States General of the First French Republic

“ 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swept from the face of Europe, to be followed by a republican constitution, which has in its turn been crushed and superseded.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 ”

“ Some of the bravest and best under the French monarchy helped to establish the reign of popular liberty in the United States, and there can be no question but that the French Revolution was accomplished in part as a result of what had been seen and done on this side of the Atlantic on behalf of the civil rights of the people; but the founders of the first republic in France had no complete foundation on which to build a fabric firm and lasting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Last autumn the third French republic completed the second decade of its checkered existence, and has thus proved itself to be the most long-lived government which France has known since the advent of the great Revolution a century ago. No previous government has been able to stand eighteen years, so that the present republic has outstripped all its predecessors, whether republican, imperial, or monarchical, leaving even the most fortunate of them two or three years behind, and bidding fair to increase the distance indefinitely. ”

“ They trust that this interest will not fail to be recognized by the powers, whose aid is solicited, and that in consequence they will not refuse to employ, in conjunction with their said majesties, the most efficient means in proportion to their resources to place the King of France in a position to establish, with the most absolute freedom, the foundations of a monarchical form of government, which shall at once be in harmony with the rights of sovereigns and promote the welfare of the French nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Although the first and most ardent wish of our hearts is that peace may be maintained with the French Republic and with all the world, yet we can never 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 its attempts 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. ”

“ France had no sooner established a republican form of government than she manifested a desire to force its blessings on all the world. Her own historian informs us that, hearing of some petty acts of tyranny in a neighboring principality, "the National Convention declared that she would afford succor and fraternity to all nations who wished to recover their liberty, and she gave it in charge to the executive power to give orders to the generals of the French armies to aid all citizens who might have been or should be oppressed in the cause of liberty." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The House will recollect the first professions of the French Republic, which are enumerated, and enumerated truly, in that note. They are tests of every thing which would best recommend a government to the esteem and confidence of foreign powers, and the reverse of every thing which has been the system and practice of France now for near ten years. It is there stated that their first principles were love of peace, aversion to conquest, and respect for the independence of other countries. ”

“ The French Revolution was an uprising of the middle classes. Its great leaders in the earlier stages were Mirabeau, son of a baron, and America's own friend the Marquis Lafayette. Even the King, Louis XVI, at least partly approved the movement. The States-General was summoned in 1789 after an interval of nearly two centuries, to decide on the best way of relieving the country from its financial embarrassments. This gathering was soon resolved into a National Assembly which insisted on giving France a constitution, making it a limited instead of an absolute monarchy. ”

“ No country, indeed, has had so many legislative and governing assemblies as France, which until the Revolution was as nearly as possible an absolute monarchy. The States-General, under the ancient régime, were convoked from time to time by the king, but had no real power. The most that can be said in their favour is that they at least preserved among the people the idea of popular representation. ”

“ All who enjoyed political rights entered, each in his turn, the Councils of the Republic, and sooner or later nearly all rose to power. This made it necessary that the States should have very circumscribed borders, as otherwise it would have been impossible to govern them at all. The French Revolution, by achieving for the first time, in behalf of the nation at large, what the Italian communes had effected for the cities, was able to proclaim the civil and political equality of all who formed part of the nation, and who were in consequence to be recognised as citizens. ”

“ For, while the Americans had been hammering away at their Constitution, and making a new nation out of raw material, the French had risen against the tyranny of their king, and had declared France a Republic. And when many of the European countries joined together to fight France, and force them to take back their king, the French people looked to the sister Republic across the Atlantic for help. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whatever may have been the character of the men who legislated for France afterward, no thoughtful student of history can deny, despite all the arguments and sneers of reactionary statesmen and historians, that few more keen-sighted legislative bodies have ever met than this first French Constitutional Assembly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Napoleon is emperor by the will of the French people, and governs only by the authority of the French nation, which is as competent to revoke the powers it has conferred on him, when it judges proper, as it was to confer them. The Union exists and governs, if the States are sovereign, only by the will of the State, and she is as competent to revoke the powers she has delegated as she was to delegate them. The Union, as far as she is concerned, is her creation, and what she is competent to make she is competent to unmake. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before we address ourselves to the question which is before us, it is as well to dispose of one or two points connected with the current History of France. Radicals and Republicans will have some difficulty in persuading intelligent observers of facts that all non-Democratic Frenchmen are unpatriotic in keeping out of their range altogether, instead of strengthening the hands of the present Republican Government by ungrudgingly accepting what some dare term an established Republic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A current of popular favor sustained the French revolution, at that stage of its progress, which nothing could resist, and far from indulging any question of the right of the President to recognize a new revolutionary government, by receiving from it the credentials which none but sovereigns can grant, the American people would, at that moment, have scarcely endured an instant of hesitation on the part of the President, which should have delayed for an hour the reception of the minister from the republic of France. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Let us rest firm in the assurance that, despite these eclipses, the star of the Republic will yet rise over France, over the world, and our children will yet greet the appearance of the United States of Europe, the Universal Republic. ”

“ From these citations, we are warranted in the inference that the members of the Constituent Assembly in its earlier period regarded the monarchy as the natural and the most suitable form of government for France. On the question of the division of powers, the number of chambers, the elective or hereditary kingship, the absolute or limited veto, there were differences of opinion; but national tradition and personal attachment to Louis XVI. were of sufficient force to bar any discussion of other possible forms for the executive branch. ”