French government

“ 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. ”

“ Some people, reading the annals of forty-four years since the Franco-Prussian War, have been disposed to sneer at France. Some have called the country degenerate because of its small birth-rate, its fiction sometimes brutal, sometimes neurotic, its inefficient Parliament, its vindictive political and religious contests. Such critics should remember that the French Government is the result of tactical compromise in presence of the Monarchical Party. Nobody denies that it might be improved. ”

“ It is true, those who maintain that the goodness of all government consists in the goodness of the administration, may cite many particular instances in history, where the very same government, in different hands, has varied suddenly into the two opposite extremes of good and bad. Compare the French government under Henry III and under Henry IV. Oppression, levity, artifice, on the part of the rulers; faction, sedition, treachery, rebellion, disloyalty on the part of the subjects: these compose the character of the former miserable era. ”

“ These citizens have not hesitated a moment to accept the patriotic commission which is imposed upon them by the pressure of necessity. With the capital of France on fire, the justification for the present provisional government must be sought in the public safety. All France will understand this and will lend it the support of its patriotism. Under the popular government which the provisional government proclaims, every citizen is a magistrate. ”

“ A government can exist only by its principle. The principle of the French government evidently is to return to old maxims; and it should do this openly. In present circumstances, the Chambers, above all, will be fatal; they will inspire the King with false confidence, and will have no weight with the nation. ”

“ The establishment of any other government, whether in the person of——, or in a regency in the name of young Napoleon, or in any other individual, or in a republic, must lead to the maintenance of large military establishments, to the ruin of all the governments of Europe, till it shall suit the convenience of the French government to commence a contest which can be directed only against you, or others for whom we are interested. ”

“ The French government has just ordered a new levy of three hundred thousand men; the proclamations of the senate contain a challenge to the allied powers. They find themselves called on again to promulgate to the world the views by which they are guided in this present war, the principles which form the basis of their conduct, their wishes, and their intentions. ”

“ He knew that the French people were not yet ready to take and faithfully keep American liberty. He believed that in the school of constitutional government they would rapidly learn, and, in the fulness of time adopt its principles, and he gave them a king who was the popular choice, and surrounded him with the restraints of charter and an assembly of the people. ”

“ The chief, who is chosen informally by the men, serves for a period of four years under the sanction of the French government. He has very little to do in the exercise of his authority, for the people govern themselves, are law-abiding without law. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One class of men rallied en masse: the fools! They comprise the sound part of the Corps Législatif. It was to them that the head of the State addressed this little flattery:—"The first test of the Constitution, entirely of French origin, must have convinced you that we possess the qualities of a strong and a free government. We are in earnest, discussion is free, and the vote of taxation decisive. France possesses a government animated by faith and by love of the right, which is based upon the people, the source of all power ”

“ At the Revolution there were many Frenchmen who saw in federalism the only way to reconcile liberty and democracy, to establish government on contract, and to rescue the country from the crushing preponderance of Paris and the Parisian populace. ”

“ We have been constantly guided by this great truth: that the sovereignty dwells with the French people, and that it is for their interest, happiness, and glory that the Supreme Magistracy, the Senate, the Council of State, the Legislative Body, the Electoral Colleges, and the different branches of the Government, are and must be instituted. ”

“ This is why the French Republic is a success. Then in France and America they have found a solution for the difficult problem of the nation, that is the problem of succession of the government in power. The President of France is elected by the Parliament while the President of America is elected by the people. The people of these two countries are all experienced in self-government as a result of participation in political affairs. ”

“ To believe this, is to believe that the masses of the French people are essentially lovers of order, not of disorder; that they instinctively put the executive above the legislative function in their conceptions of a political hierarchy, and therefore that they are essentially fitted for self-government. ”

“ The French governmental structure, which was previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights. ”

“ The French nation, though strong, great and powerful when its parts are united, was then composed of royalists frankly devoted to the government of the restoration of ultra royalists, more so even than the King himself—and who wished the country to retrace its steps to principles, which good sense, time, healthy reason, and especially the revolutionary tempest, had most painfully refuted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The French Foreign Office, wishful to allay the anger of the Parisian mob clamouring for war with England, secured this admirable couple and sent them round the town. You cannot be amused at a thing, and at the same time want to kill it. The French nation saw the English citizen and citizeness—no caricature, but the living reality—and their indignation exploded in laughter. The success of the stratagem prompted them later on to offer their services to the German Government, with the beneficial results that we all know. ”

“ France possesses such enormous power, such internal energy, such a vast population that she may possibly spare another million & preserve or reacquire her liberty. Or, the form of the government being preserved, the independence of the legislature may be gradually recover'd. ”

“ Without order, there can be no administration, without administration, no credit, no money, but the ruin of the State and of individuals. A stop must be put to brigandage, to speculation, to social dissolution. What is France without a government? Thirty millions of grains of sand. Power is everything. ”

“ Whatever have been the changes of government in that great country—and many they have been, to be sure—we have seen a Convention, a Directorate, Consuls, and one Consul, and an Emperor, and the Restoration, and the Citizen King, and the Republic; Through all these different experiments centralization was the keynote of the institutions of France—power always centralized; omnipotence always vested somewhere. And, remarkable indeed, France has never yet raised one single man to the seat of power, who has not sacrificed his country's freedom to his personal ambition! ”

“ When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower. ”

“ What, then, is the confidence we are to derive either from the frame of the Government or from the character and past conduct of the person who is now the absolute ruler of France? Had we seen a man, of whom we had no previous knowledge, suddenly invested with the sovereign authority of the country; invested with the power of taxation, with the power of the sword, the power of war and peace, the unlimited power of commanding the resources, of disposing of the lives and fortunes of every man in France ”

“ According to this rule, the right and proper government for France is neither republican, nor military, nor doctrinaire, but that of a legitimate and constitutional monarchy. 390
When men hold office, bringing both power and wealth, consideration will of necessity follow. That the ministers and their friends, therefore, should be seen in pride of place, and enjoying the dignity they have achieved, is natural, inevitable, and quite as it should be. ”

“ The ambition of France is set upon self-government, but her capacity for it has still to be proved. For eighty years she has confounded revolution with liberty; will she now give proof of amendment and of wisdom? ”

“ If many of our countrymen approve the measures of France, and applaud them in their mad career of domination, I speak, with confidence, the body of our citizens entertain different opinions. Such will cordially join in protecting our government, and in supporting an energetic administration. ”

“ Hence the people of France, certainly, and perhaps of the whole south of Europe, are now prepared for the temperate enjoyment of liberty, under the administration of a regular government, for which they were totally unfitted in 1789. ”

“ While the study of great events shows us that the nominal government of France has been frequently changed in the space of a century, an examination of the little daily events will prove, on the contrary, that her real government has been little altered.
Who in truth are the real rulers of a people? Kings and ministers, no doubt, in the great crises of national life, but they play no part whatever in the little realities which make up the life of every day. ”

“ Thus the old reign of titles, orders, crosses, and an established Class of society, has begun once more; a large portion of the most influential personages of France are thus bound to the head of the government, the hopes of every man, however humble in soldiership or in science, are pointed to the attainment of this public honour, as well as personal provision, and the general purchase of power is virtually declared, with the general consent of this versatile nation. ”

“ The resistance which the members of the parliament of Paris made to the will of the King, does them the greatest honour. Indeed the lawyers in France have displayed more just and manly sentiments of government, and have made a nobler struggle against despotic power, than any set of men in the kingdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I forgot that governments are not to be founded on imitations or theories, and that they are perfect only as adapted to the genius, manners, and disposition of the people who are subject to them. Experience and maturer judgement have corrected my error, and I am perfectly convinced, that the old monarchical constitution of France, with very slight meliorations, was every way better calculated for the national character than a more popular form of government.
A critic, though not very severe, will discover many faults of style, even where the matter may not be exceptionable. ”

“ Of coarse, governments founded on a different and it may be an antagonistic principle with ours naturally feel a pleasure at our complications, and, it may be, wish our downfall; but in the end England and France will join with us in jubilation at the triumph of constitutional government over faction. ”

“ On the establishment of a Republican form of government in France in 1848, the President of the United States transmitted a message to Congress, in which he said: “We can never forget that France was our early friend in our eventful Revolution, and generously aided us in shaking off a foreign yoke and becoming a free and independent people. We have enjoyed the blessing of our system of well regulated self-government for nearly three-fourths of a century, and can properly appreciate its value. ”