Political revolution

“ The political revolutions also at that time were chiefly only communal revolutions. It was as a matter of course impossible to transform the whole social life of a great territory by a political revolution. ”

“ I wish it therefore to be considered as my humble opinion, that what, in political slang, is termed Radical Reform, is, in reality, proximate revolution:—Universal Suffrage, inextinguishable uproar:—and Annual Parliaments, periodical bloodshed. ”

“ According to our definition of the term, as stated in our statement in the Assembly Bomb Case, revolution means the complete overthrow of the existing social order and its replacement with the socialist order. ”

“ Speech at Saratoga
We are, my friends, in the midst of a great movement of the people. That a revolution in public sentiment on some important questions of public policy has begun, and is in progress, it is vain to attempt to conceal, and folly to deny. What will be the extent of this revolution, what its immediate effects upon political men and political measures, what ultimate influence it may have on the integrity of the Constitution, and the permanent prosperity of the country, remains to be seen. ”

“ You must not fail to bear in mind that the great Revolution, as it came in America, was not a revolution at all in the political sense in which all former revolutions in the popular interest had been. ”

“ For, with the fall of the ancient governments which rested like an incubus upon the people of the central empires, has come political change not merely, but revolution; and revolution which seems as yet to assume no final and ordered form. ”

“ You will have it largely in your power to relieve the people of the morbid apprehensions that the passage of the Government from one party to another involves all the perilous chances of a great revolution. ”

“ Action, action is the motto of our land. This the effect of a cause,—that cause the Revolution. It changed alike men and the opinion of nations upon the subject of sovereignty. Mental, physical, political, speculative, and financial revolutions are all the results of one great cause,—a241 cause bearing date 1776. Here we are; here in the post-office, one of the branches of the General Government. This is the little world of letters, this the index to the inner history of man. ”

“ It is important to bear in mind that the statesmen of our Revolution were inaugurating a political and not a social revolution, and that the gravamen of their protest was against the authority of a distant crown. ”

“ By a phenomenon of contagion from below, of which history affords us more than one example, the doctrine finally invaded the upper strata of the nation, but it was a long time before an emperor considered the new faith sufficiently widespread to be adopted as the official religion.
4. The Results of Political Revolutions.
When a political party is triumphant it naturally seeks to organise society in accordance with its interests. The organisation will differ accordingly as the revolution has been effected by the soldiers, the Radicals, or the Conservatives, &c. ”

“ The revolution of America presented in politics what was only theory in mechanics. So deeply rooted were all the governments of the old world, and so effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit established itself over the mind, that no beginning could be made in Asia, Africa, or Europe, to reform the political condition of man. Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. ”

“ In the second place, government should be based upon the consent of the governed....
In the third place, the people have a duty as well as a right to carry on revolution as the last resort in stopping tyranny.... Revolution is regarded as a natural blessing; it guards against tyranny and promotes the vitality of the people. ”

“ I shall describe the political and social revolution by which in a few months a nation of grand8 promise, and with a history unequalled for its century of growth and achievement, was transformed into the most pitiful wreck of all time. ”

“ Well, I ask the impartial reader, is it not childishness, and more than that, dangerous childishness? Is it not inevitable that we shall have revolution after revolution, if there is a determination never to stop till this contradiction is realised:--"To give nothing to Government and to receive much from it?" ”

“ For, you must know that revolution means action. It means a change brought about deliberately by an organized and systematic work, as opposed to sudden and unorganised or spontaneous change or breakdown. ”

“ and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the political horizon the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet, seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all concurred to lead many able men into the opinion, that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind. ”

“ That is why, says the philosopher, all parties, without exception, as they affect power, are varieties of absolutism, and there will only be liberty for the citizens, order for society, union among the workers, when the renunciation of authority will have replaced in the political catechism faith in authority. ”

“ and the French revolution will be found to have had great influence on the strength of parties, and on the subsequent political transactions of the United States. ”

“ The only thing that is legitimate, now, and holy, and sacred, is the Revolution. By this article, the government was declared revolutionary; power put under the feet of the people; authority subordinated, not to its own principles, but to the judgment of opinion. ”

“ The aim of the Revolution was to abolish privileges and establish rights,— to give every man lot and part in shaping the government under which he lives. These republican ideas and principles have, on the whole, notwithstanding repeated reverses, gained ground; for revolutions never move backward. ”

“ There is a wide diversity in social situations, from rock-ribbed stability, to entire communities teetering on the brink or plunging over the brink into the maelstrom of revolution. Such diverse situations have existed again and again during the 1750-1970 revolutionary epoch. 4. When a revolutionary situation develops, a revolutionary leader well-established in a community trembling on the brink of a revolutionary overturn may seize the reins of power and establish a regime founded on opposition principles, dedicated to another set of principles and practices. ”

“ The official orators of the Sesquicentennial will portray the revolutionary fathers as demigods, the revolution as a glorious vindication of the eternal rights of man, the institutions created as classless and eternal and unimprovable. ”

“ Now since France has three times in sixty years failed to obtain practical results from Political revolutions, all Europe is apt to press forward into new Social doctrine to regulate the future. ”

“ The intensity and the direction of the social changes which radiate out from the climax of a revolutionary situation and the consequent, subsequent attempts at counter-revolution, are the outcome of active, purposive intervention by all of the social groups present at the center of revolutionary activity. ”

“ So great a change of condition would have involved a thorough and radical revolution, both socially and politically — a revolution much more radical, indeed, than that which followed the Declaration of Independence. ”

“ With all the machinery of a republic and with an excellent constitution and laws on paper, a change of rulers is usually effected by a revolution as that seems to be the only way the will of the people can be determined. ”

“ Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man’s rights and the fountain of honor. Now, gentlemen, it is well clearly to comprehend what is meant by a country not having a revolution for two centuries. ”

“ The supreme condition for the seizure of State power by a revolutionary organization - a condition which has come to be regarded as self evident, as a sine qua non is a revolutionary situation, a revolution. ”

“ In the seventeenth century therefore, as in the thirteenth, the forms stood ready to be again clothed with a new life, to supply the means for another revolution, again at once conservative and progressive. ”

“ Certainly leveling influences were at work, and the people as a whole had moved one step farther in the direction of equality and democracy, and it was well that the Revolution was not any more radical and revolutionary than it was. ”

“ They were inspired by the great causes of the time; and the government which they set up has left us without any ordinary, peaceful means of bringing men like them into public life. We should like to have more like them, but the violent exercise of revolution is too big a price to pay for them. ”

“ It is not a reform in our government that we need, but a revolution — an overthrow of the present one, and the establishment of a new one. Supposing a few individuals should be hung as traitors, would not that create a sympathy for us among the governments of the old world? ”

“ With the evolution of the democratic idea into the second or positive phase, it was recognized that the transfer of the supreme power from king and nobles to people meant not merely a change in the forms of government, but a fundamental revolution in the whole idea of government, its motives, purposes, and functions--a revolution equivalent to a reversal of polarity of the entire social system, carrying, so to speak, the entire compass card with it, and making north south, and east west. ”

“ But there is no beginning de novo in politics, and the revolutions wrought by men who would give the world an entirely fresh start (to be distinguished from mere changes of dynasty, such as our English Revolution was) have their sandy foundations washed away by the floods of reaction. ”

“ I can see no hope for a better day until our elections shall pass into the hands of men and women of culture and refinement—until some leader shall arise with powers and abilities to bring about a revolution. ”

“ Office-seekers are full of tricks and intrigues of every kind to get an office, and then the people may—and be damned.
The progress of revolution is quite considerable in every government of the world. But is the revolution for the constitutional rights of the people in progress? ”

“ But the leaders, even in the days before the war, had brought the idea of revolution to the masses and fostered it, and the Social Democracy had been, from time immemorial, openly hostile to the earlier, monarchical form of government, and had worked systematically toward eliminating it. ”

“ Casting a glance around the world, the Civiltá showed that everywhere what it calls the revolution, what we call representative government, was becoming ruinous, and the old Catholic ideal of government regaining its place in the mind of the thoughtful. ”

“ All revolutions create alongside of the regularly constituted government their own unconstitutional, extra-legal revolutionary authority that unites the revolutionists, mobilizes their forces for resistance to the legal authority and forms the germ of the future government if the revolution succeeds. ”

“ It was here that I proposed, for the first time, and in an affirmative manner, to carry out the Revolution from below, by making an appeal to the reason and to the interest of each citizen, and by demanding of power only the notoriety and the impulse which it alone, today, is capable of giving to an idea. ”

“ Revolution by the initiative of the masses is revolution by the concert of citizens, by the experience of workers, for progress and the dissemination of knowledge, revolution for liberty. Condorcet, Turgot, Robespierre, sought revolution from below, true democracy. ”

“ Civil war, again, is distinguished from revolution, and we distinguish between revolution from above and revolution from below. Reaction is a form of revolution, for reaction is the counter-revolution. ”

“ To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers, and to preserve in spirit, as well as in form, a system of government we believed to be peculiarly fitted to our condition, and full of promise for mankind, we determined to make a new association, composed of States homogeneous in interest, in policy, and in feeling. ”

“ We all know that civil institutions are established for the public benefit, and that when they cease to answer the ends of their existence they may be changed. But I do not understand the doctrine now contended for to be that, which, for the sake of distinction, we may call the right of revolution. ”

“ It is an acknowledged fact, that every revolution requires a provisional power to regulate its disorganizing movements, and to direct the methodical demolition of every part of the ancient social constitution.— Such ought to be the revolutionary power. ”