Legislative Assembly of France

“ If the august Constituent Assembly itself, fixing the regards of the Universe, could, at the present distance of time and place, gain comparatively small attention from us, how much less can this poor Legislative! It has its Right Side and its Left; the less Patriotic and the more, for Aristocrats exist not here or now: it spouts and speaks: listens to Reports, reads Bills and Laws; works in its vocation, for a season: but the history of France, one finds, is seldom or never there. Unhappy Legislative, what can History do with it; if not drop a tear over it, almost in silence? ”

“ It began to fancy itself armed with powers of the highest kind. It began to imagine that it possessed all the authority of the English Parliament, forgetting that that assembly is charged with the legislative administration of the country, that it has the right to make laws and repeat laws, and that the monarch can do but little, comparatively speaking, without the support and sanction of this representative chamber; whereas, our own Parliament is but a tribunal of justice, with no control or influence over the royal authority or state affairs. ”

“ All the departments of France, without exception, paid the most unreserved submission to the decrees of the Assembly, or rather to those which the Community of Paris, and the insurgents, had dictated to that legislative body; so that the hour seemed arrived when the magistracy of Paris, supported by a democratic force, should, in the name and through the influence of the Assembly, impose its own laws upon France. ”

“ We who remain free number a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves in this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes, in the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to its duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us shelter there the popular sovereignty. ”

“ For instance, the constitution expanded the right of legislative initiative to include not only the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers but also the State Council, the permanent commissions of the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the chief prosecutor, and the district people's councils. The rationale was that the National Assembly is not a continuously sitting body so that its functions must, of necessity, be assigned to state bodies of a permanent nature. ”

“ You have been so intemperate in debate that moderation and forbearance is scarcely to be looked for without a new Assembly. Gentlemen, Parliament is dissolved. A new Parliament will be convened as soon as convenience will permit. My object in thus acting, is to preserve the true principles of the free and happy constitution of the Province." He turned with peculiar satisfaction from lecturing to the Assembly, to offer his acknowledgements to the gentlemen of the Legislative Council, for their unanimity, zeal, and unremitting attention to the public business, manifested in their proceedings. ”

“ The Senate can never for purposes of legislation consist of less than forty members, hereditary or others. To fulfil its judicial functions, at least thirty hereditary Senators are necessary.
The National Assembly shall always consist of four members for each department, eight for Paris, and four for each of the cities hereafter named, and of those to which the legislature shall grant a representation.
In great cities the citizens, who are not holders of property, have the stability necessary to form for themselves an opinion upon public affairs ”

“ Our parliamentary gentlemen began as humbly as those of England, and though, as I have said, their assembly was but a simple court of justice, limited in its jurisdiction like the other courts of the realm, to judge disputes between private people, yet by dint of hammering upon the word parliament they believed themselves not less important than their English brethren, who form the legislative assembly, and represent all the nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He exclaimed that the days of ferocious men were gone by, that the Assembly ought not to be so dishonoured as to be made to sit in judgment on Louis XVI., that no authority in France had that right, and the Assembly in particular had no claim to it; that if it resolved to act as a political body, it could do no more than take measures of safety against the ci-devant King ”

“ Mirabeau's fulminant words to him: exit De Brézé, fruitless and worse, 'amid seas of angry people.' All France on the edge of blazing out: Court recoils; Third Estate, other Two now joining it on order, triumphs, successful in every particular. The States-General are henceforth 'National Assembly'; called in Books distinctively 'Constituent Assembly'; that is. Assembly met 'to make the Constitution,'—perfect Constitution, under which the French People might realise their Millennium. ”

“ While in extreme cases there is no difficulty in deciding the question as to whether the practice of Congress determines the common parliamentary law, yet between these extremes there must necessarily be a large number of doubtful cases upon which there would be great difference of opinion, and to avoid the serious difficulties always arising from a lack of definiteness in the law, every deliberative assembly should imitate our legislative bodies in adopting Rules of Order for the conduct of their business. [1]
Plan of the Work. ”

“ Needless to say, the new Assembly was the most able, intelligent, honest and conservative legislature poor France had seen for many a day. It was composed of men of experience, property, education, integrity and reputation; men who were noted champions of society and of civilization. ”

“ Every measure of the Assembly must secure the approval of the Legislative Council, the members of which were appointed for life by the governor-general, and added to this the measure must then receive the royal assent before it became operative. ”

“ Elections: elections for National Assembly in August 1978, Assembly chose President and Vice President in October 1978; constitutional reforms allow Assembly to elect from its own membership representatives comprising two-thirds of the primary legislative organ, the National Council on Legislation; the remaining one-third of the Council's 56 representatives was chosen in September 1980 by direct popular elections ”

“ What does it matter how we are chosen, if, when we meet, we do not possess the powers necessary to enable us to perform the functions of a legislative assembly? Yet you who would turn out the present Ministers because they differ from each other as to the way in which Members of this House should be chosen, wish to bring in men who decidedly differ from each other as to the relation in which this House stands to the nation, to the other House, and to the Courts of Judicature. Will you say that the dispute between the House and the Court of Queen's Bench is a trifling dispute? ”

“ By the present constitution, you will see that no new law can be promulgated, unless decreed by the Legislative Body.
The votes in this assembly being taken by ballot, and the laws being enacted without any discussion, on the part of its members, on the plans debated before it by the orators of the Tribunate and of the government, it necessarily follows that the sittings present far less interest to strangers, than would result from an animated delivery of the opinion of a few leading orators. ”

“ And that, finally, by his refusal to reply to the last dispatches of the king of France, he leaves no hope of obtaining, by way of friendly negotiation, the redress of these several grievances,—which is equivalent to a declaration of war;—the Assembly decrees that immediate action is urgent. ”

“ That it adopts in advance all foreigners who, abjuring the cause of its enemies, shall range themselves under its banners and consecrate their efforts to the defense of liberty; and that it will promote by all means in its power their settling in France. ”

“ Firm purpose of the French to make no conquests.The National Assembly proclaims that the French nation, faithful to the principles consecrated by its constitution, “not to undertake any war with a view to conquest nor ever to employ its forces against the liberty of any people,” only takes up arms for the maintenance of its liberty and independence ”

“ The French Princes, it is true, have been absolute; still I never governed despotically, but always by the advice of my counsellors and Cabinet Ministers. If they have erred, my conscience is void of reproach. I wish the National Assembly may govern for the future with equal prudence, equity, and justice; but they have given a poor earnest in pulling down one fabric before they have laid the solid foundation of another. ”

“ Every assembly is divided into parties and into sections of parties, and in France each party, almost every section of a party, begins not to clamour but to scream, and to scream as only Frenchmen can, as soon as it hears anything which it particularly dislikes. With an Assembly in this temper, real discussion is impossible, and Parliamentary Government is impossible too, because the Parliament can neither choose men nor measures. ”

“ The Legislative Council was to consist of 48 members, elected by large constituencies voting under a £20 property franchise. The Legislative Assembly was to consist of 103 members, elected by the existing constituencies under the existing franchise. In cases of disagreement between the two Houses, it was proposed that, either after a dissolution or after a period of two years, the Houses were to vote together, and that the majority vote should decide the matter. ”

“ Besides, a legislative assembly, which is sure to be separated again, and its members soon return to private life, will feel its own interests, as well as duties, bound up with those of the community at large. ”

“ Organic laws relating to the Senate must be passed in the same terms by both assemblies. Organic laws may be promulgated only when the Constitutional Council has certified their conformity with the Constitution. Article 47. An organic law lays down the conditions in which Parliament votes Finance Bills. If the National Assembly has not concluded its first reading within forty days from the introduction of the Bill, the Government sends the Bill to the Senate, which must reach a decision within a fortnight. Subsequent procedure is that provided for in Article 45. ”

“ At the first blush, there seems no earthly reason why the legislative business of the nation should not be got over during the day, or, at the outside, before the night were spent. The French Deputies, Conventionalists, or Representatives in the National Assembly, in their stormiest and most prolonged debates, seldom heard the chimes at midnight; and, ardent parliamentarians as are the Americans, it is only towards the immediate close of the session that Congress keeps for two or three days and nights a sort of Saturnalia of untimely sittings. ”

“ The Assembly, after declaring the country in danger, had authorised the sections of Paris, as well as the administrative authorities throughout France, to meet at any moment. The sections had, in consequence, been able to render themselves entirely independent of the municipality. In each of the sectional or primary assemblies from 700 to 3,000 active citizens had the right to vote, but few cared to attend, and thus it constantly happened that a small active minority spoke and acted in the name of an apathetic constitutional majority. ”