The Republic

“ If the government of the Republic picked him saying, "You are wanted, your country takes you"— if the Republic put a stethoscope to his heart and looked at his teeth and tested his eyes and said, "You are a citizen of the Republic and a sound [Pg 43] animal in all parts and functions—the Republic takes you"— then to-day the baskets of flowers are all for the Republic, the roses, the songs, the steamboat whistles, the proclamations of the honorable orators— they are all for the Republic. ”

“ Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward" ”

“ The patriot, the philosopher, and the statesman, look to this spot, where the legislative authority of the Republic has an uncontrolled operation, for that perfect system of laws, which shall at once develope the wisdom of the government, and display the justice and benevolence of its policy. ”

“ The Republic (like the Politikus) presents to us the march of society with its Principal Cause — its concurrent or Auxiliary Causes — and its inferior governable mass or matter, the human flock, indispensable and co-essential as a part of the whole scheme. ”

“ Let this House, let the constituted authorities declare that will—let them declare "the Republic to be in danger," and thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow-citizens will rally round the standard of their country, resolved to support her rights, avenge her wrongs, or perish in her ruin. ”

“ So underneath the laws and the institutions of each modern nation, underneath the monarchy and the republic, there is another and unseen State, with sentiments not yet become popular, and with ideas not yet confirmed in actions, not organized into institutions, ideas scarcely legal, certainly not respectable. ”

“ The Empire has yielded to the Monarchy, the Monarchy to the Republic, the Republic to the Empire again, and that once more to the Republic, but the Code which embodies the principle of equality before the law has remained. Fundamentally the social equilibrium has been stable. ”

“ Enlightened freedom, governed and secured by law, upholds the fabric of the Constitution; salubrious streams issuing from education and patriotism, consecrated by religion, mingle with each other, and unite in diffusing fertility through every channel of the state. ”

“ As there is no possibility of establishing the monarchy, as no candidate acceptable to all can be found, it is necessary, it is indispensable to get rid of the suspense, and I say that we should establish a republic. Have you not said that the forms of government are accidental? Gentlemen, you know the republic I want. It is a federal republic. I shall aways defend the federal republic. I am a federal, but, deputies, understand one thing: the republic is a form of government which admits many conditions, and which has many grades. ”

“ To a philosophical observer of the Republic, at the end of the hundred years, I should say that the important facts are not its industrial energy, its wealth, or its population, but the stability of the federal power, and the integrity of the individual States. ”

“ For the privilege of being robbed and beaten in the name of laws we never heard of and which we had no part in making, though this country is called a Republic! A Republic!—Bah!—A Republic where more than half the people cannot read! ”

“ On its ruins the Republic has been established anew, and now it reckons in its service and among its champions the best intellects and the noblest characters in France; while the masses of the people, taught by the bitter lessons of adversity, are also content to enjoy the benefits of ordered liberty and peaceful progress under its benign sway. ”

“ In this Republic the highest conservative influence consists in the traditional veneration by the people of the principles which justified our existence as an independent nation, and of the ideals for the gradual realization of which the Republic was founded. ”

“ Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight; the Empire, a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where he had expected to find only a chaos of shadows, he had beheld, with a sort of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars sparkling, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint-Just, Robespierre, Camille, Desmoulins, Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. ”

“ Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics? ”

“ I rejoice that liberty, which you have so long embraced with enthusiasm—liberty, of which you have been the invincible defenders—now finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized government; [Pg 388] a government which, being formed to secure the happiness of the French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States by its resemblance to their own. ”

“ Sovereignty, under God, inheres in the organic people, or the people as the republic; and every organic people fixed to the soil, and politically independent of every other people, is a sovereign people, and, in the modern sense, an independent sovereign nation. ”

“ "A song for our banner?"—The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand—divided we fall!"—
It made and preserves us a nation! ”

“ The change which four years of civil war have wrought in the nation is great, and is sure to give it the seriousness, the gravity, the dignity, the manliness it has heretofore lacked.
Though the nation has been brought to a consciousness of its own existence, it has not, even yet, attained to a full and clear understanding of its own national constitution. ”

“ I believe in our Government of the People, by the People and for the People, a government whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a Sovereign Nation of many Sovereign States, a Democracy in a Republic, a perfect Union, one and inseparable. ”

“ I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed.
The State arises out of the wants of men. A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined? ”

“ The republic of France; may the shores of Great Britain soon hail the tri-colored standard, and the people rend the air with shouts of 'Long live the republic!' The republic of France; may her navy clear the ocean of pirates, that the common high way of nations may no longer, like the highways of Great Britain, be a receptacle for robbers. The republic of France; may all free nations learn of her to transfer their attachment from men to principles, and from individuals to the people. ”

“ Behold a republic, gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor to the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes—a republic whose history like the path of the just—"is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." ”

“ And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. ”

“ When that comes about, the Republic will be in danger, because the permanence and usefulness of the Republic rests upon the controlling influence of men of intelligence, experience, patriotism and character. ”

“ In one word, we mean to build up a Republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful than any state history tells us of; a Republic having within itself all that can make a people great, good, and happy, and being so strong, that its pleasure will be consulted before any power on earth will undertake to disturb the peace of the world. [Loud cheering.] This, my Lord John Russell, is the Empire we are fighting for, and this Empire we mean to have. ”

“ But those who are most afraid, or most decidedly aristocrates, subjoin to their registers, "All good republicans:" or, "Vive la republique, une et indivisible." ["The republic, one and indivisible for ever!"] Some likewise, who are in public offices, or shopkeepers who are very timid, and afraid of pillage, or are ripe for a counter-revolution, have a sheet half the size of the door, decorated with red caps, tri-coloured ribbons, and flaming sentences ending in "Death or Liberty!" ”

“ A great Republic, composed of different States, whose interest in all respects could not be perfectly compatible, then came deliberately forward, discarded one system of government and adopted another, without the loss of one man's blood. ”

“ Behold a republic increasing in population, in wealth, in strength and in influence, solving the problems of civilization and hastening the coming of an universal brotherhood—a republic which shakes thrones and dissolves aristocracies by its silent example and gives light and inspiration to those who sit in darkness. ”

“ I was reared under the Empire, in love for the Republic. ‘She is justice,’ my father, professor of rhetoric at the college of Saint-Omer, used to say to me. He did not know her. She is not justice, but she is ease. Monsieur l’abbé, if you had a soul less exalted, less serious, and more given to jesting thoughts, I should confide to you that the present Republic, the Republic of 1896, delights me and touches me by its modesty. She acquiesces in163 not being admired. She exacts but a trifling respect, and even renounces esteem. It is enough for her to live. That is her sole desire ”

“ If from any source evil should come to this little republic, in the patriotic words of its latest historian, “Generations will point to the spot where it arose and flourished, and will say, Here once lived a free, self-governing people, a small but active republic, with remarkable institutions, with a famous and memorable history.” ”

“ Behold a republic, in which civil and religious liberty stimulate all to earnest endeavour and in which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a neighbour's injury—a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign, but in which no one cares to wear a crown. ”

“ As this conviction penetrates the mass of the people, they are converted to the new political faith, and so the Republic begins to settle itself on sure foundations. It is all the more likely to be permanent, because it was not adopted in a burst of popular enthusiasm, but very slowly, and from necessity. ”

“ The great and common cause of the Revolution bound them to one another by new links of brotherhood; and at length the present constitution of government united them happily and gloriously, to form the great republic of the world, and bound up their interests and fortunes, till the whole earth sees that there is now for them, in present possession as well as in future hope, but "One Country, One Constitution, and One Destiny." ”

“ Oh, this blessed Republic of ours stretches its hand down to men, and lifts them up, while despotism puts its heavy hand on their heads and presses them down! This blessed Republic of ours speaks to every boy in the land, black or white, rich or poor, and asks him to come up higher and higher. You remember that boy out here on the prairie, the son of a widowed mother, poor, neglected perhaps by all except the dear old mother. ”

“ How novel, how grand the spectacle—independent states stretched over an immense territory, and known only by common difficulty, clinging to their Union as the rock of their safety, deciding by frank comparison of their relative condition to rear on that rock, under the guidance of reason, a common government, through whose commanding protection liberty and order, with their long train of blessings, should be safe to themselves and the sure inheritance of their posterity! ”

“ With reference to the establishment of government by the people and the various administrative measures to be drawn up, I am most anxious to exert my utmost strength in spreading and supporting the republican spirit; to scour out the flaws and filth of autocratic rule; to observe the constitutional laws in accordance with the will of the people; and to associate our State with peaceable and powerful countries, so that the five great members [1] of our nation may one and all derive happiness and profit therefrom. ”

“ You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. ”

“ It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR A FAVORED CLASS OF IT: otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of Republic. ”

“ Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honor?—I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man ”