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BOOK VI: On Coups d’Etat - Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments [1815]

Edition used:

Principles of Politics Applicable to a all Governments, trans. Dennis O’Keeffe, ed. Etienne Hofmann, Introduction by Nicholas Capaldi (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003).

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


BOOK VI

On Coups d’Etat

  • Ch. 1. On the admiration for coups d’Etat. 85
  • Ch. 2. On coups d’Etat in countries with written constitutions. 89
  • Ch. 3. The condition necessary to stop constitutional violations. 93

chapter one

On the Admiration for Coups d’Etat

Across the centuries people have been agreed in their admiration for certain examples of expeditious illegality and political outrage. To admire these at one’s leisure, one considers them in isolation, as if the facts which followed them did not form part of their consequences. The Gracchi,1 so it is said, were endangering the Roman Republic. All established legal forms were impotent. Twice the Senate had recourse to the terrible law of necessity and the Republic was saved. The Republic was saved, that is to say that its loss must be dated from this period. All rights were ignored; all constitutionality overturned. The people, in terror one minute, soon resumed their claims, now fortified by vengeance. They had demanded no more than equal privileges; they now vowed that the murderers of their champions should be punished. The ferocious Marius came to preside over this vengeance. Catilina’s accomplices were in irons. It was feared that other sympathizers might release them. Cicero2 had them put to death without trial; and people constantly praise him for his prudence. To be sure, the fruits of his prudence and swift and illegal measures were at least short-lived. Caesar gathered Catilina’s supporters around him and Rome’s freedom died even before Cicero.3 But if he had struck Caesar, Anthony was there; and behind Anthony [106] were yet others. The ambitions of the Guises much disturbed the reign of Henry III. It seemed impossible to bring them to trial. Henry had one of them murdered. Did his reign thereby become more peaceful? He was murdered himself. Twenty years of civil wars tore the French realm apart. For perhaps forty years afterward the admirable Henry IV bore the burden of the crime of the last Valois. In crises of this kind the guilty souls who are killed are never more than few in number. Others keep quiet, hide, and wait. They take advantage of the indignation which violence has repressed in people’s minds, and of the consternation which seeming injustice spreads among law-abiding souls. In casting off the law, the government has lost both its legal character and its greatest asset; and when it is attacked by factions with weapons similar to its own, the mass of citizens may be divided, for it seems to them they have only a choice between two factions. The interests of the State, the dangers of delay, public well-being: if you accept these lofty excuses, these specious words, every government or party will see the interests of the State in the destruction of its enemies, the dangers of delay in an hour spent pondering, and public safety in a condemnation without trial or proof.

When the presumed leaders of a conspiracy cannot be tried without fear that the people will release them, then the disposition of this people is such that punishing the leaders of this conspiracy is pointless. In this frame of mind the people will not be lacking in leaders. People speak casually of the effectiveness of coups d’Etat and of that expeditiousness which, by not giving factions time to get their bearings, reaffirms the authority of governments and the constitution of sovereign realms; yet history affords us not a single example of illegal stringencies producing a lasting salutary effect.

Doubtless political societies face moments of danger any degree of human prudence will find hard to avert. Such dangers, however, simply cannot be averted by violence and injustice, by bringing back the chaos of the state of savagery into the social state. On the contrary, this requires our adhering more scrupulously than ever to the established laws and to the tutelary observances and legal guarantees which protect us. Two advantages result from this courageous persistence in what is just and legal. Governments leave to their enemies all the odium [107] of impropriety and the violation of the most sacred laws. They also win, by the calm and security to which they bear witness, the trust of that timorous mass, who would remain at least undecided if extraordinary and arbitrary measures by the authorities showed that they felt there was a pressing danger. Finally, it must be said, it is sometimes decreed by destiny, that is to say by the inexorable chain of causes and effects, that a government must die, when its institutions form too great a contrast with the mores, habits, and outlooks of those it governs. There are, however, certain actions which the love of life cannot legitimize in individuals. It is the same with governments, and perhaps we will cease calling this simple moral rule simple-minded if we stop to reflect that it is fortified by an experience confirmed in the history of all nations. When a government has no other means than illegal measures to prolong its stay, these measures delay its fall only for a little while, and the overthrow it thought to prevent operates then with all the more misfortune and shame. My advice to those in power will always be: above all act justly, for if the existence of your power is not compatible with justice, then your power is not worth the trouble of conserving. Be just, for if you cannot live with justice, however hard you try with injustice, you will not last long.

I agree that this applies only to governments, whether republican or monarchist, claiming to rest on reasonable principles and affecting a show of moderation. A despotism like that of Constantinople can benefit from violating constitutional proprieties. Its very existence violates them permanently. It has perpetually to rain down blows on innocent and guilty alike. It condemns itself to live in fear of the accomplices it enlists, flatters, and enriches. It subsists by coups d’Etat until a coup d’Etat brings its own death at the hands of its henchmen. Any [108] moderate government, however, any wishing to rest on a system of proper order and justice, loses its way by any suspension of justice or any deviation from proper order. As it is in its nature to grow milder sooner or later, its enemies wait for just such a time to take advantage of memories which will do it damage. Violence seemed to save it for a moment. In fact it made its end the more inevitable, because in delivering it from certain adversaries it extended to everyone the hatred these adversaries bore it.

Many men see the causes of the day’s events only in the acts of the day before. Thus, when violence, having produced a momentary stupor, is followed by a reaction which destroys the effect of this stupor, these men attribute this reaction to ending the violent measures, to insufficient proscriptions, and to the government’s relaxing its grip. It seems to them that even more injustice would have prolonged the government’s life.4 This is like the reasoning of those bandits who are sorry they did not kill the travelers who denounce them, not stopping to think that murderers too are sooner or later discovered. It is in the nature of iniquitous decrees, however, to fall into disuse. Justice alone is stable. It is the nature of government to soften naturally, even without knowing it. Precautionary measures which have become odious are weakened and neglected. Public opinion counts despite its silence; power bends. But because it bends out of weakness rather than moderating itself for just reasons, it does not reconcile hearts to itself. Conspiracies begin anew and hatreds accumulate. The innocent victims of despotism reemerge stronger. The guilty condemned without trial seem innocent. The evil which was held back a few hours returns worse still, aggravated by the evil which has been done.

No, there is no excuse for means which serve all intentions and purposes alike, means which, invoked by good men against brigands, are found again in the words of brigands bearing the authority of good men, with the same apologia: necessity; and the same pretext: public well-being.

[109] The law of Valerius Publicola, which permitted the summary killing of anyone aspiring to tyrannical rule, on condition that the necessary evidence for the accusation would then be submitted, was a tool in turn of aristocratic and popular fury and brought down the Roman Republic.5

To permit society, that is, those in whom political power is invested, to violate legal proprieties is to sacrifice the very end one has in view to the means one uses. Why do we want the government to repress those who would attack our property, our freedom, or our lives? So that our lives, freedom, and wealth are secure. But if our wealth can be destroyed, our freedom threatened, our lives harassed by despotism, what assured good are we deriving from government protection? Why do we want government to punish would-be conspirators against the constitution of the State? Because we fear these conspirators will substitute an oppressive State for a lawful and moderate one. But if the government itself exercises this oppressive power, in what way is it better than the guilty people it punishes? Perhaps there is de facto superiority for a while, since the arbitrary measures of an established government will be less extensive than those of factions which have to establish their power; but this very advantage is lost progressively if governments act arbitrarily. Not only does the number of their enemies multiply in line with the number of their victims; but suspicion grows out of all proportion to the number of their enemies. One blow against individual freedom calls forth others. Once the government enters this fatal road, it finishes soon by being in no way preferable to a faction.

Almost all men have a mania for parading themselves as something more than they are. The mania writers have is for showing themselves to be statesmen. The result is that coups d’Etat, far from being reproved all around as they deserve, have generally been reported with respect and described obligingly. The author, seated peacefully at his desk, casts despotic advice in all directions. He tries to insert into his style the briskness he is recommending [110] in policy. He fancies himself for a moment cloaked in power because he is preaching its abuses, warming up his speculation with all the soaring force and potency which adorn his sentences. He thus gives himself something of the pleasure of government, repeating at the top of his voice all the grand words about the well-being of the people, the higher law, and the public interest. He admires his own profundity and marvels at his own energy. Poor fool! He is talking to men who ask nothing better than to listen to him and one day make him the first victim of his own theory!

This vanity, which has perverted the judgment of so many writers, has caused more difficulties than one might think during our civil upheavals. All the mediocre minds which the flood of events put fleetingly at the head of affairs, filled as they were with all these maxims, all the more agreeable to stupidity in that they served it in cutting through the knots that it could not untie, dreamed only of measures for the public well-being, grand measures and coups d’Etat. They reckoned themselves amazing geniuses, because with each step they diverged from ordinary means. They proclaimed the vastness of their intellects, because justice seemed to them a narrow thing. Is there any need to say where all that has led us?

chapter two

On Coups d’Etat in Countries with Written Constitutions

Coups d’Etat are at their most fatal in countries not governed by traditions, or public remembrance, or habit, whose institutions are determined by a positive charter, a written constitution.

During the whole course of our Revolution our governments claimed they had the right to violate the constitution in order to save it. The safe-keeping of the constitution having been entrusted to them, they said, their duty was to prevent all the attacks people might dare to make on it; and since the pretext of prevention permits anything one may do or try to do, our governments, with their safeguarding foresight, have always discerned secret plots and treacherous intentions among those who offended them, and generously taken it upon themselves to commit real sins in order to prevent doubtful ones.

[111] Nothing serves to falsify ideas better than comparisons. People have said that you could step outside the constitution in order to defend it, much as the garrison of a beleaguered place might make a sortie against a force blockading it. This reasoning recalls that of the shepherd in the lawyer Patelin.6 Since, however, it has at times covered France with gallows and ruins, and at others served as the pretext for the most oppressive despotism, I think it necessary to reply seriously to it.

A government which exists by a constitution ceases to exist as soon as the constitution which created it no longer exists, and a constitution ceases to exist the second it is violated.

Doubtless one can ask what the government ought to do when a party evidently wishes to overthrow the constitution. But this objection, pushed to a certain point, reaches deadlock. One can easily hypothesize a factual situation such as to defy all earlier precautions. One cannot organize moral counterweights to attempts using physical force. What is needed are institutions such as to deter parties from engaging in such attempts and from finding any advantage in them, and from having the means for doing so, institutions which ensure that if some maniac manages all this, the physical resources of the overwhelming majority are ready to resist the physical force he uses. This is what one calls public spirit. This is quite different, however, from the constitutional violations to which we have given the term “coups d’Etat” and which governments think about at their leisure and cause to break out when it suits them, with alleged necessity as their pretext.

It is probably inane to say in praise of a constitution that it would work well if everybody were willing to observe it. It is not inane to say, however, that if your basic objections include the hypothesis that nobody will want to respect the constitution and everyone will take pleasure in violating it without reason, then you will easily be able to show that no constitution can subsist. The physical possibility of an overthrow is always there. The whole point is to oppose moral barriers to this possibility.

[112] Any time people adopt or justify means which can be judged only after the event and are not accompanied by precise due process and legal safeguards, they are turning tyranny into a political system, because once the thing is done, the victims are no longer there to protest, and the only resources their friends have to avoid sharing their fate are acquiescence or silence. What is more, silence takes courage.

What is left after a constitution has been violated? No more security nor public trust. Among those who govern there is a feeling of usurpation, among the governed of being at the mercy of an arbitrary power. All protestation of respect for constitution by the former seems a mockery, and all appeals to that constitution by the latter seem like hostility. Even assuming the purest of intentions, all efforts will be fruitless. The governing group know they have prepared a sword which waits only for an arm strong enough to direct it against them.

Maybe the people might forget that the government is illegitimate and based on violation of the laws. The government cannot. It thinks about it, both because it sees as precarious an authority whose source it knows to be tainted, and because it has always at the back of its mind the worry of a possible coup d’Etat like the first one. It moves with difficulty and by way of shocks from day to day. On the other hand, not only the group attacked, but all those holding offices in the state whose powers are solely constitutional, feel that truth, eloquence, and all moral means are futile against a government which has become purely despotic. So they renounce all intellectual vigor. Slavishly they cringe and hate.

Everywhere the constitution has been violated it is provenly a bad constitution, for one of three things must be true: either it was impossible for the constituted powers to govern on its basis, or all those powers did not possess sufficient vested interest to maintain it, or lastly, [113] the powers opposed to the usurping tyranny did not have the means to defend it. But even supposing, per impossibile, that this constitution had been good, its power over men’s minds has been destroyed. It loses everything which makes it respectable, or forms its mystique, as soon as its legality is assailed. Nothing is more common than for a State to be seen to live tolerably without a constitution. But the specter of a constitution outraged hurts liberty far more than the total absence of any constitutional act.

There are, I know, meretricious means of clothing constitutional violations with an apparent legitimacy. The people can be encouraged to make their judgment by way of joint petitions; they can be made to sanction the proposed changes.

Recourse was made to this expedient from the first days of our Revolution, though the Constituent Assembly, by allowing into its presence the delegates of the common herd, had done from the start what was needed to render the expedient ridiculous. But we have been wrong in thinking ridicule all-powerful in France. With us, ridicule attacks everything but destroys nothing, since vanity is quite content to have laughed at what happens, and each person, flattered by the superiority he has shown, then tolerates what he laughed at. The people’s sanction can never be more than an idle formality. Alongside the acts submitted to this so-called sanction, there is always either the force of the existing government, provisional or fully established, which wants the acts accepted, or, on the unlikely supposition of its complete neutrality, the prospect, if there should be a refusal, of wars and civil dissensions. The people’s sanction, and mass petitions, were born in the minds of those men who, finding no support, either in morality or reason, look for it in a simulated approbation which they obtain from ignorance or extract by terror.7 The [114] legislators who make the worst laws are those who attach the most importance to law’s being obeyed, just because it is the law, and without examination. Just so, the men who adopt the measures most contradictory to the common good, being unable to find reasons for them in the public interest, make good the lack by giving them the appearance of the people’s will. This device cuts all objections short. Are there complaints that the people are being oppressed? They declared that they wanted to be.

Mass petitions should be banned by all nations having some idea of liberty. They can never be considered as the expression of true feelings. “The term ‘people’,” says Bentham, “is a forged signature to justify their leaders.” Fear comes constantly, borrowing the language of action, to bow down before power, to congratulate itself for its servitude, and to encourage conquerors avid for vengeance to sacrifice the vanquished. Great adulation always follows great injustice. Rome prostrated itself not before Marcus Aurelius but rather before Tiberius and Caracalla. If I saw a nation being consulted in a country where public opinion was choked, freedom of the press annihilated, popular election destroyed, I would think I was watching tyranny asking its enemies for a list so that it could recognize them and strike them at its leisure.

For whom is it claimed that mass petitions are necessary? For the authors of a measure already taken? But they have acted. What belated scruple has suddenly seized them? How comes it that where they were once bold, now they are suddenly timid? For the people? But if the latter found fault with their conduct, would they retrace their steps? Used they not to say that critical petitions are the work of a rebel faction? Would they not have contrary petitions produced?

[115] Mass petitions are a purely illusory ceremony. Now, all illusory ceremony is worse than useless. There is something in this formality which wounds and degrades a people’s spirit. All the appearances of freedom are forced on them in order that they vote in a direction prescribed in advance. This persiflage debases them in their own eyes and makes freedom ridiculous.

Mass petitions corrupt the people. They get them used to bowing before government; this is always a bad thing, even when the government is right.

chapter three

The Condition Necessary to Stop Constitutional Violations

Although we have forbidden ourselves in this work any reflection on constitutions as such, what we have just established on the necessity of not violating them under any pretext, where they exist, forces us to speak about a condition which is indispensable for preventing these violations.

The happiness of societies and individual security rest on certain positive and fixed principles. These principles are true in all climates and latitudes. They cannot vary, whatever the extent of the country, its degree of civilization, its customs, religion, and usages. It is as incontestable in a hamlet of a hundred and twenty huts as in a nation of forty million men, that no one can be arrested arbitrarily, punished without having been tried, tried other than according to law and due process, prevented from manifesting his opinion or putting his industry to work or managing his options in an innocent and peaceful way.

A constitution is the guarantee of these principles. Consequently everything which stems from these principles is constitutional, and consequently also, nothing is constitutional which does not. There are great ground rules which all properly constituted powers [116] must be unable to touch. These powers together, however, must be able to do everything not contrary to these rules.

To stretch a constitution to cover everything is to make everything a danger to it. It is to create reefs to surround it. You cannot sufficiently predict the effect of incomplete arrangements to give up any leeway for changing them. A line, a word, in a constitution, can produce results of which you have not the least idea. If the constitution goes into a multitude of details, it will inevitably be violated: in little things, because the hindrances the government meets in its necessary business falling always on the governed, the latter themselves will call for this violation. But this constitution will also be violated in important things, because the government will move on from its violation of little ones in order to arrogate to itself the same freedom in important matters. A rather specious sophism will furnish it with an excuse. If considerations of slight utility permit us to deviate from the constitutional charter, it will say, there is much greater reason when it is a matter of saving the State.

The severe confinement of a constitution within its limits is a thousand times preferable to the superstitious veneration with which in some countries people have wanted to surround the successive constitutions they have been given, as if attachment and enthusiasm were transferable properties, always belonging by right of conquest to the constitution of the day.

This inevitably and manifestly hypocritical mass veneration has a number of drawbacks, like everything lacking in precision and truth.

The people either believe in it or they do not.

If they believe it, they regard the constitution as an indivisible whole, and when the frictions caused by the defects of this constitution hurt them, they break away from it totally. Instead of directing their discontent against certain bits whose improvement they could hope for, they direct it against the whole thing, which they see as incorrigible.

[117] On the other hand, if the people do not believe in the veneration professed, they become accustomed to suspecting the holders of power of hypocrisy and duplicity. They call into question everything the government says. They see lying honored; and it has to be feared that in their private lives they may resort to the same behavior their leaders exemplify publicly.

One can exist tolerably under a vicious government, when there is no constitution, because then the government is a variable thing which depends on men, which changes as they change, and which experience corrects or palliates. A vicious constitution, however, when it is unchangeable, is much more dire, because its defects are permanent, reproduce themselves endlessly, and cannot be imperceptibly or tacitly corrected by experience. To make the disadvantages of an imperfect government disappear for a while, one has only to displace or enlighten a few men. To battle against those of a bad constitution, one has to violate that constitution, that is to say, perform an ill much greater in its consequences to come than the present good one wants to attain.

People always imagine the modifications made to the constitution of a sovereign authority to be accompanied by terrible convulsions and great calamities. If they studied history they would see that these calamities most often take place only because nations form for themselves an exaggerated idea of their constitution and do not reserve for themselves any way of improving it imperceptibly. We noted earlier that man showed a singular facility for failing in his most real duties, once he freed himself from one duty, even an imaginary one. This truth applies to constitutions. When a nation has not kept in reserve in its political organization any way of correcting the latter’s defects, the slightest modification [118] becomes as dangerous an act for that nation, and as unsettling, as the most total upheaval. If, however, envisaging its constitution only as a way of arriving at the highest possible degree of good fortune and freedom, the nation had set up within its organization itself, with all due precautions and periods of reflection, a means of bringing to bear on its constitution appropriate improvements, then, since it would not at all, in using this means, feel it was failing in a duty or subjecting society to a universal shake-up, the required or desired modification would be effected peacefully.

Any time it is necessary, to attain an end, that law and due process be violated, one has to fear that this effort in itself oversteps the purpose. When, on the contrary, the course is actually set by the constitution, movement becomes orderly. Men, having decided where they want to get, do not rush forward haphazardly and do not, slaves to the very movement they have chosen themselves, overstep the mark.

For stability itself, the possibility of a gradual improvement is a thousand times preferable to the inflexibility of an unchangeable constitution. The more secure the prospect of improvement, the less will malcontents have any purchase. One can defend a constitution as a whole to far better advantage by demonstrating to the people the appropriateness of postponing a change than by turning their having to persist with something they think an abuse into a kind of mystical duty and by opposing their belief with superstitious scruples which forbid scrutiny or render it pointless. At a certain level of social civilization all superstition, running counter to all other ideas, morals, and habits, has only a fleeting influence. Nothing is durable for a nation as soon as it has started to reason, unless it is explained by reasoning and demonstrated by experience.

The axiom of the English barons: we do not wish to change the laws of England, was much more reasonable than if they had said: we cannot. The refusal to change the laws, because one does not wish to change them, is explained either by the excellence of these laws or by the disadvantages of an immediate change. When such a refusal [119] is motivated by impotence, however, it becomes unintelligible. What is the cause of this impotence? What is the reality of the barrier put in our way? Whenever reason is excluded from the question, the question is falsified and one is working against one’s purpose.

There are constitutional principles deriving from the rights of the human race, individual freedom, freedom of opinion, of the laws and the courts. None of the authorities can be deemed competent to change the things which constitute the purpose of any association. Everything else is a matter of legislation. The longest mainstay of British liberty is that the three powers combined have a very extensive authority even over constitutional law.

I know nothing so ridiculous as what we have seen constantly replayed during our Revolution. A constitution is drawn up, we discuss it, enact it, put it to work. A thousand lacunae are noticed, a thousand superfluities perceived, a thousand doubts arise. The constitution is commented on, interpreted like some ancient manuscript one might newly have unearthed. The constitution is not explicit, people say, the constitution says nothing, parts of the constitution are shadowy. Oh, unhappy people! Do you really think a nation can be governed by enigmas and that what was yesterday the object of severe public criticism can transform itself suddenly into an object of silent veneration and foolish adoration?

Organize your various powers well. Give all their being, all their morality, all their private economic decision making, all their honorable hopes an interest in the conservation of your public establishment, and if the various branches involved wish collectively to benefit from experience in order to make, to their reciprocal relations, changes which in no way weigh down the citizens, nor threaten personal security, nor free thought, nor the independence of the [120] judiciary, nor the principles of equality, then leave them their full freedom in this regard.

“We have to learn to perfect the constitution,” said the former Bishop of Autun, in his report on public education, on 10 September 1791. “In swearing to defend it, we have not been able to give up the right to improve it nor the hope thereof.”8

If your combined authorities abuse the liberty you accord them, your constitution is corrupt, for a good constitution would have given them an interest in not abusing it.9

But, it will be said, constitutions are not the product of men’s wills. Time makes them. They are brought in gradually and imperceptibly. They are not composed, as has been thought, of new elements, for the combining of which no cement would be solid enough. They are composed of old elements, more or less modified. All deliberately constructed constitutions have collapsed. All constitutions which have existed, or exist still, were not constructed. Why then seek principles for the construction of constitutions?

Without examining the idea supporting this objection, one which we believe in general true enough, we will say that the principle we have established does not apply solely to constitutions to be made, but to all constitutions which have been made. It demonstrates the necessity of freeing them from superfluous details, which prevent their being easily carried out. It proves they must contain within themselves peaceful means of improvement. For the more inflexible they are, the less they are respected.

As to remaining matters, our positive determination not to treat in this work any questions connected with the forms of government forces us to leave several lacunae unfilled and many objections unanswered. There are certain institutions which we consider incompatible with [121] freedom in certain given situations. It is clear that the various constituted authorities in a country cannot legitimately establish these institutions. But to assign this limit to the jurisdiction of the authorities, it would have been necessary to discuss the institutions they must be forbidden to adopt, and this is what we have resolved not to do.

CONSTANT’S NOTES

[1. ]See Constant’s Note A at the end of Book VI.

[2. ]See Constant’s Note B at the end of Book VI.

[3. ]See Constant’s Note C at the end of Book VI.

[4. ]See Constant’s Note D at the end of Book VI.

[5. ]This probably refers to the law of Valerius Poplicola, Consul in 509 , to whom Livy refers, Histoire Romaine, II.8.2: “Among others the law which permits an appeal to the public against a magistrate and that which places anathemas on the person and goods of anyone who aspires to the throne. . . .” Livy, Histoire romaine, Livre II, text edited by Jean Bayet and translated by Gaston Baillet, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1954, p. 13.

[6. ][This is a reference to a fifteenth-century farce of unknown authorship, Le Maistre Pierre Patelin. Translator’s note]

[7. ]On the subject of mass petitions Constant said in his speech to the Tribunat of 12 pluviôse an VIII (1 February 1800): “There have been too many abuses of these during the course of our Revolution. Each one of our crises has been followed by a deluge of such petitions which never proved anything but the profound terror of the weak and the despotism of the strong.” Archives parlementaires. Recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des Chambres françaises de 1800 à 1860, Paris, P. Dupont, t. I, p. 133.

[8. ]Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Rapport sur l’instruction publique fait au nom du Comité de constitution à l’Assemblée nationale les 10, 11 et 19 septembre 1791, Paris, Baudoin et Du Pont, 1791, pp. 11–12.

[9. ]See Constant’s Note E at the end of Book VI.

[A. [Refers to page 85.]]N.B.: “The Gracchi wanted a revolution,” says M. Ferrand, Esprit de l’histoire, Tome I, p. 262, “which no one has a right to want, which in a lawfully constituted state carries a sentence of death. Theirs was therefore pronounced by law, by the commonweal, by public order. It was not carried out by legal means, because they themselves had rendered these means impossible, because by disturbing society they had put themselves in a state of war. You will find some writers who have upbraided the Senate for the death of the Gracchi, just as they have upbraided Cicero for the death of Catalina’s conspirators, and Henri III for the death of the Guises. In the circumstances in which these events took place, they derived from the right to security, which, belonging to every individual, is all the more the right of every society. A sovereign State, any State whatever, is doubtless at fault when it lets itself be reduced to this necessity as a result of developments it might have been able to stop; but it is guilty of a much greater one if, in turn applying the principles of society to what is subverting them, it did not carry out the condemnation pronounced by the first of these laws, salus populi [the safety of the people]. . . . When there is only one way of saving the State, the first law of all is to use it.”10

I ask: what answer would there have been to the Committee of Public Safety, if these arguments were accepted? Note that when it is a question of a people, rather than a constituted government, it is quite another matter. Then M. Ferrand claims that the laws of proscription called salus populi have never saved the people;11 that “any man living in a society has acquired three rights no one can take away from him and that he cannot lose other than by his own fault or will; these rights are his personal liberty, his property, his life”12 (ibid., pp. 307, 310, 319). Now, therefore, [122] we will say to M. Ferrand, if you condemn him without due process or trial, how do you know his fault is such that he has merited losing these benefits? M. Ferrand continues: “It is not by dint of injustice that one can reorganize a state.”13 But is there not injustice legally, when you violate due process; and how do you know there is not also substantive injustice?

Wretched supporters of despotism who never see it except as a weapon you want to seize for yourselves!14

[B. [Refers to page 85.]]Here give homage to the character and intentions of Cicero.

[C. [Refers to page 85.]]“L. Flaccus, interrex, de Sylla legem tulit, ut omnia, quaecumque ille fecerit, essent rata . . .—nihilo credo magis, illa justa est ut dictator, quem vellet civium, indicta causa, impune possit occidere.” Cicero. [Lucius Flaccus, chief magistrate of the interregnum, passed a law in respect of Sulla, that everything he did was valid . . .—I believe nothing more strongly than that it is just that a dictator should be able to kill whomsoever he wishes of the citizens, with impunity, cause having been given (indicta causa).] And were not Catilina’s accomplices put to death indicta causa?15

[[123] D. [Refers to page 87.]]Following the insurrection in the Cévennes occasioned by the persecution of the Calvinists, the party which had solicited this persecution claimed that the revolt of the camisards was caused only by the relaxation of repressive measures. If the oppression had continued, this party said, there would have been no uprising. If the oppression had not begun, said those who were opposed to the violence, there would not have been any malcontents. Rulhière, Eclaircissements sur la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, II, 278.16

[E. [Refers to page 96.]]Note. What is the guarantee of a lasting government? It is when the different classes of the State like it as it is and do not want to change it. Aristotle. Politics, Book II, Chapter 7.17

[A. [Refers to page 85.]]N.B.: “The Gracchi wanted a revolution,” says M. Ferrand, Esprit de l’histoire, Tome I, p. 262, “which no one has a right to want, which in a lawfully constituted state carries a sentence of death. Theirs was therefore pronounced by law, by the commonweal, by public order. It was not carried out by legal means, because they themselves had rendered these means impossible, because by disturbing society they had put themselves in a state of war. You will find some writers who have upbraided the Senate for the death of the Gracchi, just as they have upbraided Cicero for the death of Catalina’s conspirators, and Henri III for the death of the Guises. In the circumstances in which these events took place, they derived from the right to security, which, belonging to every individual, is all the more the right of every society. A sovereign State, any State whatever, is doubtless at fault when it lets itself be reduced to this necessity as a result of developments it might have been able to stop; but it is guilty of a much greater one if, in turn applying the principles of society to what is subverting them, it did not carry out the condemnation pronounced by the first of these laws, salus populi [the safety of the people]. . . . When there is only one way of saving the State, the first law of all is to use it.”10

I ask: what answer would there have been to the Committee of Public Safety, if these arguments were accepted? Note that when it is a question of a people, rather than a constituted government, it is quite another matter. Then M. Ferrand claims that the laws of proscription called salus populi have never saved the people;11 that “any man living in a society has acquired three rights no one can take away from him and that he cannot lose other than by his own fault or will; these rights are his personal liberty, his property, his life”12 (ibid., pp. 307, 310, 319). Now, therefore, [122] we will say to M. Ferrand, if you condemn him without due process or trial, how do you know his fault is such that he has merited losing these benefits? M. Ferrand continues: “It is not by dint of injustice that one can reorganize a state.”13 But is there not injustice legally, when you violate due process; and how do you know there is not also substantive injustice?

Wretched supporters of despotism who never see it except as a weapon you want to seize for yourselves!14

[C. [Refers to page 85.]]“L. Flaccus, interrex, de Sylla legem tulit, ut omnia, quaecumque ille fecerit, essent rata . . .—nihilo credo magis, illa justa est ut dictator, quem vellet civium, indicta causa, impune possit occidere.” Cicero. [Lucius Flaccus, chief magistrate of the interregnum, passed a law in respect of Sulla, that everything he did was valid . . .—I believe nothing more strongly than that it is just that a dictator should be able to kill whomsoever he wishes of the citizens, with impunity, cause having been given (indicta causa).] And were not Catilina’s accomplices put to death indicta causa?15

[[123] D. [Refers to page 87.]]Following the insurrection in the Cévennes occasioned by the persecution of the Calvinists, the party which had solicited this persecution claimed that the revolt of the camisards was caused only by the relaxation of repressive measures. If the oppression had continued, this party said, there would have been no uprising. If the oppression had not begun, said those who were opposed to the violence, there would not have been any malcontents. Rulhière, Eclaircissements sur la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, II, 278.16

[E. [Refers to page 96.]]Note. What is the guarantee of a lasting government? It is when the different classes of the State like it as it is and do not want to change it. Aristotle. Politics, Book II, Chapter 7.17

[10]Ed. cit, pp. 261–263.

[11]Ibid., p. 319: “This is why the laws of proscription, of confiscation, which are called: Salus populi, have never saved the people.”

[12]Ibid., p. 307, as Constant’s first reference indicates; here is Ferrand’s precise text: “Any man living in a society, and who [122] has explicitly or implicitly sworn to obey the laws, has acquired three rights which no one can take from him and which he cannot lose save by his own fault or choosing: the right to liberty, the right to safety, and the right to property.”

[13]Ibid., p. 310. Here is the complete citation of this sentence: “Indeed it is not by dint of injustices that one can reorganize a State, which is only a justly constituted society.”

[14]In De la force du gouvernment, Constant had written in the same way: “As long as you think of arbitrary government as only a tool to be snatched from your enemy for you to use, your enemy will strive to snatch it from you.” Ch. 8, p. 104 of the 1796 edition.

[15]This Latin quotation has been recopied from Ferrand’s work, op. cit., t. I. 2e éd. 1803, p. 418, n. 1, which gives the following reference: “Cic. Hist. pp. 170–171.” The first part of the quotation, up to the ellipsis, comes from De lege agraria, III, 5; here is the complete text and the translation: “Omnium legum iniquissimam dissimillimamque legis esse arbitror eam quam L. Flaccus interrex de Sulla tulit, ut omnia quaecumque ille fecisset essent rata.”—“Of all the laws, I judge to be the most iniquitous and least like a law that which the interrex Lucius Flaccus passed in respect of Sulla, to legalize all the acts of the dictator.” Cicero, Discours, t. IX, Sur la loi agraire . . . , text edited and translated by André Boulanger, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1932, p. 109. The second part of the quotation comes from De Legibus, I, 42, whose exact text is “Nihilo credo magis illa [lex] quam interrex noster tulit, ut dictator quem vellet civium nominatem aut indicta causa inpune posset occidere.”—I believe in no right more strongly than that law which an interrex passed in our case that a dictator may kill which people he may nominate, with impunity, cause having been given. Cicero, Traité des lois, text edited and translated by George de Plinval, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1959, p. 24. [The French translation (pp. 122–123 of the Hofmann edition) is very free and seems to be rendering indicta causa as “without a trial” (sans proces). One of the three classicists consulted by the translator thought that indicta causa might be best rendered by “the case made public” or “the case having been made public.” Translator’s note]

[16]Claude Carloman de Rulhière, Eclaircissements historiques sur les causes de la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes et sur l’etat des protestants en France, s.l., 1788, t. II, pp. 278–279. “At the first report of these movements (the insurrection in the Cévennes), each of the two parties mutually accused each other of having caused them. If the oppression had continued, said one, there would have been no uprising. If the oppression had not started, said the other, if the policy had remained that of conversions by enlightened instruction and gentleness, there would have been no malcontents.”

[17]This is probably not a quotation. Furthermore, nothing in Book II, Ch. 7 of Politics is related to the words indicated by Constant. On the other hand, Aristotle debates at length these questions of the causes of revolutions and of the guarantees against the changing of constitutions, in Book V of this same work. See Aristotle, La politique, a new translation with an introduction, notes, and index by J. Tricot, Paris, J. Vrin, 1962, t. II, pp. 337–425.