President of the French Republic

“ Knowing well that the intentions of the executive towards the French republic had been at all times friendly, and entertaining a strong conviction that its conduct was liable to no just objection, the President had relied with confidence on early and candid communications, for the removal of any prejudices or misconceptions, which the passions of the moment might have occasioned. That the French government would be disappointed at the adjustment of those differences which had threatened to embroil the United States with Great Britain, could not be doubted ”

“ May this new lesson be studied and taken to heart by the revolutionists of the future."
"Malediction on the Conservative deputies! They deserve to be shot!"
"Our program contained in substance this: 'France is free, she wants a Constitution. She will accord to the provisional government no right but that to consult the nation. The people should not, and can not, alienate its sovereignty. No more royalty. Let the executive power be delegated to an elected President, responsible and subject to recall. The legislative power should be reposed in an Assembly elected by universal suffrage. ”

“ The president (see below, Law and Institutions) is elected for seven years, by a majority of votes, by the Senate and Chamber of Deputies sitting together as the National Assembly. Any French citizen may be chosen president, no fixed age being required. The only exception to this rule is that no member of a royal family which has once reigned in France can be elected. ”

“ Indeed, the ties uniting France and America have always been popular with us, and our public men have ever justly prized their great and valuable importance; but, in the present instance, the Prime Minister of the French Republic has desired to be personally represented. He, also, a patriot and a man of letters, cannot refrain from emotion when he recalls that page of our common history, when a countryman of ours with scanty means, but with vast courage and genius opened new lands and new prospects to the achievements of humanity. ”

“ The colors of France were presented to the president for his country, together with the letter of the French Committee of Safety to the Congress, at Washington's residence, in the presence of a large number of distinguished characters. Adet, in a speech on the occasion, presented in glowing colors the position of France as the great dispensatory of free opinions in the old world—as [Pg 386] “struggling not only for her own liberty, but for that of the human race. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It might well be, for he feels almost as strongly as a Frenchman as he does as a Russian, and I met no one in France who was so enthusiastic a republican as he. The present French Republic (which he insists is fundamentally and thoroughly different from the Republics of '93 and '48, as well as from that of the United States) seems to be his ideal government. In a century, he says, there won't be a king in Europe, except perhaps in England, and there he will be nothing but a pageant—a political mummy shown to the populace at so much a head. ”

“ Since the establishment of the republic, its enemies have been busy and vigilant, hoping to see democratic institutions discredited and the monarchy revived. But it is believed that each succeeding year of republican government in France strengthens the faith of the French people in their ability to govern themselves, and that the history of France as a monarchy is ended. ”

“ Although it is the earnest wish of our hearts that peace may be maintained with the French Republic and with all the world, yet we never will surrender those rights which belong to us as a nation; and whilst we view with satisfaction the wisdom, dignity, and moderation which have marked the measures of the Supreme Executive of our country in his attempt to remove by candid explanations the complaints and jealousies of France, we feel the full force of that indignity which has been offered our country in the rejection of its minister. ”

“ If they are right, what shall we think of all France? Does the reign of Napoleon III. serve only to illustrate the proverb, that among the blind the one-eyed man is a king?
The manner in which the French President became Emperor of the French has been much criticized. That some of his deeds, at the close of 1851, and in the early part of 1852, deserve censure, few of his intelligent admirers will be disposed to deny. His defence is, that it was impossible for him to act differently without forfeiting his life. ”

“ Executive of France made Chief of the State by the popular will, and protected, as the Executive of Great Britain is protected, in the interest of liberty and of the people, by the hereditary principle, might take this initiative and begin the great work of so distributing throughout France the administrative responsibilities and powers now concentrated at Paris as to make the French people for the first time really their own masters.
Certainly no executive holding power by any tenure less independent and secure can ever effect this. ”

“ It is thus a triumph for the President, who seems, on the whole, decidedly to have gained ground lately. Yet no real progress appears to have been yet made to a settlement of French difficulties, [Pg 139] except in so far as every month added to the existence of a new government, the result of a revolution, consolidates it, and enlists in its favor the conservative sentiment. ”

“ The mission of the President of France is to keep ambitious men and partisans at bay, and afford the best elements and the truest interests of all France a fair expression and the opportunity of forming a stable and suitable political government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The people are genuinely surprised if a ministry lasts six months. In the effort to establish a republic, two great fundamental mistakes—among others—are made. First, the French congress and government are held and administered in Paris, the very centre of boiling passions and the hotbed and school of every conflicting "ism" that arises to confound the good sense and prudence of mankind. The seat of government in a republic must be located away from the cosmopolitan influences of large cities. ”

“ For here is a man, known only by a foolish attempt to disturb France, to whom no party gives credit for either great or good qualities, raised to the highest dignity in the new Republic, one of the advantages of which was to be that men should rise by their own merits alone. The common language of Frenchmen, or at least of French Royalists on the subject, is that they consider his election as a step to the restoration of Monarchy--but it is a shabby way of making the step, or it may prove a false one. ”

“ The most ardent patriot could not maintain the choicest rights of his country with more zeal than was manifested in supporting all the claims of the French republic upon the United States. This conduct of the opposition increased the disposition of the French government to urge charges against that of this country, and the French minister regulated his proceedings accordingly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was the son of an Americanised Alsatian, and seems to have imported into his exercise of authority that valuable quality of well-reasoned idealism which has made his race one of the most precious constituent parts of the French nation. It must not be forgotten that an American President is first and foremost a man of action, exactly the reverse of the chief of the State in our European democracies ”

“ France seems to be lacking the few great men who could turn her course into better roads of national policy and prosperity. She has no real leaders. Nor is the nation united in its sympathies with a republican government. That form has no great, genuine lovers in France. They love their country, but not the political mantle which envelops it. Her leading men doubt whether it is the best form for the government of her people, or whether she should not be a monarchy. Democracies thrive upon the love and enthusiasm of the people. ”

“ In an ideal republic there should be no one whose name might not at any moment slip the memory of his fellows. Some sort of foreman there must be, for the State's convenience; but the more obscure he be, and the more automatic, the better for the ideal of equality. In the Republics of France and of America the President is of an extrusive kind. His office has been fashioned on the monarchic model, and his whole position is anomalous. He has to try to be ornamental as well as useful, a symbol as well as a pivot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A few elected men, chosen not by the rank and file of the citizens, but by a small party representing the privilege of riches, has decided upon the form of government for France and has offered the crown to Louis Philippe. ”

“ So great was the need felt by France for peace, repose, and independence, after these ten years of warfare and hard service, that in spite of her profound aversion for the Bourbons, their return was hailed with joy. The kingdom of 1814, a new usurpation of the sole, indivisible, indefeasable and inalienable sovereignty of the people, consecrated again the iniquitous principle of monarchy, against which the republican minority in vain protested. ”

“ It is never to be forgotten that in republican states the king has only a delegated sovereignty, that the people, as well as God, are above him. He holds his power, as the Emperor of the French professes to hold his, by the grace of God and the national will—the only title by which a king or emperor can legitimately hold power. ”