But, of all things,
this representation, to be measured by contribution, is
the most difficult to settle upon principles of equity
in a country which considers its districts as members
of a whole.
this representation, to be measured by contribution, is
the most difficult to settle upon principles of equity
in a country which considers its districts as members
of a whole.
Edmund Burke
From hence arises,
not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior,
an excellence in composition. Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are
so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the
work itself requires the aid of more minds than one
age can furnish. It is from this view of things that
the best legislators have been often satisfied with the
establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government, - a power like that which some
of the philosophers have called a plastic Nature; and
having fixed the principle, they have left it afterwards
to its own operation.
To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with
a presiding principle and a prolific energy, is with
me the criterion of profound wisdom. What your
politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius
are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By
their violent haste, and their defiance of the process
of Nature, they are delivered over blindly to every
projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and em
? ? ? ? 458 REFLECTIONS ON THE
piric. They despair of turning to account anything
that is common. Diet is nothing in their system of
remedy. The worst of it is, that this their despair
of curing common distempers by regular methods
arises not only from defect of comprehension, but, I
fear, from some malignity of disposition. Your legislators seem to have taken their opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices from the declamations and buffooneries of satirists, -- who would themselves be
astonished, if they were held to the letter of their own
descriptions. By listening only to these, your leaders regard all things only on the side of their vices
and faults, and view those vices and faults under
every color of exaggeration. It is undoubtedly true,
though it may seem paradoxical, -- but, in general,
those who are habitually employed in finding and
displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the contemplation of
those things. By hating vices too much, they come
to love men too little. It is therefore not wonderful
that they should be indisposed and unable to serve
them. From hence arises the complexional disposition of some of your guides to pull everything in
pieces. At this malicious game they display the
whole of their quadrimanous activity. As to the
rest, the paradoxes of eloquent writers, brought forth
purely as a sport of fancy, to try their talents, to
rouse attention, and excite surprise, are taken up by
these gentlemen, not in the spirit of the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste and improving their style: these paradoxes become with them serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 459
regulating the most important concerns of the state.
Cicero ludicrously describes Cato as endeavoring to
act in the commonwealth upon the school paradoxes
which exercised the wits of the junior students in the
Stoic philosophy. If this was true of Cato, these gentlemen copy after him in the manner of some persons
who lived about his time, -pede nudo Catonem. Mr.
flume told me that he had from Rousseau himself
the secret of his principles of composition. That
acute, though eccenltric observer, had perceived, that,
to strike and interest the public, the marvellous must
be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long since lost its effects; that giants,
magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance, which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which
belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to
a writer but that species of the marvellous, which
might still be produced, and with as great an effect
as ever, though in another way, -that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situations, giving rise to new and unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals. I believe, that, were
Rousseau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he
would be shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars, who in their paradoxes are servile imitators, and
even in their incredulity discover an implicit faith.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a
regular way, ought to give us ground to presume
ability. But the physician of the state, who, not satisfied with the cure of distempers, undertakes to
regenerate constitutions, ought to show uncommon
powers. Some very unusual appearances of wisdom
ought to display themselves on the face of the designs
of those who appeal to no practice and who copy
? ? ? ? 460 REFLECTIONS ON THE
after no model. Has any such been manifested? I
shall take a view (it shall for the subject be a very
short one) of what the Assembly has done, with regard, first, to the constitution of the legislature; in
the neyt place, to that of the executive power; then
to that of the judicature; afterwards to the model of
the army; and conclude with the system of finance:
to see whether we can discover in any part of their
schemes the portentous ability which may justify
these bold undertakers in the superiority which they
assume over mankind.
It is in the model of the sovereign and presiding
part of this new republic that we should expect their
grand display. Here they were to prove their title to
their proud demands. For the plan itself at large,
and for the reasons on which it is grounded, I refer to
the journals of the Assembly of the 29th of September, 1789, and to the subsequent proceedings which have made any alterations in the plan. So far as in
a matter somewhat confused I can see light, the system remains substantially as it has been originally framed. My few remarks will be such as regard its
spirit, its tendency, and its fitness for framing a popular commonwealth, which they profess theirs to be, suited to the ends for which any commonwealth, and
particularly such a commonwealth, is made. At the
same time I mean to consider its consistency with
itself and its own principles.
Old establishments are tried by their effects. If
the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful,
we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good
from whence good is derived. In old establishments
various correctives have been found for their aberrations from theory. Indeed, they are the results of va
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 461
rious necessities and expediences. They are not often constructed after any theory: theories are rather
drawn from them. In them we often see the end
best obtained, where the means seem not perfectly
reconcilable to what we may fancy was the original
scheme. The means taught by experience may be
better suited to political ends than those contrived
in the original project. They again react upon the
primitive constitution, and sometimes improve the design itself, from which they seem to have departed.
I think all this might be curiously exemplified in the
British Constitution. At worst, the errors and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the ship proceeds in her course. This
is the case of old establishments; but in a new and
merely theoretic system, it is expected that every
contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer
its ends, especially where the projectors are no way
embarrassed with an endeavor to accommodate the
new building to an old one, either in the walls or
on the foundations.
The French builders, clearing away as mere rubbish whatever they found, and, like their ornamental
gardeners, forming everything into an exact level,
propose to rest the whole local and general legislature on three bases of three different kinds, - one geometrical, one arithmetical, and the third financial; the first of which they call the basis of territory; the
second, the basis of population; and the third, the
basis of contribution. For the accomplishment of the
first of these purposes, they divide the area of their
country into eighty-three pieces, regularly square, of
eighteen leagues by eighteen. These large divisions
are called Departments. These they portion, proceed
? ? ? ? 462 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ing by square measurement, into seventeen hundred
and twenty districts, called Communes. These again
they subdivide, still proceeding by square measurement, into smaller districts, called Cantons, making in all 6,400.
At first view this geometrical basis of theirs presents not much to admire or to blame. It calls for
no great legislative talents. Nothing more than -an
accurate land-surveyor, with his chain, sight, and
theodolite, is requisite for such a plan as this. In
the old divisions of the country, various accidents
at times, and the ebb and flow of various properties
and jurisdictions, settled their bounds. These bounds
were not made upon any fixed system, undoubtedly.
They were subject to some inconveniences; but they
were inconveniences for which use had found remedies. and habit had supplied accommodation and patience. In this new pavement of square within
square, and this organization and semi-organization,
made on the system of Empedocles and Buffon, and
not upon any politic principle, it is impossible that
innumerable local inconveniences, to which men are
not habituated, must not arise. But these I pass
over, because it requires an accurate knowledge of
the country, which I do not possess, to specify them.
When these state surveyors came to take a view of
their work of measurement, they soon found that in
politics the most fallacious of all things was geometrical demonstration. They had then recourse to another basis (or rather buttress) to support the
building, which tottered on that false foundation. It
was evident that the goodness of the soil, the number of the people, their wealth, and the largeness of their contribution, made such infinite variations be
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 463
tween square and square as to render mensuration a
ridiculous standard of power in the commonwealth,
and equality in geometry the most unequal of all
measures in the distribution of men. However, they
could not give it up, - but, dividing their political
and civil representation into three parts, they allotted
one of those parts to the square measurement, without a single fact or calculation to ascertain whether
this territorial proportion of representation was fairly
assigned, and ought upon any principle really to be a
third. Having, however, given to geometry this portion, (of a third for her dower,) out of compliment, I
suppose, to that sublime science, they left the other
two to be scuffled for between the other parts, population and contribution.
When they came to provide for population, they
were not able to proceed quite so smoothly as they
had done in the field of their geometry. Here their
arithmetic came to bear upon their juridical metaphysics. Had they stuck to their metaphysic principles, the arithmetical process would be simple indeed. Men, with them, are strictly equal, and are entitled to
equal rights in their own government. Each head,
on this system, would have its vote, and every man
would vote directly for the person who was to represent him in the legislature. " But soft, -by regular degrees, not yet. " This metaphysic principle,
to which law, custom, usage, policy, reason, were
to yield, is to yield itself to their pleasure. There
must be many degrees, and some stages, before the
representative can come in contact with his constituent. Indeed, as we shall soon see, these two persons are to have no sort of communion with each other. First, the voters in the Canton, who compose
? ? ? ? 464 REFLECTIONS ON THE
what they call primary assemblies, are to have a qualification. What! a qualification on the indefeasible
rights of men? Yes; but it shall be a very small
qualification. Our injustice shall be very little oppressive: only the local valuation of three days' labor paid to the public. Why, this is not much, I readily admit, for anything but the utter subversion
of your equalizing principle. As a qualification it
might as well be let alone; for it answers no one pur-,pose for which qualifications are established; and, on
your ideas, it excludes from a vote the man of all
others whose natural equality stands the most in
need of protection and defence: I mean the man who
has nothing else but his natural equality to guard
him. You order him to buy the right which you
before told him Nature had given to him gratuitously
at his birth, and of which no authority on earth could
lawfully deprive him. With regard to the person
who cannot come up to your market, a tyrannous
aristocracy, as against him, is established at the very
outset, by you who pretend to be its sworn foe.
The gradation proceeds. These primary assemblies
of the Canton elect deputies to the Commune, - one for
every two hundred qualified inhabitants. Here is the
first medium put between the primary elector and the
representative legislator; and here a new turnpike
is fixed for taxing the rights of men with a second
qualification: for none cau be elected into the Commune who does not pay the amount of ten days' labor.
Nor have we yet done. There is still to be another
gradation. * These Communes, chosen by the Canton,
* The Assembly, in executing the plan of their committee, made
some alterations. They have struck out one stage in these gradations; this removes a part of the objection; but the main objection,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 465
choose to the Department; and the deputies of the
Department choose their deputies to the National
Assembly. Here is a third barrier of a senseless
qualification. Every deputy to the National Assembly must pay, in direct contribution, to the value of
a mark of silver. Of all these qualifying barriers we
must think alike: that they are impotent to secure
independence, strong only to destroy the rights of
men.
In all this process, which in its fundamental elements affects to consider only population, upon a principle of natural right, there is a manifest attention
to property, - which, however just and reasonable on
other schemes, is on theirs perfectly unsupportable.
When they come to their third basis, that of Con-r
tribution, we find that they have more completely lost
sight of the rights of men. This last basis rests entirely on property. A principle totally different from,
the equality of men, and utterly irreconcilable to it,
is thereby admitted: but no sooner is this principle
admitted than (as usual) it is subverted; and it is
not subverted (as we shall presently see) to approximate the inequality of riches to the level of Nature.
The additional share in the third portion of representation (a portion reserved exclusively for the
higher contribution) is made to regard the district
only, and not the individuals in it who pay. It is
easy to perceive, by the course of their reasonings,
how much they were embarrassed by their contranamely, that in their scheme the first constituent voter has no connection with the representative legislator, remains in all its force. There are other alterations, some possibly for the better, some certainly for the worse: but to the author the merit or demerit of these
smaller alterations appears to be of no moment, where the scheme
itself is fundamentally vicious and absurd.
VOL. HI. 30
? ? ? ? 466 REFLECTIONS ON THE
dictory ideas of the rights of men and the privileges of riches. The Committee of Constitution do
as good as admit that they are wholly irreconcilable.
"The relation with regard to the contributions is
without doubt null, (say they,) when the question is
on the balance of the political rights as between individual and individual; without which personal equality would be destroyed, and an aristocracy of the rich would be established. But this inconvenience entirely disappears, when the proportional relation of
the contribution is only considered in the great masses, and is solely between province and province; it
serves in that case only to form a just reciprocal pro
portion between the cities, without affecting the personal rights of the citizens. "
Here the principle of contribution, as taken between
man and man, is reprobated as Mull, and destructive
to equality, - and as pernicious, too, because it leads
to the establishment of an aristocracy of the rich.
However, it must not be abandoned. And the way
of getting rid of the difficulty is to establish the inequality as between department and department, leaving all the individuals in each department upon an exact par. Observe, that this parity between individuals had been before destroyed, when the qualifications within the departments were settled; nor does
it seem a matter of great importance whether the
equality of men be injured by masses or individually.
An individual is not of the same importance in a mass
represented by a few as in a mass represented by
many. It would be too much to tell a man jealous
of his equality, that the elector has the same franchise who votes for three members as he who votes
for ten.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 467
Now take it in the other point of view, and let us
suppose their principle of representation according to
contribution, that is according to riches, to be well
imagined, and to be a necessary basis for their republic. In this their third basis they assume that riches
ought to be respected, and that justice and policy require that they should entitle men, in some mode or
other, to a larger share in the administration of public affairs; it is now to be seen how the Assembly
provides for the preeminence, or even for the security of the rich, by conferring, in virtue of their opulence, that larger measure of power to their district
which is denied to- them personally. I readily admit
(indeed, I should lay it down as a fundamental principle) that in a republican government, which has a
democratic basis, the rich do require an additional
security above what is necessary to them in monarchies. They are subject to envy, and through envy
to oppression. On the present scheme it is impossible to divine what advantage they derive from the
aristocratic preference upon which the unequal representation of the masses is founded. The rich cannot feel it, either as a support to dignity or as security to fortune: for the aristocratic mass is generated from purely democratic principles; and the prevalence given to it in the general representation
has no sort of reference to or connection with the
persons upon account of whose property this superiority of the mass is established. If the contrivers of
this scheme meant any sort of favor to the rich, in
consequence of their contribution, they ought to have
conferred the privilege either on the individual rich,
or on some class formed of rich persons (as historians
represent Servius Tullius to have done in the early
? ? ? ? 468 REFLECTIONS ON THE
constitution of Rome); because the contest between
the rich and the poor is not a struggle between corporation and corporation, but a contest between men
and men, -a competition, not between districts, but
between descriptions. It would answer its purpose
better, if the scheme were inverted: that the votes of
the masses were rendered equal, and that the votes
within each mass were proportioned to property.
Let us suppose one man in a district (it is an easy
supposition) to contribute as much as a hundred of
his neighbors. Against these he has but one vote.
If there were but one representative for the mass,
his poor neighbors would outvote him by an hundred
to one for that single representative. Bad enough!
But amends are to be made him. How? The district, in virtue of his wealth, is to choose, say ten
members instead of one: that is to say, by paying a
very large contribution he has the happiness of being
outvoted, an hundred to one, by the poor, for ten representatives, instead of being outvoted exactly in the
same proportion for a single member. In truth, instead of benefiting by this superior quantity of representation, the rich man is subjected to an additional hardship. The increase of representation within his
province sets up nine persons more, and as many
more than nine as there may be democratic candidates, to cabal and intrigue and to flatter the people
at his expense and to his oppression. An interest is
by this means held out to multitudes of the inferior
sort, in obtaining a salary of eighteen livres a day,
(to them a vast object,) besides the pleasure of a residence in Paris, and their share in the government of
the kingdom. The more the objects of ambition are
multiplied and become democratic, just in that proportion the rich are endangered.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 469
Thus it must fare between the poor and the rich in
the province deemed aristocratic, which in its internal relation is the very reverse of that character. In
its external relation, that is, in its relation to the
other provinces, I cannot see how the unequal representatioln which is given to masses on account of
wealth becomes the means of preserving the equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth.
For, if it be one of the objects to secure the weak
from being crushed by the strong, (as in all society
undoubtedly it is,) how are the smaller and poorer
of these masses to be saved from the tyranny of
the more wealthy? Is it by adding to the wealthy
further and more systematical means of oppressing
them? When we come to a balance of representation between corporate bodies, provincial interests,
emulations, and jealousies are full as likely to arise
among them as among individuals; and their divisions are likely to produce a much hotter spirit of dissension, and something leading much more nearly to a war.
I see that these aristocratic masses are made upon
what is called the principle of direct contribution.
Nothing can be a more unequal standard than this.
The indirect contribution, that which arises from duties oil consumption, is in truth a better standard,
and follows and discovers wealth more naturally than
this of direct contribution. It is difficult, indeed, to
fix a standard of local preference on account of the
one, or of the other, or of both, because some provinces may pay the more of either or of both on account
of causes not intrinsic, but originating from those
very districts over whom they have obtained a preference in consequence of their ostensible contribution.
? ? ? ? 470 REFLECTIONS ON THE
If the masses were independent, sovereign bodies,
who were to provide for a federative treasury by distinct contingents, and that the revenue had not (as it has) many impositions running through the whole,
which affect men individually, and not corporately,
and which, by their nature, confound all territorial
limits, something might be said for the basis of contribution as founded on masses.
But, of all things,
this representation, to be measured by contribution, is
the most difficult to settle upon principles of equity
in a country which considers its districts as members
of a whole. For a great city, such as Bordeaux or
Paris, appears to pay a vast body of duties, almost
out of all assignable proportion to other places, and
its mass is considered accordingly. But are these
cities the true contributors in that proportion? No.
The consumers of the commodities imported into
Bordeaux, who are scattered through all France,
pay the import duties of Bordeaux. The produce
of the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc give to
that city the means of its contribution growing out
of an export commerce. The landholders who spend
their estates in Paris, and are thereby the creators of
that city, contribute for Paris from the provinces out
of which their revenues arise. Very nearly the same
arguments will apply to the representative share
given. on account of direct contribution: because the
direct contribution must be assessed on wealth, real
or presumed; and that local wealth will itself arise
from causes not local, and which therefore in equity
ought not to produce a local preference.
It is very remarkable, that, in this fundamental
regulation which settles the representation of the
mass upon the direct contribution, they have not yet
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 471
settled how that direct contribution shall be laid, and
how apportioned. Perhaps there is some latent policy
towards the continuance of the present Assembly in
this strange procedure. However, until they do this,
they can have no certain constitution. It must depend at last upon the system of taxation, and must vary with every variation in that system. As they
have contrived matters, their taxation does not so
much depend on their constitution as their constitution on their taxation. This must introduce great confusion among the masses; as the variable qualification for votes within the district must, if ever real contested elections take place, cause infinite internal
controversies.
To compare together the three bases, not on their
political reason, but on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its consistency with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the principle Which
the committee call the basis of population does not
begin to operate from the same point with the two
other principles, called the bases of territory and of
contribution, which are both of an aristocratic nature.
The consequence is, that, where all three begin to
operate together, there is the most absurd inequality produced by the operation of the former on the two latter principles. Every canton contains four
square leagues, and is estimated to contain, on the
average, 4,000 inhabitants, or 680 voters in the primary assemblies, which vary in numbers with the population of the canton, and send one deputy to
the commune for every 200 voters. Nine cantons
make a commune.
Now let us take a canton containing a seaport town
of trade, or a great'manufacturing town. Let us sup
? ? ? ? 472 REFLECTIONS ON THE
pose the population of this canton to be 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters, forming three primary assemblies, and sending ten deputies to the commune. Oppose to this one canton two others of the remaining eight in the same commune. These we may suppose to have their fair population, of 4,000 inhabitants, and 680 voters each, or 8,000 inhabitants and 1,360
voters, both together. These will form only two primary assemblies, and send only six deputies to the
commune.
When the assembly of the commune comes to vote
on the basis of territory, which principle is first admitted to operate in that assembly, the single canton,
which has half the territory of the other two, will
have ten voices to six in the election of three deputies
to the assembly of the department, chosen on the express ground of a representation of territory. This
inequality, striking as it is, will be yet highly aggravated, if we suppose, as we fairly may, the several
other cantons of the commune to fall proportionably
short of the average population, as much as the principal canton exceeds it.
Now as to the basis of contribution, which also is
a principle admitted first to operate in the assembly
of the commune. Let us again take one canton, such
as is stated above. If the whole of the direct cointributions paid by a great trading or manufacturing
town be divided equally among the inhabitants, each
individual will be found to pay much more than an
individual living in the country according to the same
average. The whole paid by the inhabitants of the
former will be more than the whole paid by the inhabitants of the latter, --we may fairly assume one
third more. Then the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 473
voters of the canton, will pay as much as 19,050 inhabitants, or 3,289 voters of the other cantons, which
are nearly the estimated proportion of inhabitants and
voters of five other cantons. Now the 2,193 voters will,
as I before said, send only ten deputies to the assembly; the 3,289 voters will send sixteen. Thus, for an
equal share in the contribution of the whole commune,
there will be a difference of sixteen voices to ten in voting for deputies to be chosen on the principle of representing the general contribution of the whole commune. By the same mode of computation, we shall find
15,875 inhabitants, or 2,741 voters of the other cantons, who pay one sixth LESS to the contribution of
the whole commune, will have three voices MORE than
the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the one canton.
Such is the fantastical and unjust inequality between mass and mass, in this curious repartition of
the rights of representation arising out of territory and
contribution. The qualifications which these confer
are in truth negative qualifications, that give a right
in an inverse proportion to the possession of them.
In this whole contrivance of the three bases, consider it in any light you please, I do not see a variety of
objects reconciled in one consistent whole, but several
contradictory principles reluctantly and irreconcilably
brought and held together by your philosophers, like
wild beasts shut up in a cage, to claw and bite each
other to their mutual destruction.
I am afraid I have gone too far into their way of
considering the formation of a Constitution. They
have much, but bad, metaphysics, --much, but bad,
geometry, -much, but false, proportionate arithmetic; but if it were all as exact as metaphysics, geome
? ? ? ? 474 REFLECTIONS ON THE
try, and arithmetic ought to be, and if their schemes
were perfectly consistent in all their parts, it would
make only a more fair and sightly vision. It is re.
markable, that, in a great arrangement of mankind,
not one reference whatsoever is to be found to anything moral or anything politic, - nothing that relates to the concerns, the actions, the passions, the
interests of men. Hominem non sapiunt.
You see I only consider this Constitution as electoral, and leading by steps to the National Assembly.
I do not enter into the internal government of the
departments, and their genealogy through the communes and cantons. These local governments are,
in the original plan, to be as nearly as possible composed in the same manner and on the same principles
with the elective assemblies. They are each of them
bodies perfectly compact and rounded in themselves.
You cannot but perceive in this scheme, that it has
a direct and immediate tendeincvo s ever France into a variety of republics, and to render them totally
independent of each other, without any direct constitutionial means of coherence, connection, or subordination, except what may be derived from their acquiescence in the determinations of the general congress of the ambassadors from each independent republic.
Such in reality is the National Assembly; and such
governments, I admit, do exist in the world, though
in forms infinitely more suitable to the local and habitual circumstances of their people. But such associations, rather than bodies politic, have generally been
the effect of necessity, not choice; and I believe the
present French power is the very first body of citizens who, having obtained full authority to do with
their country what they pleased, have chosen to dissever it in this barbarous manner.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 475
It is impossible not to observe, that, in the spirit of this geometrical distribution and arithmetical
arrangement, these pretended citizens treat France
exactly like a country of conquest. Acting as conquerors, they have imitated the policy of the harshest
of that harsh race. The policy of such barbarous
victors, who contemn a subdued people, and insult
their feelings, has ever been, as much as in them lay,
to destroy all vestiges of the ancient country, in religion, in polity, in laws, and in manners; to confound
all territorial limits; to produce a general poverty;
to put up their properties to auction; to crush their
princes, nobles, and pontiffs; to lay low everything
which had lifted its head above the level, or which
could serve to combine or rally, in their distresses,
the disbanded people, under the standard of old opinion. They have made France free in the manner
in which those sincere friends to the rights of mankind, the Romans, freed Greece, Mlacedon, and other
nations. They destroyed the bonds of their union,
under color of providing for the independence of each
of their cities.
When the members who compose these new bodies of cantons, communes, and departments, arrangements purposely produced through the medium of confusion, begin to act, they will find themselves
in a great measure strangers to one another. The
electors and elected throughout, especially in the
rural cantons, will be frequently without any civil
habitudes or connections, or any of that natural discipline which is the soul of a true republic. Magistrates and collectors of revenue are now no longer acquainted with their districts, bishops with their
dioceses, or curates with their parishes. These new
? ? ? ? 476 REFLECTIONS ON THE
colonies of the rights of men bear a strong resemblance to that sort of military colonies which Tacitus
has observed upon in the declining policy of Rome.
In better and wiser days (whatever course they took
with foreign nations) they were careful to make the
elements of a methodical subordination and settlement to be coeval, and even to lay the foundations
of discipline in the military. * But when all the good
arts had fallen into ruin, they proceeded, as your
Assembly does, upon the equality of men, and with
as little judgment, and as little care for those things
which make a republic tolerable or durable. But
in this, as well as almost every instance, your new
commonwealth is born and bred and fed in those
corruptions which mark degenerated and worn-out
republics. Your child comes into the world with the
symptoms of death; the facies Hippocratica forms the
character of its physiognomy and the prognostic of
its fate.
The legislators who framed the ancient republics
knew that their business was too arduous to be accomplished with no better apparatus than the metaphysics of an undergraduate and the mathematics and arithmetic of an exciseman. They had to do with
men, and they were obliged to study human nature.
They had to do with citizens, and they were obliged
to study the effects of those habits which are commu* -Non, ut olim, universe legiones deducebantur, cum tribunis, et
centurionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis militibus, ut consensu et caritate rempublicam efficerent; sed ignoti inter se, diversis manipulis,
sine rectore, sine affectibus mutuis, quasi ex alio genere mortalium
repente in unum collecti, numerus magis quam colonia. " - Tac. Annal. lib. 14, sect. 27. -All this will be still more applicable to the
unconnected, rotatory, biennial national assemblies, in this absurd
and senseless constitution.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 477
nicated by the circumstances of civil life. They were
sensible that the operation of this second nature on
the first produced a new combination, --and thence
arose many diversities amongst men, according to
their birth, their education, their professions, the
periods of their lives, their residence in towns or in
the country, their several ways of acquiring and of
fixing property, and according to the quality of the
property itself, all which rendered them, as it were, so
many different species of animals. From hence they
thought themselves obliged to dispose their citizens
into such classes, and to place them in such situations in the state, as their peculiar habits might qualify them to fill, and to allot to them such appropriated privileges as might secure to them what their specific
occasions required, and which might furnish to each
description such force as might protect it in the conflict caused by the diversity of interests that must
exist, and must contend, in all complex society: for
the legislator would have been ashamed that the
coarse husbandman should well know how to assort
and to use his sheep, horses, and oxen, and should
have enough of common sense not to abstract and
equalize them all into animals, without providing for
each kind an appropriate food, care, and employment,
whilst he, the economist, disposer, and shepherd of
his own kindred, subliming himself into an airy metaphysician, was resolved to know nothing of his flocks
but as men in general. It is for this reason that Montesquieu observed, very justly, that, in their classification of the citizens, the great legislators of antiquity made the greatest display of their powers, and even
soared above themselves. It is here that your modern legislators have gone deep into the negative sc
? ? ? ? 478 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ries, and sunk even below their own nothing. As the
first sort of legislators attended to the different kinds
of citizens, and combined them into one commonwealth, the others, the metaphysical *and alchemistical legislators, have taken the directly contrary course. They have attempted to confound all sorts
of citizens, as well as they could, into one homogeneous mass; and then they divided this their amalgama into a number of incoherent republics. They reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake of
simple telling, and not to figures, whose power is to
arise from their place in the table. The. elements of
their own metaphysics might have taught them better
lessons. The troll of their categorical table might
have informed them that there was something else
in the intellectual world besides substance and quantity. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that there were eight heads more,* in every complex deliberation, which they have never thought
of; though these, of all the ten, are the subject on
which the skill of man can operate anything at all.
So far from this able disposition of some of the old
republican legislators, which follows with a solicitous
accuracy the moral conditions and propensities of
men, they have levelled and crushed together all the
orders which they found, even under the coarse,
unartificial arrangement of the monarchy, in which
mode of government the classing of the citizens is not
of so much importance as in a republic. It is true,
however, that every such classification, if properly
ordered, is good in all forms of government, and
composes a strong barrier against the excesses of despotism, as well as it is the necessary means of giving
* Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passio, Ubi, Quando, Situs, Habitus.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 479
effect and permanence to a republic. For want of
something of this kind, if the present project of a
republic should fail, all securities to a moderated
freedom fail along with it, all the indirect restraints
which mitigate despotism are removed; insomuch
that, if monarchy should ever again obtain an entire
ascendency in France, under this or any other dynasty, it will probably be, if not voluntarily tempered, at setting out, by the wise and virtuous counsels of the
prince, the most completely arbitrary power that has
ever appeared on earth. This is to play a most desperate game.
The confusion which attends on all such proceedings they even declare to be one of their objects, and they hope to secure their Constitution by a terror of
a return of those evils which attended their making
it. "By this," say they, "its destruction will become difficult to authority, which cannot break it up
without the entire disorganization of the whole state. "
They presume, that, if this authority should ever come
to the same degree of power that they have acquired,
it would make a more moderate and chastised use of
it, and would piously tremble entirely to disorganize
the state in the savage manner that they have done.
They expect from the virtues of returning despotism
the security which is to be enjoyed by the offspring
of their popular vices.
I wish, Sir, that you and my readers would give
an attentive perusal to the work of M. de Calonne on
this subject. It is, indeed, not only an eloquent, but
anl able and instructive performance. I confine myself to what he says relative to the Constitution of the new state, and to the condition of the revenue. As
to the disputes of this minister with his rivals, I do
? ? ? ? 480 REFLECTIONS ON THE
not wish to pronounce upon them. As little do I
mean to hazard any opinion concerning his ways and
means, financial or political, for taking his country
out of its present disgraceful and deplorable situation
of servitude, anarchy, bankruptcy, and beggary. I
cannot speculate quite so sanguinely as he does: but
he is a Frenchman, and has a closer duty relative to
those objects, and better means of judging of them,
than I can have. I wish that the formal avowal
which he refers to, made by one of the principal leaders in the Assembly, concerning the tendency of their
scheme to bring France not only from a monarchy
to a republic, but from a republic to a mere confederacy, may be very particularly attended to. It adds
new force to my observations: and, indeed, M. de Calonne's work supplies my deficiencies by many new
and striking arguments on most of the subjects of
this letter. *
It is this resolution to break their country into
separate republics which has driven them into the
greatest number of their difficulties and contradictions. If it were not for this, all the questions of
exact equality, and these balances, never to be settled, of individual rights, population, and contribution, would be wholly useless. The representation, though derived from parts, would be a duty which
equally regarded the whole. Each deputy to the
Assembly would be the representative of France, and
of all its descriptions, of the many and of the few, of
the rich and of the poor, of the great districts and of
the small. All these districts would themselves be
subordinate to some standing authority, existing independently of them, - an authority in which their
* See l']ttat de la France, p. 363.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 481
representation, and everything that belongs to it,
originated, and to which it was pointed. This standing, unalterable, fundamental government would
make, and it is the only thing which could make,
that territory truly and properly a whole. With us,
when we elect popular representatives, we send them
to a council in which each man individually is a subject, and submitted to a government complete in all
its ordinary functions. With you the elective Assembly is the sovereign, and the sole sovereign; all the
members are therefore integral parts of this sole sovereignty. But with us it is totally different. With
us the representative, separated from the other parts,
can have no action and no existence. The government is the point of reference of the several members and districts of our representation. This is the centre of our unity. This government of reference is
a trustee for the whole, and not for the parts. So is
the other branch of our public council: I mean the
House of Lords. With us the King and the Lords
are several and joint securities for the equality of
each district, each province, each city. When did you
hear in Great Britain of any province suffering from
the'inequality of its representation? what district
from having no representation at all? Not only
our monarchy and our peerage secure the equality
on which our unity depends, but it is the spirit of
the Hlouse of Commons itself. The very inequality
of representation, which is so foolishly complained of,
is perhaps the very thing which prevents us from
thinking or acting as members for districts. Cornwall elects as many members as all Scotland. But is
Cornwall better taken care of. than Scotland? Few
trouble their heads about any of your bases, out of
VOL. III. 31
? ? ? ? 482 REFLECTIONS ON THE
some giddy clubs. Most of those who wish for any
change, upon any plausible grounds, desire it on different ideas.
Your new Constitution is the very reverse of ours
in its principle; and I am astonished'how any persons could dream of holding out anything done in
it as an example for Great Britain. With you there
is little, or rather no, connection between the last representative and the first constituent. The member
}vho goes to the National Assembly is not chosen by
the people, nor accountable to them. There are
{three elections before he is chosen; two sets of
magistracy intervene between him and the primary
assembly, so as to render him, as I have said, an
ambassador of a state, and not the representative of
the people within a state. By this the whole spirit
of the election is changed; nor can any corrective
your Constitution-mongers have devised render him
anything else than what he is. The very attempt to
do it would inevitably introduce a confusion, if possible, more horrid than the present. There is no
way to make a connection between the original
constituent and the representative, but by the circuitous means which may lead the candidate to' apply in the first instance to the primary electors, in order that by their authoritative instructions (and
something more perhaps) these primary electors may
force the two succeeding bodies of electors to make
a choice agreeable to their wishes. But this would
plainly subvert the whole scheme. It would be to
plunge them back into that tumult and confusion
of popular election, which, by their interposed gradation of elections, they mean to avoid, and at length
0to risk the whole fortune of the state with those who
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 483
have the least knowledge of it and the least interest
in it. This is a perpetual dilemma, into which they
are thrown by the vicious, weak, and contradictory
principles they have chosen. Unless the people break
up and level this gradation, it is plain that they do
not at all substantially elect to the Assembly; indeed,
they elect as little in appearance as reality.
What is it we all seek for in an election?
not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior,
an excellence in composition. Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are
so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the
work itself requires the aid of more minds than one
age can furnish. It is from this view of things that
the best legislators have been often satisfied with the
establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government, - a power like that which some
of the philosophers have called a plastic Nature; and
having fixed the principle, they have left it afterwards
to its own operation.
To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with
a presiding principle and a prolific energy, is with
me the criterion of profound wisdom. What your
politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius
are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By
their violent haste, and their defiance of the process
of Nature, they are delivered over blindly to every
projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and em
? ? ? ? 458 REFLECTIONS ON THE
piric. They despair of turning to account anything
that is common. Diet is nothing in their system of
remedy. The worst of it is, that this their despair
of curing common distempers by regular methods
arises not only from defect of comprehension, but, I
fear, from some malignity of disposition. Your legislators seem to have taken their opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices from the declamations and buffooneries of satirists, -- who would themselves be
astonished, if they were held to the letter of their own
descriptions. By listening only to these, your leaders regard all things only on the side of their vices
and faults, and view those vices and faults under
every color of exaggeration. It is undoubtedly true,
though it may seem paradoxical, -- but, in general,
those who are habitually employed in finding and
displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the contemplation of
those things. By hating vices too much, they come
to love men too little. It is therefore not wonderful
that they should be indisposed and unable to serve
them. From hence arises the complexional disposition of some of your guides to pull everything in
pieces. At this malicious game they display the
whole of their quadrimanous activity. As to the
rest, the paradoxes of eloquent writers, brought forth
purely as a sport of fancy, to try their talents, to
rouse attention, and excite surprise, are taken up by
these gentlemen, not in the spirit of the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste and improving their style: these paradoxes become with them serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 459
regulating the most important concerns of the state.
Cicero ludicrously describes Cato as endeavoring to
act in the commonwealth upon the school paradoxes
which exercised the wits of the junior students in the
Stoic philosophy. If this was true of Cato, these gentlemen copy after him in the manner of some persons
who lived about his time, -pede nudo Catonem. Mr.
flume told me that he had from Rousseau himself
the secret of his principles of composition. That
acute, though eccenltric observer, had perceived, that,
to strike and interest the public, the marvellous must
be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long since lost its effects; that giants,
magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance, which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which
belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to
a writer but that species of the marvellous, which
might still be produced, and with as great an effect
as ever, though in another way, -that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situations, giving rise to new and unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals. I believe, that, were
Rousseau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he
would be shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars, who in their paradoxes are servile imitators, and
even in their incredulity discover an implicit faith.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a
regular way, ought to give us ground to presume
ability. But the physician of the state, who, not satisfied with the cure of distempers, undertakes to
regenerate constitutions, ought to show uncommon
powers. Some very unusual appearances of wisdom
ought to display themselves on the face of the designs
of those who appeal to no practice and who copy
? ? ? ? 460 REFLECTIONS ON THE
after no model. Has any such been manifested? I
shall take a view (it shall for the subject be a very
short one) of what the Assembly has done, with regard, first, to the constitution of the legislature; in
the neyt place, to that of the executive power; then
to that of the judicature; afterwards to the model of
the army; and conclude with the system of finance:
to see whether we can discover in any part of their
schemes the portentous ability which may justify
these bold undertakers in the superiority which they
assume over mankind.
It is in the model of the sovereign and presiding
part of this new republic that we should expect their
grand display. Here they were to prove their title to
their proud demands. For the plan itself at large,
and for the reasons on which it is grounded, I refer to
the journals of the Assembly of the 29th of September, 1789, and to the subsequent proceedings which have made any alterations in the plan. So far as in
a matter somewhat confused I can see light, the system remains substantially as it has been originally framed. My few remarks will be such as regard its
spirit, its tendency, and its fitness for framing a popular commonwealth, which they profess theirs to be, suited to the ends for which any commonwealth, and
particularly such a commonwealth, is made. At the
same time I mean to consider its consistency with
itself and its own principles.
Old establishments are tried by their effects. If
the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful,
we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good
from whence good is derived. In old establishments
various correctives have been found for their aberrations from theory. Indeed, they are the results of va
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 461
rious necessities and expediences. They are not often constructed after any theory: theories are rather
drawn from them. In them we often see the end
best obtained, where the means seem not perfectly
reconcilable to what we may fancy was the original
scheme. The means taught by experience may be
better suited to political ends than those contrived
in the original project. They again react upon the
primitive constitution, and sometimes improve the design itself, from which they seem to have departed.
I think all this might be curiously exemplified in the
British Constitution. At worst, the errors and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the ship proceeds in her course. This
is the case of old establishments; but in a new and
merely theoretic system, it is expected that every
contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer
its ends, especially where the projectors are no way
embarrassed with an endeavor to accommodate the
new building to an old one, either in the walls or
on the foundations.
The French builders, clearing away as mere rubbish whatever they found, and, like their ornamental
gardeners, forming everything into an exact level,
propose to rest the whole local and general legislature on three bases of three different kinds, - one geometrical, one arithmetical, and the third financial; the first of which they call the basis of territory; the
second, the basis of population; and the third, the
basis of contribution. For the accomplishment of the
first of these purposes, they divide the area of their
country into eighty-three pieces, regularly square, of
eighteen leagues by eighteen. These large divisions
are called Departments. These they portion, proceed
? ? ? ? 462 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ing by square measurement, into seventeen hundred
and twenty districts, called Communes. These again
they subdivide, still proceeding by square measurement, into smaller districts, called Cantons, making in all 6,400.
At first view this geometrical basis of theirs presents not much to admire or to blame. It calls for
no great legislative talents. Nothing more than -an
accurate land-surveyor, with his chain, sight, and
theodolite, is requisite for such a plan as this. In
the old divisions of the country, various accidents
at times, and the ebb and flow of various properties
and jurisdictions, settled their bounds. These bounds
were not made upon any fixed system, undoubtedly.
They were subject to some inconveniences; but they
were inconveniences for which use had found remedies. and habit had supplied accommodation and patience. In this new pavement of square within
square, and this organization and semi-organization,
made on the system of Empedocles and Buffon, and
not upon any politic principle, it is impossible that
innumerable local inconveniences, to which men are
not habituated, must not arise. But these I pass
over, because it requires an accurate knowledge of
the country, which I do not possess, to specify them.
When these state surveyors came to take a view of
their work of measurement, they soon found that in
politics the most fallacious of all things was geometrical demonstration. They had then recourse to another basis (or rather buttress) to support the
building, which tottered on that false foundation. It
was evident that the goodness of the soil, the number of the people, their wealth, and the largeness of their contribution, made such infinite variations be
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 463
tween square and square as to render mensuration a
ridiculous standard of power in the commonwealth,
and equality in geometry the most unequal of all
measures in the distribution of men. However, they
could not give it up, - but, dividing their political
and civil representation into three parts, they allotted
one of those parts to the square measurement, without a single fact or calculation to ascertain whether
this territorial proportion of representation was fairly
assigned, and ought upon any principle really to be a
third. Having, however, given to geometry this portion, (of a third for her dower,) out of compliment, I
suppose, to that sublime science, they left the other
two to be scuffled for between the other parts, population and contribution.
When they came to provide for population, they
were not able to proceed quite so smoothly as they
had done in the field of their geometry. Here their
arithmetic came to bear upon their juridical metaphysics. Had they stuck to their metaphysic principles, the arithmetical process would be simple indeed. Men, with them, are strictly equal, and are entitled to
equal rights in their own government. Each head,
on this system, would have its vote, and every man
would vote directly for the person who was to represent him in the legislature. " But soft, -by regular degrees, not yet. " This metaphysic principle,
to which law, custom, usage, policy, reason, were
to yield, is to yield itself to their pleasure. There
must be many degrees, and some stages, before the
representative can come in contact with his constituent. Indeed, as we shall soon see, these two persons are to have no sort of communion with each other. First, the voters in the Canton, who compose
? ? ? ? 464 REFLECTIONS ON THE
what they call primary assemblies, are to have a qualification. What! a qualification on the indefeasible
rights of men? Yes; but it shall be a very small
qualification. Our injustice shall be very little oppressive: only the local valuation of three days' labor paid to the public. Why, this is not much, I readily admit, for anything but the utter subversion
of your equalizing principle. As a qualification it
might as well be let alone; for it answers no one pur-,pose for which qualifications are established; and, on
your ideas, it excludes from a vote the man of all
others whose natural equality stands the most in
need of protection and defence: I mean the man who
has nothing else but his natural equality to guard
him. You order him to buy the right which you
before told him Nature had given to him gratuitously
at his birth, and of which no authority on earth could
lawfully deprive him. With regard to the person
who cannot come up to your market, a tyrannous
aristocracy, as against him, is established at the very
outset, by you who pretend to be its sworn foe.
The gradation proceeds. These primary assemblies
of the Canton elect deputies to the Commune, - one for
every two hundred qualified inhabitants. Here is the
first medium put between the primary elector and the
representative legislator; and here a new turnpike
is fixed for taxing the rights of men with a second
qualification: for none cau be elected into the Commune who does not pay the amount of ten days' labor.
Nor have we yet done. There is still to be another
gradation. * These Communes, chosen by the Canton,
* The Assembly, in executing the plan of their committee, made
some alterations. They have struck out one stage in these gradations; this removes a part of the objection; but the main objection,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 465
choose to the Department; and the deputies of the
Department choose their deputies to the National
Assembly. Here is a third barrier of a senseless
qualification. Every deputy to the National Assembly must pay, in direct contribution, to the value of
a mark of silver. Of all these qualifying barriers we
must think alike: that they are impotent to secure
independence, strong only to destroy the rights of
men.
In all this process, which in its fundamental elements affects to consider only population, upon a principle of natural right, there is a manifest attention
to property, - which, however just and reasonable on
other schemes, is on theirs perfectly unsupportable.
When they come to their third basis, that of Con-r
tribution, we find that they have more completely lost
sight of the rights of men. This last basis rests entirely on property. A principle totally different from,
the equality of men, and utterly irreconcilable to it,
is thereby admitted: but no sooner is this principle
admitted than (as usual) it is subverted; and it is
not subverted (as we shall presently see) to approximate the inequality of riches to the level of Nature.
The additional share in the third portion of representation (a portion reserved exclusively for the
higher contribution) is made to regard the district
only, and not the individuals in it who pay. It is
easy to perceive, by the course of their reasonings,
how much they were embarrassed by their contranamely, that in their scheme the first constituent voter has no connection with the representative legislator, remains in all its force. There are other alterations, some possibly for the better, some certainly for the worse: but to the author the merit or demerit of these
smaller alterations appears to be of no moment, where the scheme
itself is fundamentally vicious and absurd.
VOL. HI. 30
? ? ? ? 466 REFLECTIONS ON THE
dictory ideas of the rights of men and the privileges of riches. The Committee of Constitution do
as good as admit that they are wholly irreconcilable.
"The relation with regard to the contributions is
without doubt null, (say they,) when the question is
on the balance of the political rights as between individual and individual; without which personal equality would be destroyed, and an aristocracy of the rich would be established. But this inconvenience entirely disappears, when the proportional relation of
the contribution is only considered in the great masses, and is solely between province and province; it
serves in that case only to form a just reciprocal pro
portion between the cities, without affecting the personal rights of the citizens. "
Here the principle of contribution, as taken between
man and man, is reprobated as Mull, and destructive
to equality, - and as pernicious, too, because it leads
to the establishment of an aristocracy of the rich.
However, it must not be abandoned. And the way
of getting rid of the difficulty is to establish the inequality as between department and department, leaving all the individuals in each department upon an exact par. Observe, that this parity between individuals had been before destroyed, when the qualifications within the departments were settled; nor does
it seem a matter of great importance whether the
equality of men be injured by masses or individually.
An individual is not of the same importance in a mass
represented by a few as in a mass represented by
many. It would be too much to tell a man jealous
of his equality, that the elector has the same franchise who votes for three members as he who votes
for ten.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 467
Now take it in the other point of view, and let us
suppose their principle of representation according to
contribution, that is according to riches, to be well
imagined, and to be a necessary basis for their republic. In this their third basis they assume that riches
ought to be respected, and that justice and policy require that they should entitle men, in some mode or
other, to a larger share in the administration of public affairs; it is now to be seen how the Assembly
provides for the preeminence, or even for the security of the rich, by conferring, in virtue of their opulence, that larger measure of power to their district
which is denied to- them personally. I readily admit
(indeed, I should lay it down as a fundamental principle) that in a republican government, which has a
democratic basis, the rich do require an additional
security above what is necessary to them in monarchies. They are subject to envy, and through envy
to oppression. On the present scheme it is impossible to divine what advantage they derive from the
aristocratic preference upon which the unequal representation of the masses is founded. The rich cannot feel it, either as a support to dignity or as security to fortune: for the aristocratic mass is generated from purely democratic principles; and the prevalence given to it in the general representation
has no sort of reference to or connection with the
persons upon account of whose property this superiority of the mass is established. If the contrivers of
this scheme meant any sort of favor to the rich, in
consequence of their contribution, they ought to have
conferred the privilege either on the individual rich,
or on some class formed of rich persons (as historians
represent Servius Tullius to have done in the early
? ? ? ? 468 REFLECTIONS ON THE
constitution of Rome); because the contest between
the rich and the poor is not a struggle between corporation and corporation, but a contest between men
and men, -a competition, not between districts, but
between descriptions. It would answer its purpose
better, if the scheme were inverted: that the votes of
the masses were rendered equal, and that the votes
within each mass were proportioned to property.
Let us suppose one man in a district (it is an easy
supposition) to contribute as much as a hundred of
his neighbors. Against these he has but one vote.
If there were but one representative for the mass,
his poor neighbors would outvote him by an hundred
to one for that single representative. Bad enough!
But amends are to be made him. How? The district, in virtue of his wealth, is to choose, say ten
members instead of one: that is to say, by paying a
very large contribution he has the happiness of being
outvoted, an hundred to one, by the poor, for ten representatives, instead of being outvoted exactly in the
same proportion for a single member. In truth, instead of benefiting by this superior quantity of representation, the rich man is subjected to an additional hardship. The increase of representation within his
province sets up nine persons more, and as many
more than nine as there may be democratic candidates, to cabal and intrigue and to flatter the people
at his expense and to his oppression. An interest is
by this means held out to multitudes of the inferior
sort, in obtaining a salary of eighteen livres a day,
(to them a vast object,) besides the pleasure of a residence in Paris, and their share in the government of
the kingdom. The more the objects of ambition are
multiplied and become democratic, just in that proportion the rich are endangered.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 469
Thus it must fare between the poor and the rich in
the province deemed aristocratic, which in its internal relation is the very reverse of that character. In
its external relation, that is, in its relation to the
other provinces, I cannot see how the unequal representatioln which is given to masses on account of
wealth becomes the means of preserving the equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth.
For, if it be one of the objects to secure the weak
from being crushed by the strong, (as in all society
undoubtedly it is,) how are the smaller and poorer
of these masses to be saved from the tyranny of
the more wealthy? Is it by adding to the wealthy
further and more systematical means of oppressing
them? When we come to a balance of representation between corporate bodies, provincial interests,
emulations, and jealousies are full as likely to arise
among them as among individuals; and their divisions are likely to produce a much hotter spirit of dissension, and something leading much more nearly to a war.
I see that these aristocratic masses are made upon
what is called the principle of direct contribution.
Nothing can be a more unequal standard than this.
The indirect contribution, that which arises from duties oil consumption, is in truth a better standard,
and follows and discovers wealth more naturally than
this of direct contribution. It is difficult, indeed, to
fix a standard of local preference on account of the
one, or of the other, or of both, because some provinces may pay the more of either or of both on account
of causes not intrinsic, but originating from those
very districts over whom they have obtained a preference in consequence of their ostensible contribution.
? ? ? ? 470 REFLECTIONS ON THE
If the masses were independent, sovereign bodies,
who were to provide for a federative treasury by distinct contingents, and that the revenue had not (as it has) many impositions running through the whole,
which affect men individually, and not corporately,
and which, by their nature, confound all territorial
limits, something might be said for the basis of contribution as founded on masses.
But, of all things,
this representation, to be measured by contribution, is
the most difficult to settle upon principles of equity
in a country which considers its districts as members
of a whole. For a great city, such as Bordeaux or
Paris, appears to pay a vast body of duties, almost
out of all assignable proportion to other places, and
its mass is considered accordingly. But are these
cities the true contributors in that proportion? No.
The consumers of the commodities imported into
Bordeaux, who are scattered through all France,
pay the import duties of Bordeaux. The produce
of the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc give to
that city the means of its contribution growing out
of an export commerce. The landholders who spend
their estates in Paris, and are thereby the creators of
that city, contribute for Paris from the provinces out
of which their revenues arise. Very nearly the same
arguments will apply to the representative share
given. on account of direct contribution: because the
direct contribution must be assessed on wealth, real
or presumed; and that local wealth will itself arise
from causes not local, and which therefore in equity
ought not to produce a local preference.
It is very remarkable, that, in this fundamental
regulation which settles the representation of the
mass upon the direct contribution, they have not yet
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 471
settled how that direct contribution shall be laid, and
how apportioned. Perhaps there is some latent policy
towards the continuance of the present Assembly in
this strange procedure. However, until they do this,
they can have no certain constitution. It must depend at last upon the system of taxation, and must vary with every variation in that system. As they
have contrived matters, their taxation does not so
much depend on their constitution as their constitution on their taxation. This must introduce great confusion among the masses; as the variable qualification for votes within the district must, if ever real contested elections take place, cause infinite internal
controversies.
To compare together the three bases, not on their
political reason, but on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its consistency with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the principle Which
the committee call the basis of population does not
begin to operate from the same point with the two
other principles, called the bases of territory and of
contribution, which are both of an aristocratic nature.
The consequence is, that, where all three begin to
operate together, there is the most absurd inequality produced by the operation of the former on the two latter principles. Every canton contains four
square leagues, and is estimated to contain, on the
average, 4,000 inhabitants, or 680 voters in the primary assemblies, which vary in numbers with the population of the canton, and send one deputy to
the commune for every 200 voters. Nine cantons
make a commune.
Now let us take a canton containing a seaport town
of trade, or a great'manufacturing town. Let us sup
? ? ? ? 472 REFLECTIONS ON THE
pose the population of this canton to be 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters, forming three primary assemblies, and sending ten deputies to the commune. Oppose to this one canton two others of the remaining eight in the same commune. These we may suppose to have their fair population, of 4,000 inhabitants, and 680 voters each, or 8,000 inhabitants and 1,360
voters, both together. These will form only two primary assemblies, and send only six deputies to the
commune.
When the assembly of the commune comes to vote
on the basis of territory, which principle is first admitted to operate in that assembly, the single canton,
which has half the territory of the other two, will
have ten voices to six in the election of three deputies
to the assembly of the department, chosen on the express ground of a representation of territory. This
inequality, striking as it is, will be yet highly aggravated, if we suppose, as we fairly may, the several
other cantons of the commune to fall proportionably
short of the average population, as much as the principal canton exceeds it.
Now as to the basis of contribution, which also is
a principle admitted first to operate in the assembly
of the commune. Let us again take one canton, such
as is stated above. If the whole of the direct cointributions paid by a great trading or manufacturing
town be divided equally among the inhabitants, each
individual will be found to pay much more than an
individual living in the country according to the same
average. The whole paid by the inhabitants of the
former will be more than the whole paid by the inhabitants of the latter, --we may fairly assume one
third more. Then the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 473
voters of the canton, will pay as much as 19,050 inhabitants, or 3,289 voters of the other cantons, which
are nearly the estimated proportion of inhabitants and
voters of five other cantons. Now the 2,193 voters will,
as I before said, send only ten deputies to the assembly; the 3,289 voters will send sixteen. Thus, for an
equal share in the contribution of the whole commune,
there will be a difference of sixteen voices to ten in voting for deputies to be chosen on the principle of representing the general contribution of the whole commune. By the same mode of computation, we shall find
15,875 inhabitants, or 2,741 voters of the other cantons, who pay one sixth LESS to the contribution of
the whole commune, will have three voices MORE than
the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the one canton.
Such is the fantastical and unjust inequality between mass and mass, in this curious repartition of
the rights of representation arising out of territory and
contribution. The qualifications which these confer
are in truth negative qualifications, that give a right
in an inverse proportion to the possession of them.
In this whole contrivance of the three bases, consider it in any light you please, I do not see a variety of
objects reconciled in one consistent whole, but several
contradictory principles reluctantly and irreconcilably
brought and held together by your philosophers, like
wild beasts shut up in a cage, to claw and bite each
other to their mutual destruction.
I am afraid I have gone too far into their way of
considering the formation of a Constitution. They
have much, but bad, metaphysics, --much, but bad,
geometry, -much, but false, proportionate arithmetic; but if it were all as exact as metaphysics, geome
? ? ? ? 474 REFLECTIONS ON THE
try, and arithmetic ought to be, and if their schemes
were perfectly consistent in all their parts, it would
make only a more fair and sightly vision. It is re.
markable, that, in a great arrangement of mankind,
not one reference whatsoever is to be found to anything moral or anything politic, - nothing that relates to the concerns, the actions, the passions, the
interests of men. Hominem non sapiunt.
You see I only consider this Constitution as electoral, and leading by steps to the National Assembly.
I do not enter into the internal government of the
departments, and their genealogy through the communes and cantons. These local governments are,
in the original plan, to be as nearly as possible composed in the same manner and on the same principles
with the elective assemblies. They are each of them
bodies perfectly compact and rounded in themselves.
You cannot but perceive in this scheme, that it has
a direct and immediate tendeincvo s ever France into a variety of republics, and to render them totally
independent of each other, without any direct constitutionial means of coherence, connection, or subordination, except what may be derived from their acquiescence in the determinations of the general congress of the ambassadors from each independent republic.
Such in reality is the National Assembly; and such
governments, I admit, do exist in the world, though
in forms infinitely more suitable to the local and habitual circumstances of their people. But such associations, rather than bodies politic, have generally been
the effect of necessity, not choice; and I believe the
present French power is the very first body of citizens who, having obtained full authority to do with
their country what they pleased, have chosen to dissever it in this barbarous manner.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 475
It is impossible not to observe, that, in the spirit of this geometrical distribution and arithmetical
arrangement, these pretended citizens treat France
exactly like a country of conquest. Acting as conquerors, they have imitated the policy of the harshest
of that harsh race. The policy of such barbarous
victors, who contemn a subdued people, and insult
their feelings, has ever been, as much as in them lay,
to destroy all vestiges of the ancient country, in religion, in polity, in laws, and in manners; to confound
all territorial limits; to produce a general poverty;
to put up their properties to auction; to crush their
princes, nobles, and pontiffs; to lay low everything
which had lifted its head above the level, or which
could serve to combine or rally, in their distresses,
the disbanded people, under the standard of old opinion. They have made France free in the manner
in which those sincere friends to the rights of mankind, the Romans, freed Greece, Mlacedon, and other
nations. They destroyed the bonds of their union,
under color of providing for the independence of each
of their cities.
When the members who compose these new bodies of cantons, communes, and departments, arrangements purposely produced through the medium of confusion, begin to act, they will find themselves
in a great measure strangers to one another. The
electors and elected throughout, especially in the
rural cantons, will be frequently without any civil
habitudes or connections, or any of that natural discipline which is the soul of a true republic. Magistrates and collectors of revenue are now no longer acquainted with their districts, bishops with their
dioceses, or curates with their parishes. These new
? ? ? ? 476 REFLECTIONS ON THE
colonies of the rights of men bear a strong resemblance to that sort of military colonies which Tacitus
has observed upon in the declining policy of Rome.
In better and wiser days (whatever course they took
with foreign nations) they were careful to make the
elements of a methodical subordination and settlement to be coeval, and even to lay the foundations
of discipline in the military. * But when all the good
arts had fallen into ruin, they proceeded, as your
Assembly does, upon the equality of men, and with
as little judgment, and as little care for those things
which make a republic tolerable or durable. But
in this, as well as almost every instance, your new
commonwealth is born and bred and fed in those
corruptions which mark degenerated and worn-out
republics. Your child comes into the world with the
symptoms of death; the facies Hippocratica forms the
character of its physiognomy and the prognostic of
its fate.
The legislators who framed the ancient republics
knew that their business was too arduous to be accomplished with no better apparatus than the metaphysics of an undergraduate and the mathematics and arithmetic of an exciseman. They had to do with
men, and they were obliged to study human nature.
They had to do with citizens, and they were obliged
to study the effects of those habits which are commu* -Non, ut olim, universe legiones deducebantur, cum tribunis, et
centurionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis militibus, ut consensu et caritate rempublicam efficerent; sed ignoti inter se, diversis manipulis,
sine rectore, sine affectibus mutuis, quasi ex alio genere mortalium
repente in unum collecti, numerus magis quam colonia. " - Tac. Annal. lib. 14, sect. 27. -All this will be still more applicable to the
unconnected, rotatory, biennial national assemblies, in this absurd
and senseless constitution.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 477
nicated by the circumstances of civil life. They were
sensible that the operation of this second nature on
the first produced a new combination, --and thence
arose many diversities amongst men, according to
their birth, their education, their professions, the
periods of their lives, their residence in towns or in
the country, their several ways of acquiring and of
fixing property, and according to the quality of the
property itself, all which rendered them, as it were, so
many different species of animals. From hence they
thought themselves obliged to dispose their citizens
into such classes, and to place them in such situations in the state, as their peculiar habits might qualify them to fill, and to allot to them such appropriated privileges as might secure to them what their specific
occasions required, and which might furnish to each
description such force as might protect it in the conflict caused by the diversity of interests that must
exist, and must contend, in all complex society: for
the legislator would have been ashamed that the
coarse husbandman should well know how to assort
and to use his sheep, horses, and oxen, and should
have enough of common sense not to abstract and
equalize them all into animals, without providing for
each kind an appropriate food, care, and employment,
whilst he, the economist, disposer, and shepherd of
his own kindred, subliming himself into an airy metaphysician, was resolved to know nothing of his flocks
but as men in general. It is for this reason that Montesquieu observed, very justly, that, in their classification of the citizens, the great legislators of antiquity made the greatest display of their powers, and even
soared above themselves. It is here that your modern legislators have gone deep into the negative sc
? ? ? ? 478 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ries, and sunk even below their own nothing. As the
first sort of legislators attended to the different kinds
of citizens, and combined them into one commonwealth, the others, the metaphysical *and alchemistical legislators, have taken the directly contrary course. They have attempted to confound all sorts
of citizens, as well as they could, into one homogeneous mass; and then they divided this their amalgama into a number of incoherent republics. They reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake of
simple telling, and not to figures, whose power is to
arise from their place in the table. The. elements of
their own metaphysics might have taught them better
lessons. The troll of their categorical table might
have informed them that there was something else
in the intellectual world besides substance and quantity. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that there were eight heads more,* in every complex deliberation, which they have never thought
of; though these, of all the ten, are the subject on
which the skill of man can operate anything at all.
So far from this able disposition of some of the old
republican legislators, which follows with a solicitous
accuracy the moral conditions and propensities of
men, they have levelled and crushed together all the
orders which they found, even under the coarse,
unartificial arrangement of the monarchy, in which
mode of government the classing of the citizens is not
of so much importance as in a republic. It is true,
however, that every such classification, if properly
ordered, is good in all forms of government, and
composes a strong barrier against the excesses of despotism, as well as it is the necessary means of giving
* Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passio, Ubi, Quando, Situs, Habitus.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 479
effect and permanence to a republic. For want of
something of this kind, if the present project of a
republic should fail, all securities to a moderated
freedom fail along with it, all the indirect restraints
which mitigate despotism are removed; insomuch
that, if monarchy should ever again obtain an entire
ascendency in France, under this or any other dynasty, it will probably be, if not voluntarily tempered, at setting out, by the wise and virtuous counsels of the
prince, the most completely arbitrary power that has
ever appeared on earth. This is to play a most desperate game.
The confusion which attends on all such proceedings they even declare to be one of their objects, and they hope to secure their Constitution by a terror of
a return of those evils which attended their making
it. "By this," say they, "its destruction will become difficult to authority, which cannot break it up
without the entire disorganization of the whole state. "
They presume, that, if this authority should ever come
to the same degree of power that they have acquired,
it would make a more moderate and chastised use of
it, and would piously tremble entirely to disorganize
the state in the savage manner that they have done.
They expect from the virtues of returning despotism
the security which is to be enjoyed by the offspring
of their popular vices.
I wish, Sir, that you and my readers would give
an attentive perusal to the work of M. de Calonne on
this subject. It is, indeed, not only an eloquent, but
anl able and instructive performance. I confine myself to what he says relative to the Constitution of the new state, and to the condition of the revenue. As
to the disputes of this minister with his rivals, I do
? ? ? ? 480 REFLECTIONS ON THE
not wish to pronounce upon them. As little do I
mean to hazard any opinion concerning his ways and
means, financial or political, for taking his country
out of its present disgraceful and deplorable situation
of servitude, anarchy, bankruptcy, and beggary. I
cannot speculate quite so sanguinely as he does: but
he is a Frenchman, and has a closer duty relative to
those objects, and better means of judging of them,
than I can have. I wish that the formal avowal
which he refers to, made by one of the principal leaders in the Assembly, concerning the tendency of their
scheme to bring France not only from a monarchy
to a republic, but from a republic to a mere confederacy, may be very particularly attended to. It adds
new force to my observations: and, indeed, M. de Calonne's work supplies my deficiencies by many new
and striking arguments on most of the subjects of
this letter. *
It is this resolution to break their country into
separate republics which has driven them into the
greatest number of their difficulties and contradictions. If it were not for this, all the questions of
exact equality, and these balances, never to be settled, of individual rights, population, and contribution, would be wholly useless. The representation, though derived from parts, would be a duty which
equally regarded the whole. Each deputy to the
Assembly would be the representative of France, and
of all its descriptions, of the many and of the few, of
the rich and of the poor, of the great districts and of
the small. All these districts would themselves be
subordinate to some standing authority, existing independently of them, - an authority in which their
* See l']ttat de la France, p. 363.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 481
representation, and everything that belongs to it,
originated, and to which it was pointed. This standing, unalterable, fundamental government would
make, and it is the only thing which could make,
that territory truly and properly a whole. With us,
when we elect popular representatives, we send them
to a council in which each man individually is a subject, and submitted to a government complete in all
its ordinary functions. With you the elective Assembly is the sovereign, and the sole sovereign; all the
members are therefore integral parts of this sole sovereignty. But with us it is totally different. With
us the representative, separated from the other parts,
can have no action and no existence. The government is the point of reference of the several members and districts of our representation. This is the centre of our unity. This government of reference is
a trustee for the whole, and not for the parts. So is
the other branch of our public council: I mean the
House of Lords. With us the King and the Lords
are several and joint securities for the equality of
each district, each province, each city. When did you
hear in Great Britain of any province suffering from
the'inequality of its representation? what district
from having no representation at all? Not only
our monarchy and our peerage secure the equality
on which our unity depends, but it is the spirit of
the Hlouse of Commons itself. The very inequality
of representation, which is so foolishly complained of,
is perhaps the very thing which prevents us from
thinking or acting as members for districts. Cornwall elects as many members as all Scotland. But is
Cornwall better taken care of. than Scotland? Few
trouble their heads about any of your bases, out of
VOL. III. 31
? ? ? ? 482 REFLECTIONS ON THE
some giddy clubs. Most of those who wish for any
change, upon any plausible grounds, desire it on different ideas.
Your new Constitution is the very reverse of ours
in its principle; and I am astonished'how any persons could dream of holding out anything done in
it as an example for Great Britain. With you there
is little, or rather no, connection between the last representative and the first constituent. The member
}vho goes to the National Assembly is not chosen by
the people, nor accountable to them. There are
{three elections before he is chosen; two sets of
magistracy intervene between him and the primary
assembly, so as to render him, as I have said, an
ambassador of a state, and not the representative of
the people within a state. By this the whole spirit
of the election is changed; nor can any corrective
your Constitution-mongers have devised render him
anything else than what he is. The very attempt to
do it would inevitably introduce a confusion, if possible, more horrid than the present. There is no
way to make a connection between the original
constituent and the representative, but by the circuitous means which may lead the candidate to' apply in the first instance to the primary electors, in order that by their authoritative instructions (and
something more perhaps) these primary electors may
force the two succeeding bodies of electors to make
a choice agreeable to their wishes. But this would
plainly subvert the whole scheme. It would be to
plunge them back into that tumult and confusion
of popular election, which, by their interposed gradation of elections, they mean to avoid, and at length
0to risk the whole fortune of the state with those who
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 483
have the least knowledge of it and the least interest
in it. This is a perpetual dilemma, into which they
are thrown by the vicious, weak, and contradictory
principles they have chosen. Unless the people break
up and level this gradation, it is plain that they do
not at all substantially elect to the Assembly; indeed,
they elect as little in appearance as reality.
What is it we all seek for in an election?
