They might provoke the country to return an unconstitutional candidate; in which case, without giving himself the airs of a Brutus, he would certainly refuse to declare valid his election. But what then? Why, their testament would have no more force than had that of the old dying Louis Quatorze; and in the next month of May, the words of Sièyes on the eve of the 18th Brumaire might ring in their ears, Messieurs, you have found your master." It was for the sake of preventing such a result that he desired to see a regular revision of the Constitution. It was really singular to witness the fear that existed to appeal to the electoral colleges, lest they should cause agitation, when they had before them 100,000 electors. There was the election for the National Guards, then the election for 37,000 Municipal Conventions, 3600 Cantonal Councillors, 86 General Councillors, all independent of the election for the Legislative Assembly and the election for the President, and all in one year. And yet, because they wished for an Assembly more powerful, they were called agitators! He repeated, that the great agitator, the O'Connell of France, was the Constitution.

M. de Tocqueville believed the Constitution to be faulty, and for many of the reasons advanced by the Duc de Broglie; and for those reasons he desired a revision, as the only means of safety. But he proposed to report that the revision be demanded in a Republican spirit; to tell the nation that it was impossible now to think of re-establishing Monarchy; to declare publicly what everybody has been repeating at the tribune for the last three years, and what

the Duc de Broglie himself had just declared.

The report was presented and read to the Assembly by M. de Tocqueville on the 8th of July. It was a long document, in substance as follows:

"Is it true that the Constitution is defective? and if so, are its vices of such a nature as to call loudly for revision? A minority of the Committee had maintained that the painful situation of the country is due, not to the Constitution, but to those who for the last two years have been putting it in practice, and who are unceasingly aiming at its overthrow. But the majority of the Committee thought that, independently of all the private causes which may be alleged, a great part of the evil must be attributed to the Constitution itself. Ambition, political rancour, and the passions of parties, are the ordinary concomitants of history. Good Constitutions repress easily, or keep within bounds, these vices inherent in human nature. It is bad Constitutions which favour and excite them. The Constitution of 1848 is marked by the latter characteristic. It renders the Government unstable and stormy; it requires from those who govern a moderation, a disinterestedness, and a sort of utter abnegation of themselves, which it is dangerous to ask from men, and which it is perhaps puerile to look for.

"The two principal reasons alleged against the Constitution relate to the manner in which the sovereignty of the people is exercised in the election of the Assembly; and to the origin, nature, and relations existing between the two powers which make the laws and execute them. To cause ten

representatives to be elected by the same scrutin de liste is to decide that the minority of the 100,000 electors shall triumph, or that the majority shall act by blind chance. It is impossible that the entire population of a department can have any sure means of appreciating properly the merit of all the persons who present themselves as candidates for its suffrages. What, then, is the result? That in districts where agitation prevails, or in times of public excitement, the violent parties impose on the people, without consulting it, their choice; that in districts which are tranquil, and at calm moments, the list of the representatives is drawn up beforehand by some agitators, with a view to particular interests, and to satisfy personal hatred or friendship; and this list is afterwards followed by the electors as the only thread which can lead them out of the midst of the darkness which encompasses them. election, which has the appearance of emanating from the totality of the citizens, is in reality the work of a very insignificant coterie.

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Then, such relations between the two powers as the following are not the conditions of a strong and regular Government: a chamber charged alone to make the law, a man charged alone to preside over the execution of all the laws, and over the direction of all affairs; both of them elected alike directly by the universality of the citizens; the Assembly all-powerful within the circle of the Constitution; the President obliged to obey it within the same limit, but possessed, in virtue of his election, of a moral force which permits him to think of resistance, and renders submission difficult; en

joying besides all the prerogatives which fall to the lot of the head of the Executive power in a country where the public administration, disseminated everywhere and mixed up with everything, was instituted by and for Monarchy; these two great powers, equal in their origin, unequal by right, condemned by the law to an uneasy position with respect to each other, invited by it in a certain measure to suspicions, jealousies, and conflict; obliged, however, to live, already connected together, in an eternal tête-à-tête, without meeting with any intermediate object or arbitrator to conciliate or restrain them.

The Constitution is, then, defective. But if so, can calmer times and more favourable circumstances be awaited for its amendment?" Recapitulating the reasons for shunning the task, the report declared that the dangers of the moment did not permit the postponement of ameliorations. The Committee do not deny that the revision may be dangerous, but they consider it exceedingly necessary. It is wrong, no doubt, to yield too easily to the current of public opinion; but it is not always prudent or patriotic to resist it. The rules of conduct of statesmen in such a matter vary according to the spirit of the times and the form of the institutions. In free countries, and above all in democratical ones, where good or evil can be accomplished only by the aid of the masses, above all, their affection and confidence must be preserved. When they are uneasy, troubled, and suffering, and ask for a remedy, to refuse it to them because it is believed to be less efficacious than they suppose it to be, is to drive

them to despair-is to force them to adopt, under other conductors, a different conduct and other political maxims. Besides, what they affirm here by a vague instinct, it is our duty to desire by a profound examination of the situation.

"The situation is both strange and novel. If the election of the President of the Republic had taken place at the natural period pointed out by the Constitution, that is on May 12, 1849, the Presidential powers would have survived those of this Assembly by one year; and it is only in 1861, after a twelve years' trial, that the fact of the head of the Executive power and the Legislative Assembly ceasing at the same time their functions would have been witnessed. But by the accidental effect of the law of October 28, 1848, a law called for by article 116 of the Constitution, the President was elected on December 10, 1848, and will nevertheless have arrived at the end of his magistracy in the course of May next. Thus, in the same month, and within a few days' distance of each other, the Executive power and the Legislative power will change hands. Assuredly, never will a great people, as yet ill prepared for the use of Republican liberty, have been cast all at once by the law itself into such a hazard; never will a youthful Constitution have been subjected to so rude a trial. And in what country of the globe is this total eclipse of the Government to take place? Amongst that people which, although it has more frequently overturned its Government perhaps than any other, feels more than any other the want of being governed. . . . . Even if the peril

were only in the imaginations of the citizens, is it very certain that it would be the less great? If its only effect were to over-excite the culpable hopes of some persons, and to push to an extreme the apprehensions of the greater number, would that itself not be a great peril-the greatest, perhaps, of all those which are to be dreaded? If we do not hasten to come to the aid of the people in the occurrence which appears to it, with reason, so extraordinary and so critical, who will insure to us that that people, in the excess of its anxiety, will not attempt to save itself by having recourse to some irregular proceeding, more dangerous than all the rest?. . . . The nation was surprised by the events of February. On that day it was discontented, but was not yet revolutionary. Sixty years of novelties, of agitation, and of political labours, had fatigued it; it had not yet had time to rest itself completely, when the unexpected fall of the Monarch of July precipitated it into one of the most singular, if not one of the most violent, crises of its long revolution. It was necessary for it, in spite of itself, to enter the arena, to do violence to its new habits, to neglect the affairs and the works to which it had given its heart, and to return against its wish to the field of revolutions, and there to fight. It did so with a courage and a resignation which were admirable-with a sustained energy and a practical wisdom of which its detractors did not consider it capable, and which will be to its eternal honour among men. has succeeded, for it has momentarily put down faction, and vanquished anarchy. But it has only succeeded in this at the price of

It

much time, of sacrifices, of struggles, of anguish, and of losses. To-day again the nation is weary; but at the same time again disquieted and agitated. Is it not to be feared that, in that moment of anxiety and anguish which may arise at the last moment, the electors may find themselves driven, not by enthusiasm for a name or for a man, but by terror of the inconnu, the horror of anarchy, to maintain illegally, and by a sort of popular assault, the executive power in the hands which now hold it?

"The mode of Presidential election established by the Constitution itself facilitates as far as it can do this revolutionary and mischievous result. A great nation, spread over a very large space-a nation in which the sphere of the executive power is almost without limit, and in which the only representative of that power is elected by the universality of the citizens voting directly and separately, without having had any means of becoming enlightened, of acquiring information, or of coming to an understanding, that is a state of things, we do not fear to say so, which has never been seen in any nation on the earth. The only country in the world which offers anything analogous is America. But see what a prodigious difference! In America direct and universal suffrage is the common. law; only one exception to this great principle has been introduced, and it applies precisely to the election of the President. The President of the United States of America emanates also from universal suffrage, but not directly. And still the duties of the Executive power in the Union, compared with what it is and always will be

in France, notwithstanding all that may be done, is small; notwithstanding that in that country, where the Republic existed, it may be said, since its origin under the Monarchy, in its habits, ideas, and manners, and where it had rather to appear than to be born-in that country, they have not ventured to entrust the election of the representative and of the executive power to the direct and universal vote. The power to be elected appeared still too great, and, above all, too remote from the elector, to allow him to make an enlightened and mature choice. The American nation only elects delegates, who choose a President. These delegates represent, no doubt, the general spirit of the country, its tendencies, its tastes, and frequently its passions and prejudices; but they are, at least, possessed with knowledge, which the people could not have. They can form to themselves a precise idea of the general wants of the country and of its real perils, know the candidates, compare them with each other, weigh, and choose that which each citizen, in the depths of his home and frequently of his ignorance, in the midst of the labours and pre-occupations of private life, is incapable of doing. Thus we have seen, within the last sixty years, the Americans frequently keep out of the first magistracy of the Republic citizens well known, and frequently very illustrious, to choose men who were comparatively obscure, but who answered better to the political necessities of the moment. If the danger of universal and direct circumstances in such a matter had moved the legislators of the United States, how much more ought it to strike us-we who live in a country where the