Constitution of the French First Republic

“ France has drifted into a Republic, when both statesmen and people meant not so. It was not the first choice of the nation. Whatever may have been true of the populace of Paris, the immense majority of the French people were sincerely attached to monarchy in some form, whether under a king or an emperor; and yet the country has neither, so that, as has been wittily said, France has been "a Republic without Republicans." ”

“ Why should the people sustain a king, and furnish him with a salary of five millions of dollars a year, only to enable him to overthrow the Constitution and reinstate the rejected despotism? Thus were thousands of the purest men in France driven with great reluctance to the conviction that constitutional liberty could only be preserved by dethroning the king and establishing a republic. They were originally decidedly in favor of a constitutional monarchy. ”

“ The French prefaced their first constitution by the memorable words: "All citizens being equal before the law, are alike eligible to all public offices and positions of honor and trust, according to their capacity, and without any distinction, except that of their character and ability." This principle, so different from that which had hitherto prevailed, has been recognized in most of the modern European constitutions. The privileges and exceptions which everywhere existed before the French Revolution have been abolished. ”

“ The Executive Directory of the French Republic, not content, to have employed its influence and the victories of the republican armies, to assure the political existence of the Cisalpine Republic, carries its solicitude still farther; and, convinced, that if liberty be the first of blessings, a revolution may draw after it the most terrible of all calamities, it gives to the Cisalpine people, his proper Constitution, the result of the wisdom of the most enlightened nation of Europe. ”

“ It is forgotten how small a proportion the laws actually devised by parliament are of the law actually prevailing in the land. No European country has undergone so many changes in the form of government as France. It is surprising how little effect these political revolutions have had on the body of French law. The change from empire to republic is not marked by greater legislative effects than the change from a Conservative to a Liberal ministry in England would be. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the Senate has fallen into the background, and the habit of considering the vote of the Chamber rather than that of the Senate as important in a change of Ministry has made it the true source of government in France. The two houses met at Versailles until 1879; since then Paris has been the capital, except for the election of a President. After separate decision by each house to do so, or the request of the President, they could meet in joint assembly as a Constitutional Convention to revise the constitution. ”

“ This constitution, which was preceded by a preface recalling the Declarations of Rights of the Revolution, gave the legislative power to a single permanent assembly, elected by direct universal suffrage, and entirely renewed every three years. The executive authority, with very extensive powers, was given to a president of the Republic, also elected by the universal and direct suffrage of the French citizens. ”

“ It is not enough however, that this branch of the government has been delivered from its disastrous influence. The public welfare is in peril—The fate of France depends principally on its representatives—The nation expects from them its security. But in giving them a constitution, France has prescribed to them the only means by which she can be saved.
"Persuaded, gentlemen, that as the rights of man are the law of every constituent assembly, a constitution ought to be the law of the legislators, which that constitution shall have established. ”

“ Every thing that comes from him is, in my opinion, valuable.
NOTE I. "The Convention, called by a law of the Legislative Assembly to give a new constitution to France, decreed the Republic; not that the most enlightened did not think the republican system incompatible with the existing state of manners in France, but because the Monarchy could not be continued without placing the Duke of Orleans on the throne, which would have alienated a great part of the nation.
"An executive power, consisting of five ministers, was established by the Convention for conducting the affairs of the republic. ”

“ The danger is more subtle, when able men confound political forms with popular rights. France has never been governed by a Constitution since 1792, if by a Constitution is meant a definite rule and limitation of the governing power. It is not that the French failed to preserve the forms of parliamentary government, but that those forms no more implied freedom than the glory which the Empire has twice given in their stead. ”

“ The formation of new constitutions, in countries not thus divided, involves only the adaptation of new institutions and forms to the genius, the laws, and the habits of the people. The monarchy of France has, in our day, been first remodelled, and afterwards swept from the face of Europe, to be followed by a republican constitution, which has in its turn been crushed and superseded. But France is a country that has long been subjected to as complete and powerful a system of centralization as has existed anywhere since the most energetic period of the Roman empire ”

“ The first duty of every State, as well as of every individual, is to provide for self preservation.
Treaties made between nations ought to have in each a sovereign authority, otherwise war could never be terminated except by conquest.
The tranquillity and liberty of nations can only be sustained upon the basis of justice.
The position of a State, its climate, the extent of its territory and the habits and manners of its citizens, have an influence in determining the proper form of government.
The form of the French government is monarchical, and imperious circumstances demand its preservation. ”

“ Those who paid no taxes were not recognized as shareholders in the national concern. Like women and minors, they enjoyed the benefit of government; but as they were not independent, they possessed no power as active citizens. By a parallel process, assemblies were formed for local administration, on the principle that the right of exercising power proceeds from below, and the actual exercise of power from above.
This is mainly the measure which has made the France of to-day; and when it became law, in December, the chief part of the new Constitution was completed. ”

“ A republic would be to revive the Revolution; the Constitution of 1791 [36] would be government without power; the old French Constitution, if the name were applicable, had been found ineffective in 1789, equally incapable of self-maintenance or amelioration. All that it had once possessed of greatness or utility, the Parliaments, the different Orders, the various local institutions, were so evidently beyond the possibility of re-establishment, that no one thought seriously of such a proposition. The Charter was already written in the experience and reflection of the country. ”

“ In a word, I said to myself, since France has existed for the last fifty years only in virtue of the administration, military, judicial, religious, and financial organization of the consulate and the empire, why should we not adopt likewise the political institutions of that period? As they were created by the same mind, they ought to bear in themselves the same character of nationality and practical utility.
In fact, as I stated in my proclamation, our present society, it is essential to declare, is nothing else than France regenerated by the revolution of ‘89 and organized by the emperor. ”

“ This Constitution, put in force as it stood, would have given France a government formed of new men. But the members of the Convention, long accustomed to the exercise of power, were unwilling to resign it, or to hazard the maintenance of the Republic by allowing Royalists and Monarchists an opportunity of obtaining a majority in the new Legislature. ”

“ The truth is, France is not yet essentially republican in its system. The people of France would, by a large majority, vote to fight for a republican form of government for their country, but they do not seem to comprehend the true policy of a republic, and it may be doubted whether the tendency of a single legislature, and the weight of Paris is not toward centralization—most anti or at least unrepublican. France must look to the federation of her departments. ”

“ It treats principally of the French constitution, whose faults are said to be—1st, that it confides too much in aristocracy and too little in democracy; 2d, that the legislature may render itself independent of the people by whom it is elected, and betray their interests: 3d, that the authority of the President is too great, and is even dangerous to the development of democratic ideas and forces. The author concludes his work with the plan of a constitution which he thinks will be free from these defects. ”

“ Under these circumstances, no successful effort can be made; and I have collected from various sources, that the general idea of the French at present is, to wait till the new constitution appears, and to accept it, though it should be even more anarchical and tyrannic than the last. They then hope that the Convention will resign their power without violence, that a new election of representatives will take place, and that those representatives, who they intend shall be men of honesty and property, will restore them to the blessings of a moderate and permanent government. ”

“ Then, my friends, be sure of it, whatever the allied monarchs of Europe may do, whatever the plots of the royalists and priests, the Republic, the Revolution, France, will be saved without the sovereignty of the people having been violated in the person of a single one of its Representatives in the Commune or the Convention, even of those most opposed to new ideas ”

“ No government has been able to count on the national support if it became unfortunate, and ceased to gratify the national pride or vanity. The principles of 1789, avowedly accepted as the basis of his government by the Emperor, are destructive of the very sentiment of loyalty, and deny the obligation in conscience of the people to obey authority any longer than it suits their convenience. If a plebiscitum or the popular vote could create a legal government, Louis Napoleon was and is still the legal sovereign of the French people, and, through them, of France. ”

“ Yes, all power proceeds from the people, is instituted far the people; a constitutional monarchy is necessary for the French nation, as a guarantee of its liberty, and of its independence.
"Sire, while you shall be on the frontiers, at the head of the children of the country, the chamber of peers will concur with zeal in all the legislative measures, that circumstances may require, to compel foreigners to acknowledge the independence of the nation, and render the principles sanctioned by the will of the people triumphant at home. ”

“ The president replied to the king:—"The National Assembly having arrived at the termination of its career, enjoys, at this moment, the first fruit of its labours. Convinced that the government best suited to France is that which reconciles the respected prerogatives of the throne with the inalienable rights of the people, it has given to the state a constitution which equally guarantees royalty and liberty. ”

“ A constitutional law has been imposed on France, as easy to be eluded as revoked; and in the form of royal ordinances simply, without consulting the nation, without even hearing those bodies, become illegal, the phantoms of national representation. ”

“ The constitutional law of 1793 established the pure régime of the multitude: it not only recognised the people as the source of all power, but also delegated the exercise of it to the people; an unlimited sovereignty; extreme mobility in the magistracy; direct elections, in which every one could vote; primary assemblies, that could meet without convocation, at given times, to elect representatives and control their acts; a national assembly, to be renewed annually, and which, properly speaking, was only a committee of the primary assemblies; such was this constitution. ”

“ When analysed to its very source sovereignty rests on the individual alone; public power has authority only because the individual gives up a part of his natural liberty, supposed to be unlimited, and of which he can keep as much as seems good to him. Hence no constitutions abound so much as those of France in decided and emphatic assertions as to the rights of individual citizens. The chief leaning of the French constitution makers is all in this direction. ”

“ This led to the formation of a class of men who, though bound in many ways to the crown, were actually independent. Hence the tendency in the 18th century to create new and important functions under the form, not of offices, but of simple commissions.
In this period of the history of France were evolved and defined the essential principles of the old public law. There were, in the first place, the fundamental laws of the realm, which were true constitutional principles, established Fundamental laws of France. ”