Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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СКАЧАТЬ to drill it. There are said to have been instances where a regiment of soldiers has been marched to the poll for the purpose of securing the majority for the Government candidate. The system has probably been least dangerous in countries like Germany and the United States, where the powers of the representative body are greatly limited, or in new and distant countries, inhabited by thinly scattered, prosperous, and self-reliant colonists, and where there are no old institutions to be destroyed. Yet, even in these cases the abuses and dangers that flow from it are very apparent.

France, which more than any other country claims the paternity of this form of government, deserves our special attention. In one important respect she seemed peculiarly fitted for it, for the great division of landed property secured a strong conservative basis, and erected the most formidable of all barriers against socialistic innovations. She was also, on account of her almost stationary population, much less exposed than other European nations to that pressure of population on means of subsistence which is one of the chief causes of political disturbances. At the Revolution of 1848 she passed at a single bound from an electorate of about 225,000¹³ voters to universal manhood suffrage. For a few months the new electors turned with an overwhelming enthusiasm to Lamartine. At a time when France was peculiarly rich in great men he was pre-eminently the wonderful man of his age, possessing nearly all the qualities that are most fitted to dazzle great masses of men, though, unfortunately, not those which are most needed for the wise guidance of affairs. As a poet, he was by universal consent among the very greatest France had ever produced, and few men in all French literature have wielded the noble instrument of French prose with such consummate genius and skill. His ‘History of the Girondins,’ untrue, inaccurate, and misleading as it is, had, probably, a greater influence on immediate politics than any other historical work that has ever been written, and the passionate enthusiasm it aroused contributed very largely to the Revolution. He combined, too, as no one has done before or since, the most splendid literary gifts in poetry and prose with the power of enthralling assemblies by his spoken words, swaying and restraining the passions of vast multitudes of excited men. In a great crisis he proved brave, honest, humane, and well-meaning, and he could judge large social questions with wisdom and moderation; but he had neither the true strength nor practical talent that are needed in the government of men, and he was apt to be led astray by a childlike and unrestrained vanity.

      His popularity was for a time so great that ten departments and more than two millions of voters simultaneously elected him to the National Assembly, without any solicitation on his part. But his star soon faded: socialistic attacks on property began to dominate at Paris, and under the terror of these attacks the great mass of voters began to turn towards a saviour of society. The election, by an enormous majority, of Louis Napoleon as President in December, 1848, clearly foreshadowed the future, and the extremely menacing character which the Paris elections assumed led to the law of 1850, which considerably restricted the suffrage. It made three years' residence in the constituency necessary for an elector, and it provided precise and stringent rules by which that resident must be ascertained. In spite of a furious opposition from the Radical party, this law was carried by 433 to 240, and it is said to have disfranchised more than three millions of voters, or about a third part of the electorate.¹⁴

Universal suffrage had lasted just two years; but in the conflict which ensued between the Legislative Assembly and the President, the latter clearly saw that it would be his best weapon. By a stroke of true political sagacity he sent down, in November 1851, a powerfully written presidential message, calling upon the Assembly to repeal the law of 1850, and to restore their franchise to the three million voters. The Chamber received the message with some consternation, and after an agitated debate it resolved by a majority of seven to maintain the existing law. Less than a month later came the Coup d'Etat of December 2, when the chief statesmen and generals of France were arrested in their beds and carried in the dark winter morning to prison; when the Chamber was peremptorily dissolved; when its members, on their refusal to obey, were led between files of soldiers to the barracks, and thence conducted to prison; when all resistance was crushed by military force, martial law, and wholesale deportations. One of the first acts of Louis Napoleon was to announce in the proclamation that dissolved the Chamber that the electoral law of 1850 was annulled and universal suffrage re-established. Two days after the Coup d'Etat it was sanctioned by a plebiscite of the army, and within three weeks of the same event, when the greater part of France was still under severe martial law, the act of the President was ratified by universal suffrage. Nearly eight millions of electors are said to have voted for him.

From the Coup d'Etat of December 2 universal suffrage was duly installed in France. Another plebiscite, which took place in November 1852, made the Prince-President Emperor; while a fourth, only a few weeks before the outbreak of the disastrous war of 1870, once more sanctioned by overwhelming majorities the imperial rule. During the whole of this reign the Legislative Assemblies were elected by universal suffrage, yet during the greater part of it the government was an almost absolute despotism. Universal suffrage was drilled and disciplined into the most obedient of servants. Every official, from the highest to the lowest, was turned into an electioneering agent. The limits of constituencies were arbitrarily enlarged, modified, or contracted to secure the success of the Government candidate. All the powers of administration were systematically and openly employed in directing votes. Each constituency was taught that its prospect of obtaining roads, or bridges, or harbours, or other local advantages depended on its support of the Government, and that if the official candidate succeeded he would have the power of distributing among his supporters innumerable small Government places, privileges and honours. The powers of the Legislative Assembly were extremely limited. They came to little more than a right of sanctioning laws submitted to it by the Government, and voting taxes under great restrictions. Until 1860 its debates were not even fully reported, and for several years the Opposition consisted of five men.

In 1867 and 1868 the whole system was suddenly changed. The Emperor called one of the members of the old Opposition to power, and made a bold attempt, by large and liberal measures, to transform the character of the Empire. The right of interpellation was conceded to the Chamber. Liberty of the press, in almost the widest measure, and a large measure of liberty of meeting, were accorded, and the fierce political life which had been for some seventeen years suppressed burst out with a volcanic fury. Those who knew France in the last days of the Empire will, I think, agree with me that there has never been a more violent, a more dangerous, or more revolutionary press than then prevailed. The hope that active politicians would let bygones be bygones, and accept the compromise of a liberal empire, soon waned. Furious attacks on the main pillars of society attained an enormous popularity, and the very foundations of the Empire were persistently assailed. It was at this period that the works of M. Ténot on the Coup d'Etat exercised their great influence. The demonstrations at the tomb of Baudin, who had been shot on a barricade in December 1851, displayed the same spirit; and the defiant eloquence of Gambetta in defending those who were accused of riot in connection with these demonstrations first brought that tribune into public notice. The Emperor, not unnaturally, refused to abandon the whole system of official guidance at the election of the Chamber which met in 1869, and universal suffrage again returned a great majority in his favour. But the entire Parisian representation was won by the Opposition, and a great portion of it by its most violent and irreconcilable wing, while in the whole Chamber not much less than a third of the members and a great preponderance of the parliamentary talent were in opposition to the Government.

      Most good observers felt that a state of things had been called into existence which could not possibly last. The Emperor, in opening the Chamber, while deploring the growth of subversive and anarchical passions, declared his determination to persevere in the path he had chosen, and, although he refused to abandon his action over the constituencies, and expressly reserved to himself the right of always appealing to his people independently of his ministers, he greatly enlarged the powers of the Assembly. In conjunction with himself it now obtained the right of initiating laws; it obtained the fullest powers of amending them, and the ministers became responsible to it. The Constitution was denounced by the Radical party as a worthless mockery, but it was sanctioned by the Plebiscite of 1870. There were about 7,350,000 votes in favour of the Government, and rather more than 1,500,000 votes against it.

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