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Page 39
"The French have constituted themselves a Republic, to raise France to
an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being."
Now, where is the value of an axiom where the subject and the attribute
may change places without inconvenience? Everybody understands what is
meant by this--"The mother will feed the child." But it would be
ridiculous to say--"The child will feed the mother."
The Americans formed another idea of the relations of the citizens with
the Government when they placed these simple words at the head of their
Constitution:--
"We, the people of the United States, for the purpose of forming a more
perfect union, of establishing justice, of securing interior
tranquillity, of providing for our common defence, of increasing the
general well-being, and of securing the benefits of liberty to ourselves
and to our posterity, decree," &c.
Here there is no chimerical creation, no _abstraction_, from which the
citizens may demand everything. They expect nothing except from
themselves and their own energy.
If I may be permitted to criticise the first words of our Constitution,
I would remark, that what I complain of is something more than a mere
metaphysical subtilty, as might seem at first sight.
I contend that this _personification_ of Government has been, in past
times, and will be hereafter, a fertile source of calamities and
revolutions.
There is the public on one side, Government on the other, considered as
two distinct beings; the latter bound to bestow upon the former, and the
former having the right to claim from the latter, all imaginable human
benefits. What will be the consequence?
In fact, Government is not maimed, and cannot be so. It has two
hands--one to receive and the other to give; in other words, it has a
rough hand and a smooth one. The activity of the second is necessarily
subordinate to the activity of the first. Strictly, Government may take
and not restore. This is evident, and may be explained by the porous and
absorbing nature of its hands, which always retain a part, and sometimes
the whole, of what they touch. But the thing that never was seen, and
never will be seen or conceived, is, that Government can restore more to
the public than it has taken from it. It is therefore ridiculous for us
to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars. It is radically
impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the
individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a
greater injury upon the community as a whole.
Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma.
If it refuses to grant the requests made to it, it is accused of
weakness, ill-will, and incapacity. If it endeavours to grant them, it
is obliged to load the people with fresh taxes--to do more harm than
good, and to bring upon itself from another quarter the general
displeasure.
Thus, the public has two hopes, and Government makes two
promises--_many benefits and no taxes_. Hopes and promises, which, being
contradictory, can never be realised.
Now, is not this the cause of all our revolutions? For, between the
Government, which lavishes promises which it is impossible to perform,
and the public, which has conceived hopes which can never be realised,
two classes of men interpose--the ambitious and the Utopians. It is
circumstances which give these their cue. It is enough if these vassals
of popularity cry out to the people--"The authorities are deceiving you;
if we were in their place, we would load you with benefits and exempt
you from taxes."
And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a
revolution!
No sooner are their friends at the head of affairs, than they are called
upon to redeem their pledge. "Give us work, bread, assistance, credit,
instruction, colonies," say the people; "and withal deliver us, as you
promised, from the talons of the exchequer."
The new _Government_ is no less embarrassed than the former one, for it
soon finds that it is much more easy to promise than to perform. It
tries to gain time, for this is necessary for maturing its vast
projects. At first, it makes a few timid attempts: on one hand it
institutes a little elementary instruction; on the other, it makes a
little reduction in the liquor tax (1850). But the contradiction is for
ever starting up before it; if it would be philanthropic, it must
attend to its exchequer; if it neglects its exchequer, it must abstain
from being philanthropic.
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