn.
This is a monstrous error. Every weak power is a power doomed to perish
by extinction or by usurpation. If several weak powers conflict, either
one will become strong at the expense of the others, and will end in a
tyranny, or they will trammel and neutralize each other, and the result
will be anarchy.
What is it that has constituted the strength and success of
constitutional monarchy in England? It is that, while the royalty and
aristocracy were originally strong, the commonalty has become strong by
successive conquests of its rights from the aristocracy and the king. Of
the three constitutional powers, two retain much of their primitive
greatness, and rest firmly on their deep and primæval roots; the third
has risen to greatness, and has gradually struck its roots deeply into
the same soil. Each is fully able to defend itself against the other,
and to fulfil its peculiar mission.
When an earnest and sincere attempt was made to establish constitutional
monarchy in France, its firmest adherents desired an ancient and
historical basis for royalty; for the Chamber of Peers, an hereditary
seat in the legislature, and for the Chamber of Deputies, direct
election: not by any means in obedience to theories or precedents, but
in order that the great powers of the state might be true
powers,--efficient and living entities, not words or phantoms.
In the United States, notwithstanding the difference of names,
situations, manners, and institutions, Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson,
and Madison, when founding the Republic, recognised and acted upon the
same principles. They too thought it necessary to have different powers
at the head of the government; and in order that the difference might be
real, they gave to each of these powers--_i.e._ the two chambers and the
President--a distinct origin; as distinct as the general institutions of
the country would permit, and as different as their several functions.
Diversity of origin and of nature is one of the conditions essential to
the intrinsic and real strength of powers, and this again is the
condition indispensable to political harmony and social peace.
Nor is it only at the summit and centre of government that these
principles ought to guide the organization of power; they are equally
applicable through the whole extent of the country, in the management of
its local, no less than of its general affairs. A great deal has been
said in favour of centralization and administrative unity, and there is
no doubt that they have rendered great service to France. We shall
preserve many of their forms, regulations, maxims, and works; but the
time of their sovereignty is past. Centralization is no longer
sufficient for the chief wants and pressing dangers of society. The
struggle is no longer confined to the centre; it agitates the whole
nation. Since property, family, and all the bases of society, are
attacked everywhere, they must everywhere be vigorously defended; and
functionaries or orders which have to travel from the centre of
government will be found a very inadequate defence, even though
supported by bayonets. Landed proprietors, and heads of families, who
are the natural guardians of society, must all be enjoined and empowered
to maintain its security by conducting its affairs: they must have an
active share in the management of its local as well as its general
interests; in the administration, as well as the government of the
country: the central government ought to uphold the banner of social
order, but it cannot bear the whole burthen of it unaided.
I speak always on the presumption that I am speaking _to_ a free
country, and _of_ a free government; for it is under free governments
that the safety of society demands all these conditions: they have
evidently no application to absolute governments.
Absolute power is, however, subject to certain conditions, as well as
liberty. It is far from being always possible where it would be
submitted to, nor can it be obtained wherever it is desired.
Let the friends of freedom never forget that nations prefer absolute
power to anarchy. The first want--the first instinct--of communities, as
well as of governments or of individuals, is self-preservation. Now a
community may exist under absolute power; under anarchy, if it lasts, it
must perish.
The readiness, I might almost say the eagerness, with which nations
throw their liberties into the gulf of anarchy, in the desperate attempt
to close it, is a shameful spectacle. I know nothing more lamentable to
witness than this sudden renunciation of all the rights so noisily and
vehemently demanded. The friend of freedom and of progress who would
fall into despair of man and of the future at this humiliating sight
must withdraw into himself, and refresh and invigorate his soul at
those high and pure fountains which nourish deep convictions and
far-reaching hopes.
Let not France, whatever be her peril, reckon on absolute power to save
her. It would not justify her confidence. In her ancient society,
absolute power reposed on a principle of moderation and of permanence;
while, under the Emperor Napoleon, it contained a principle of strength,
either of which it would vainly seek for now. Popular tyranny or
military dictatorship may be the expedient of a day, but can never be a
form of government. Free institutions are now as necessary to social
peace as they are to individual dignity; and power, whatever be its
nature or origin, whether republican or monarchical, has no wiser course
to pursue than to learn to use them, for they are now its only
instruments and its only stay.
If some are tempted to seek repose in other sources, let them abandon
all such hopes. Whatever be the future destiny of France, we shall not
escape from the necessity of a constitutional government; we are
condemned, for our own salvation, to surmount all the difficulties, and
to fulfil all the conditions, with which it may be encumbered.
There is but one means of rendering ourselves equal to this mighty task,
and of complying with this imperious necessity. All the elements of
stability, all the conservative forces in the country must unite closely
and act constantly together. It is no more possible to extinguish
democracy in the nation than liberty in the government. That immense
movement which has been communicated to every country and agitates all
their deepest recesses; which is incessantly inciting every class and
every individual to think, to desire, to claim, to act, to employ his
activity in every direction,--this movement will not be stopped. It is a
fact in which we must acquiesce, whether it pleases or displeases us,
whether it awakens our fears or excites our hopes. But though we cannot
extinguish this movement, we can guide and govern it; and if it is not
guided and governed, it will throw back the whole current of
civilization, and will be the opprobrium as well as the curse of
humanity. Democracy, to be guided and governed, must form a considerable
ingredient in the state, but it must not be the sole one: it must be
strong enough to climb itself, but never to pull down others: it must
find issues, and encounter barriers on every side. Democracy is a
fertilizing, but muddy stream, whose waters are never beneficent till
the turbid and impetuous current has spread itself abroad and subsided
into calmness and purity.
The Dutch, a great people, though in a small country, whose republican
glory shone brightly even amidst the full blaze of the monarchical glory
of Louis XIV., conquered their country from the ocean, and maintained
their conquest, by cutting canals and raising dikes on every side. It
is the ceaseless care of the whole community that the canals be never
obstructed and the dikes never broken; for on this depend the prosperity
and the existence of Holland.
Let all the conservative elements of France learn from this example; let
them unite all their efforts, let them keep a common and incessant
watch, that the rising tide of democracy may always find safe channels
and indestructible barriers. On the joint and efficient action of these
depend the safety of the community, and the safety of each individual
composing it. If the conservative elements of French society know how to
combine and to form a united body, if the party spirit which prevails
among them shall give way to a large and enlightened political spirit,
then France, and the democracy of France, are saved. If the conservative
elements remain disunited and disorganized, Democracy will destroy
France, and will perish under the ruins she has made.