CHAPTER VI.

POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL PEACE IN FRANCE.

Whenever it shall have been distinctly perceived and fully admitted that the different classes which exist among us, and the political parties which correspond to those classes, are natural and deeply-rooted elements of French society, a great step will have been made towards social peace.

This peace is impossible so long as each of the different classes and the great political parties into which our society is divided cherishes the hope of annihilating the others, and of reigning alone. That is the evil which, ever since 1789, has periodically agitated and convulsed France. Sometimes the democratic element has aimed at the extinction of the aristocratic; at other times the aristocratic element has tried to crush the democratic, and to regain its former predominance. Constitutions, laws, and the administration of the government have been by turns directed, like engines of war, to one or the other of these ends--a war to the death, in which neither combatant believed his life compatible with that of his rival.

This war was suspended by the Emperor Napoleon. He rallied around him the classes which had formerly possessed, and those which actually enjoyed, power and influence; and by the security which he offered them, by the continual turmoil in which he kept them, or by the yoke which he imposed upon them, he established and maintained peace.

After him, from 1814 to 1830, and from 1830 to 1848, this war was renewed. A great progress had been made. Liberty had become real. Both the ancient aristocratic, and the modern democratic elements acquired strength; but though neither could succeed in suppressing the other, each was impatient of its adversary’s existence, and eagerly strove for the mastery.

And now a third combatant has entered the arena. The democratic party having divided itself into two conflicting sections, the workmen are now arrayed against their masters, or the people against the middle classes. This new war, like the former, is a war to the death; for the new aspirant is as arrogant and exclusive as the others can have ever been. The sovereignty, it is said, belongs of right to the people only; and no rival, ancient or modern, noble or bourgeois, can be admitted to share it.

Every pretension of this kind must be withdrawn, not by one only, but by all of the contending parties. The great elements of society among us--the old aristocracy, the middle classes, and the people--must completely renounce the hope of excluding and annihilating each other. Let them vie with each other in influence; let each maintain its position and its rights, or even endeavour to extend and improve them, for in such efforts consists the political life of a country. But there must be an end of all radical hostility: they must resign themselves to live together, side by side, in the ranks of the government as well as in civil society. This is the first condition of social peace. How, it may be asked, can this condition be satisfied? How can the different elements of our society be brought to tolerate each other’s existence, and to fulfil their several functions in the government of the country?

I reply, by such an organization of that government as may assign to each its place and functions; may concede something to the wishes, while it imposes limits to the ambition, of all.

I am here met by an idea, perhaps the most false and fatal of all those current in our days on the subject of constitutional organization. It is this:--“National unity involves political unity. There is but one people: there can exist at the head and in the name of this people, but one power.”

This is the idea which most completely characterizes both revolution and despotism. The Convention and Louis XIV. exclaimed alike, “L’Etat, c’est moi.”

It is as false as it is tyrannical. A nation is not a vast aggregate of men, consisting of so many thousands or millions, occupying a certain extent of ground, and concentrated in, and represented by, a unit, called king or assembly. A nation is a great organic body, formed by the union within one country of certain social elements which assume the shape and constitution naturally impressed upon them by the primitive laws of God and the free acts of man. The diversity of these elements is, as we have just seen, one of the essential facts resulting from those laws; and is absolutely inconsistent with the false and tyrannous unity which it is proposed to establish at the centre of government, as representative of that society in which it never exists.

What then, it is said, must all the elements of society, all the groups of which it is naturally composed, all the various classes, professions, and opinions it contains, be represented in the government by powers corresponding to each?

No, certainly: society is not a federation of professions, classes, and opinions, which treat, by their several delegates, of the affairs which are common to them all; any more than it is a uniform mass of exactly similar elements, which send their representatives to the centre of government only because they cannot all repair thither themselves, and are compelled to reduce themselves to a number which can meet in one place and deliberate in common. Social unity requires that there should be but one government; but the diversity of the social elements equally requires that this government should not be one sole power.

There is a natural process of attraction and concentration at work in the heart of society, and among the numberless particular associations which it contains (such as families, professions, classes, and parties), by which all the smaller associations are successively absorbed into the larger. The multitude of particular and different elements are thus reduced to a small number of principal and essential elements, which include and represent all the rest.

I do not think that these principal elements of society ought to be all specially represented in the government of the state by several authorities; I only maintain that their diversity is inconsistent with the unity of the central power.

To this reasoning it has often been confidently replied--that the various elements of society are congregated, by the process of free election, in a single assembly which represents the whole nation; and which affords them an arena for free discussion, where they can maintain their opinions, their interests and their rights, and exert their proper influence over the resolutions of the assembly, and consequently over the government of the state.

We are then to infer from this that we have discharged the claims of the most varied, weighty, and essential social elements when we have said, “Get yourselves elected, then give your opinion, and try to make it the prevalent one!” Election and discussion constitute the entire basis which is to sustain the social edifice; election and discussion afford a sufficient guarantee for all interests, rights, and liberties!

Such a theory betrays a strange ignorance of human nature, human society, and the French people.

I will put a single question. The interests of society are twofold; those of stability and conservation on the one hand, and those of activity and progress on the other. If you wanted to secure the interests of activity and progress, would you seek this security among the social elements in which the interests of stability and conservation are peculiarly strong? Undoubtedly not: you would commit the interests of activity and progress to the care of their natural and willing protectors, and you would do well. But all these various interests have equal wants and equal claims. There is no safety for any of them but in its appropriate power; that is to say, in a power analogous to it in its nature and in its relations to other powers. If the interests of stability and conservation are committed wholly to the chances of the composition of a single elective assembly, invested with the sole and final decision of all questions, and to the chances of the discussions in that assembly, be assured that sooner or later, after numerous oscillations between tyrannies of different kinds, those interests will be sacrificed or lost.

It is absurd to seek the principle of the political stability of government in the mobile elements of society. The permanent elements of society must find in the government itself, powers corresponding to them, and offering a pledge for their security. A diversity of powers is equally indispensable to conservation and to liberty.

It is matter of amazement that this truth should be disputed, for the very men who dispute it have made a great step towards its admission and application. After establishing unity of power at the head of the state, they have admitted a division of powers lower down, on account of the diversity of functions. They have carefully separated the legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial powers; thus practically acknowledging the necessity of giving guarantees to different interests, by the separation and the different constitution of these powers. How is it that they do not see that this necessity has a higher application, and that the diversity of the general interests of society and of the duties of the supreme power, imperatively requires a diversity of powers in the highest as well as in the subordinate spheres of government?

But to constitute a real and efficient diversity of powers, it is not enough that each should have a distinct place and name in the government; it is also necessary that all should be strongly organized, all fully competent to fill and to maintain the place they occupy.

It is the fashion of the day to think that harmony among the powers of the state, and security against their excess, is to be found in their weakness. People are afraid of every kind of authority; and in order to prevent their destroying each other, or encroaching upon liberty, they ingeniously endeavour to undermine them all in turn.

This is a monstrous error. Every weak power is a power doomed to perish by extinction or by usurpation. If several weak powers conflict, either one will become strong at the expense of the others, and will end in a tyranny, or they will trammel and neutralize each other, and the result will be anarchy.

What is it that has constituted the strength and success of constitutional monarchy in England? It is that, while the royalty and aristocracy were originally strong, the commonalty has become strong by successive conquests of its rights from the aristocracy and the king. Of the three constitutional powers, two retain much of their primitive greatness, and rest firmly on their deep and primæval roots; the third has risen to greatness, and has gradually struck its roots deeply into the same soil. Each is fully able to defend itself against the other, and to fulfil its peculiar mission.

When an earnest and sincere attempt was made to establish constitutional monarchy in France, its firmest adherents desired an ancient and historical basis for royalty; for the Chamber of Peers, an hereditary seat in the legislature, and for the Chamber of Deputies, direct election: not by any means in obedience to theories or precedents, but in order that the great powers of the state might be true powers,--efficient and living entities, not words or phantoms.

In the United States, notwithstanding the difference of names, situations, manners, and institutions, Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison, when founding the Republic, recognised and acted upon the same principles. They too thought it necessary to have different powers at the head of the government; and in order that the difference might be real, they gave to each of these powers--_i.e._ the two chambers and the President--a distinct origin; as distinct as the general institutions of the country would permit, and as different as their several functions.

Diversity of origin and of nature is one of the conditions essential to the intrinsic and real strength of powers, and this again is the condition indispensable to political harmony and social peace.

Nor is it only at the summit and centre of government that these principles ought to guide the organization of power; they are equally applicable through the whole extent of the country, in the management of its local, no less than of its general affairs. A great deal has been said in favour of centralization and administrative unity, and there is no doubt that they have rendered great service to France. We shall preserve many of their forms, regulations, maxims, and works; but the time of their sovereignty is past. Centralization is no longer sufficient for the chief wants and pressing dangers of society. The struggle is no longer confined to the centre; it agitates the whole nation. Since property, family, and all the bases of society, are attacked everywhere, they must everywhere be vigorously defended; and functionaries or orders which have to travel from the centre of government will be found a very inadequate defence, even though supported by bayonets. Landed proprietors, and heads of families, who are the natural guardians of society, must all be enjoined and empowered to maintain its security by conducting its affairs: they must have an active share in the management of its local as well as its general interests; in the administration, as well as the government of the country: the central government ought to uphold the banner of social order, but it cannot bear the whole burthen of it unaided.

I speak always on the presumption that I am speaking _to_ a free country, and _of_ a free government; for it is under free governments that the safety of society demands all these conditions: they have evidently no application to absolute governments.

Absolute power is, however, subject to certain conditions, as well as liberty. It is far from being always possible where it would be submitted to, nor can it be obtained wherever it is desired.

Let the friends of freedom never forget that nations prefer absolute power to anarchy. The first want--the first instinct--of communities, as well as of governments or of individuals, is self-preservation. Now a community may exist under absolute power; under anarchy, if it lasts, it must perish.

The readiness, I might almost say the eagerness, with which nations throw their liberties into the gulf of anarchy, in the desperate attempt to close it, is a shameful spectacle. I know nothing more lamentable to witness than this sudden renunciation of all the rights so noisily and vehemently demanded. The friend of freedom and of progress who would fall into despair of man and of the future at this humiliating sight must withdraw into himself, and refresh and invigorate his soul at those high and pure fountains which nourish deep convictions and far-reaching hopes.

Let not France, whatever be her peril, reckon on absolute power to save her. It would not justify her confidence. In her ancient society, absolute power reposed on a principle of moderation and of permanence; while, under the Emperor Napoleon, it contained a principle of strength, either of which it would vainly seek for now. Popular tyranny or military dictatorship may be the expedient of a day, but can never be a form of government. Free institutions are now as necessary to social peace as they are to individual dignity; and power, whatever be its nature or origin, whether republican or monarchical, has no wiser course to pursue than to learn to use them, for they are now its only instruments and its only stay.

If some are tempted to seek repose in other sources, let them abandon all such hopes. Whatever be the future destiny of France, we shall not escape from the necessity of a constitutional government; we are condemned, for our own salvation, to surmount all the difficulties, and to fulfil all the conditions, with which it may be encumbered.

There is but one means of rendering ourselves equal to this mighty task, and of complying with this imperious necessity. All the elements of stability, all the conservative forces in the country must unite closely and act constantly together. It is no more possible to extinguish democracy in the nation than liberty in the government. That immense movement which has been communicated to every country and agitates all their deepest recesses; which is incessantly inciting every class and every individual to think, to desire, to claim, to act, to employ his activity in every direction,--this movement will not be stopped. It is a fact in which we must acquiesce, whether it pleases or displeases us, whether it awakens our fears or excites our hopes. But though we cannot extinguish this movement, we can guide and govern it; and if it is not guided and governed, it will throw back the whole current of civilization, and will be the opprobrium as well as the curse of humanity. Democracy, to be guided and governed, must form a considerable ingredient in the state, but it must not be the sole one: it must be strong enough to climb itself, but never to pull down others: it must find issues, and encounter barriers on every side. Democracy is a fertilizing, but muddy stream, whose waters are never beneficent till the turbid and impetuous current has spread itself abroad and subsided into calmness and purity.

The Dutch, a great people, though in a small country, whose republican glory shone brightly even amidst the full blaze of the monarchical glory of Louis XIV., conquered their country from the ocean, and maintained their conquest, by cutting canals and raising dikes on every side. It is the ceaseless care of the whole community that the canals be never obstructed and the dikes never broken; for on this depend the prosperity and the existence of Holland.

Let all the conservative elements of France learn from this example; let them unite all their efforts, let them keep a common and incessant watch, that the rising tide of democracy may always find safe channels and indestructible barriers. On the joint and efficient action of these depend the safety of the community, and the safety of each individual composing it. If the conservative elements of French society know how to combine and to form a united body, if the party spirit which prevails among them shall give way to a large and enlightened political spirit, then France, and the democracy of France, are saved. If the conservative elements remain disunited and disorganized, Democracy will destroy France, and will perish under the ruins she has made.