Citizens,
Representatives of the People:
Some time
since we laid before you the principles of our exterior political system,
we now come to develop the principles of political morality which are
to govern the interior. After having long pursued the path which chance
pointed out, carried away in a manner by the efforts of contending factions,
the Representatives of the People at length acquired a character and
produced a form of government. A sudden change in the success of the
nation announced to Europe the regeneration which was operated in the
national representation. But to this point of time, even now that I
address you, it must be allowed that we have been impelled thro' the
tempest of a revolution, rather by a love of right and a feeling of
the wants of our country, than by an exact theory, and precise rules
of conduct, which we had not even leisure to sketch.
It is time
to designate clearly the purposes of the revolution and the point which
we wish to attain: It is time we should examine ourselves the obstacles
which yet are between us and our wishes, and the means most proper to
realize them: A consideration simple and important which appears not
yet to have been contemplated. Indeed, how could a base and corrupt
government have dared to view themselves in the mirror of political
rectitude? A king, a proud senate, a Caesar, a Cromwell; of these the
first care was to cover their dark designs under the cloak of religion,
to covenant with every vice, caress every party, destroy men of probity,
oppress and deceive the people in order to attain the end of their perfidious
ambition. If we had not had a task of the first magnitude to accomplish;
if all our concern had been to raise a party or create a new aristocracy,
we might have believed, as certain writers more ignorant than wicked
asserted, that the plan of the French revolution was to be found written
in the works of Tacitus and of Machiavel; we might have sought the duties
of the representatives of the people in the history of Augustus, of
Tiberius, or of Vespasian, or even in that of certain French legislators;
for tyrants are substantially alike and only differ by trifling shades
of perfidy and cruelty.
For our
part we now come to make the whole world partake in your political secrets,
in order that all friends of their country may rally at the voice of
reason and public interest, and that the French nation and her representatives
be respected in all countries which may attain a knowledge of their
true principles; and that intriguers who always seek to supplant other
intriguers may be judged by public opinion upon settled and plain principles.
Every precaution
must early be used to place the interests of freedom in the hands of
truth, which is eternal, rather than in those of men who change; so
that if the government forgets the interests of the people or falls
into the hands of men corrupted, according to the natural course of
things, the light of acknowledged principles should unmask their treasons,
and that every new faction may read its death in the very thought of
a crime.
Happy the
people that attains this end; for, whatever new machinations are plotted
against their liberty, what resources does not public reason present
when guaranteeing freedom!
What is
the end of our revolution? The tranquil enjoyment of liberty and equality;
the reign of that eternal justice, the laws of which are graven, not
on marble or stone, but in the hearts of men, even in the heart of the
slave who has forgotten them, and in that of the tyrant who disowns
them.
We wish
that order of things where all the low and cruel passions are enchained,
all the beneficent and generous passions awakened by the laws; where
ambition subsists in a desire to deserve glory and serve the country:
where distinctions grow out of the system of equality, where the citizen
submits to the authority of the magistrate, the magistrate obeys that
of the people, and the people are governed by a love of justice; where
the country secures the comfort of each individual, and where each individual
prides himself on the prosperity and glory of his country; where every
soul expands by a free communication of republican sentiments, and by
the necessity of deserving the esteem of a great people: where the arts
serve to embellish that liberty which gives them value and support,
and commerce is a source of public wealth and not merely of immense
riches to a few individuals.
We wish
in our country that morality may be substituted for egotism, probity
for false honour, principles for usages, duties for good manners, the
empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, a contempt of vice for
a contempt of misfortune, pride for insolence, magnanimity for vanity,
the love of glory for the love of money, good people for good company,
merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for tinsel show, the attractions
of happiness for the ennui of sensuality, the grandeur of man for the
littleness of the great, a people magnanimous, powerful, happy, for
a people amiable, frivolous and miserable; in a word, all the virtues
and miracles of a Republic instead of all the vices and absurdities
of a Monarchy.
We wish,
in a word, to fulfill the intentions of nature and the destiny of man,
realize the promises of philosophy, and acquit providence of a long
reign of crime and tyranny. That France, once illustrious among enslaved
nations, may, by eclipsing the glory of all free countries that ever
existed, become a model to nations, a terror to oppressors, a consolation
to the oppressed, an ornament of the universe and that, by sealing the
work with our blood, we may at least witness the dawn of the bright
day of universal happiness. This is our ambition, - this is the end
of our efforts....
Since virtue
and equality are the soul of the republic, and that your aim is to found,
to consolidate the republic, it follows, that the first rule of your
political conduct should be, to let all your measures tend to maintain
equality and encourage virtue, for the first care of the legislator
should be to strengthen the principles on which the government rests.
Hence all that tends to excite a love of country, to purify manners,
to exalt the mind, to direct the passions of the human heart towards
the public good, you should adopt and establish. All that tends to concenter
and debase them into selfish egotism, to awaken an infatuation for littlenesses,
and a disregard for greatness, you should reject or repress. In the
system of the French revolution that which is immoral is impolitic,
and what tends to corrupt is counter-revolutionary. Weaknesses, vices,
prejudices are the road to monarchy. Carried away, too often perhaps,
by the force of ancient habits, as well as by the innate imperfection
of human nature, to false ideas and pusillanimous sentiments, we have
more to fear from the excesses of weakness, than from excesses of energy.
The warmth of zeal is not perhaps the most dangerous rock that we have
to avoid; but rather that languour which ease produces and a distrust
of our own courage. Therefore continually wind up the sacred spring
of republican government, instead of letting it run down. I need not
say that I am not here justifying any excess. Principles the most sacred
may be abused: the wisdom of government should guide its operations
according to circumstances, it should time its measures, choose its
means; for the manner of bringing about great things is an essential
part of the talent of producing them, just as wisdom is an essential
attribute of virtue....
It is not
necessary to detail the natural consequences of the principle of democracy,
it is the principle itself, simple yet copious, which deserves to be
developed.
Republican
virtue may be considered as it respects the people and as it respects
the government. It is necessary in both. When however, the government
alone want it, there exists a resource in that of the people; but when
the people themselves are corrupted liberty is already lost.
Happily
virtue is natural in the people, [despite] aristocratical prejudices.
A nation is truly corrupt, when, after having, by degrees lost its character
and liberty, it slides from democracy into aristocracy or monarchy;
this is the death of the political body by decrepitude....
But, when,
by prodigious effects of courage and of reason, a whole people break
asunder the fetters of despotism to make of the fragments trophies to
liberty; when, by their innate vigor, they rise in a manner from the
arms of death, to resume all the strength of youth when, in turns forgiving
and inexorable, intrepid and docile, they can neither be checked by
impregnable ramparts, nor by innumerable armies of tyrants leagued against
them, and yet of themselves stop at the voice of the law; if then they
do not reach the heights of their destiny it can only be the fault of
those who govern.
Again,
it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no
great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves....
If virtue
be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring
of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror:
virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue
is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it
is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than
a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied
to the most pressing wants of the country.
It has
been said that terror is the spring of despotic government. Does yours
then resemble despotism? Yes, as the steel that glistens in the hands
of the heroes of liberty resembles the sword with which the satellites
of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his debased subjects;
he is right as a despot: conquer by terror the enemies of liberty and
you will be right as founders of the republic. The government in a revolution
is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Is force only intended
to protect crime? Is not the lightning of heaven made to blast vice
exalted?
The law
of self-preservation, with every being whether physical or moral, is
the first law of nature. Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne,
and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime.
If tyranny reigned one single day not a patriot would survive it. How
long yet will the madness of despots be called justice, and the justice
of the people barbarity or rebellion? - How tenderly oppressors and
how severely the oppressed are treated! Nothing more natural: whoever
does not abhor crime cannot love virtue. Yet one or the other must be
crushed. Let mercy be shown the royalists exclaim some men. Pardon the
villains! No: be merciful to innocence, pardon the unfortunate, show
compassion for human weakness.
The protection
of government is only due to peaceable citizens; and all citizens in
the republic are republicans. The royalists, the conspirators, are strangers,
or rather enemies. Is not this dreadful contest, which liberty maintains
against tyranny, indivisible? Are not the internal enemies the allies
of those in the exterior? The assassins who lay waste the interior;
the intriguers who purchase the consciences of the delegates of the
people: the traitors who sell them; the mercenary libellists paid to
dishonor the cause of the people, to smother public virtue, to fan the
flame of civil discord, and bring about a political counter revolution
by means of a moral one; all these men, are they less culpable or less
dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve? . . .
To punish
the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.
The severity of tyrants has barbarity for its principle; that of a republican
government is founded on beneficence. Therefore let him beware who should
dare to influence the people by that terror which is made only for their
enemies! Let him beware, who, regarding the inevitable errors of civism
in the same light, with the premeditated crimes of perfidiousness, or
the attempts of conspirators, suffers the dangerous intriguer to escape
and pursues the peaceable citizen! Death to the villain who dares abuse
the sacred name of liberty or the powerful arms intended for her defence,
to carry mourning or death to the patriotic heart....