L. 1807. mind, it has become evident that democratic anarchy can CHAP. "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, 88. ciples of attended French Rc That the spirit of freedom was at no period the ruling passion of the French Revolution, has been declared by The prinall its observers, and clearly demonstrated by the events freedom of its progress. Napoleon and Madame de Stael have never were concurred in stating, that the desire for equality was the to in the moving principle; and this desire, in an advanced age, volution. is but another name for the selfish passion for individual aggrandisement. Men profess, and for the time perhaps feel, a desire that all should start equal, in order that their own chance of being foremost in the race should be improved; but if they can turn the advantage to their own side, they are in no hurry to share it with those whom they have outstripped. The most ardent of the French revolutionists showed, by their subsequent conduct, that they had no sort of objection to the most invidious and exclusive distinctions being re-established, provided only that they were conceived in their own favour. The remarkable and luminous fact, that not one of the successive factions which rose to power in the course of the convulsion, ever thought either of limiting the period within which an accused party might L. 1807. CHAP. be detained in prison without being brought to trial, or abolishing the odious and degrading fetters of the police, or securing to the minority, in opposition to the ruling power, the means of influencing public opinion by a practically free press, and the undisturbed right of assembling to discuss the measures of government in public meetings, affords insurmountable proofs that nothing was ever further from their real intentions than the establishment of the principles of genuine freedom. 89. It was no thing but a vehement struggle for power. All these parties, indeed, when struggling for power, were loud in their demand for these essential guarantees to liberty, without the full establishment of which its blessings must ever be an empty name; but none, when they attained it, ever thought of carrying their principles into practice. They never proposed to put that bit in their own mouths which they had been so desirous of placing in those of their antagonists. None of them evinced the slightest hesitation in taking advantage of, and straining to the utmost, those arbitrary powers which, by common consent, seemed to be left at the disposal of the executive government. The conclusion is unavoidable, that throughout the whole period it was selfish ambition which was the real principle of action; and that, if the love of freedom existed at all, it glowed in so inconsiderable a number of breasts as to be altogether incapable of producing any durable impression on the national fortunes. Nor is this surprising, when it is recollected in what an advanced age of society, and among what a corrupted, and, above all, irreligious people the Revolution broke out. The degrees in which the spirit of public freedom and the desire of private aggrandisement will be mingled in every democratic convulsion, must always be almost entirely dependent on the proportion in which the generous and disinterested, or the selfish and grasping passions, previously prevail in the public mind. And, without disputing the influence of other causes, it may safely be affirmed that the main cause of the difference is to be L. 1807. found in the prevalence or the disregard of religious CHAP. feeling; that it is in its ascendancy that the only effectual safeguard can be found against the temptations to evil which arise during the progress of social conflicts; and that of all desperate attempts, the most hopeless is to rear the fabric of civil liberty or public virtue on any other basis than that Faith which alone is able to overcome the inherent principles of corruption in the human heart. 90. corruption which the French Revolution Of all the manifold and lasting evils which the thorough ascendancy of democratic power, even for a General short time, produces, perhaps the most lamentable, and of public that of which France, under the empire, afforded the most memorable example, is the utter corruption of public opinion and confusion of ideas which it necessarily induces, produced. terminating at last in the general application to public actions of no other test but that of success. The way in which this deplorable consequence ensues is very apparent, and it points in the clearest manner to the principle on which alone a good government can be formed. Where property is the ruling, and numbers the controlling power, the opinion of the multitude is necessarily, in the general case, in favour of a virtuous administration, and adverse to the corruptions or oppression of government, because the majority have nothing to gain by such abuses; and where private interest does not intervene, it will always, as in a theatre, be on the side of virtue. However much disposed the holders of authority in such a state may be unduly to extend its limits, or apply it to their own private purposes as well as the public service, they are prevented from pushing such abuses to any great excess by the watchful jealousy of the popular classes in the state. But when the people are themselves, or by means of their demagogues, in possession, not merely of the power of controlling and watching the government, but of actually directing its movements and sharing in its profits, this salutary and indispensable check is at once. destroyed. CHAP. L. 1807. 91. cratic party, when in port every cause they From being the determined enemies, the democratic body become at once, when installed in power, the most decided supporters of every species of corruption, because The demo- they profit by its effects; and although the opposite party, now excluded from office, may be loud in their power, sup- condemnation of such proceedings, yet, being overthrown abuse, be in the conflict, they are no longer able to influence the profit by it. measures of government. Being a small minority in the state, they are not, at least till after the lapse of a very long period, able to bring over the majority to their sentiments, or form that general concurrence which can properly be called public opinion. In the interim every species of abuse is not only practised but loudly applauded by the democratic partisans, now interested in their continuance; and hence, not only the destruction of that invaluable check, which, under other circumstances, the opinion of the majority in opposition forms to the misdeeds of the few in power, but the total corruption and deprivation of the feeling with regard to public matters of that majority itself. The restraining has now become the moving power; the check upon evil the stimulant to corruption; the fly-wheel, instead of the regulator of the machine, the headlong force which is to hurl it to destruction. Such is the extent of this evil, and such the rapidity with which, under the combined influence of temptation to themselves and impotence in their adversaries, the tyrant majority are seduced into depraved principles and a course of iniquity, that it may perhaps be pronounced the greatest, because the most lasting and irremediable, of the evils of democratic government. 92. Rapid growth of centralisation in this CENTRALISATION, in such a state of public feeling, is the great enemy which freedom has to dread, because it is the one which addresses itself to the principles that possess the most durable sway over the human heart. lic feeling. More than military force or anarchical misrule, it has in every age completed the downfall of real liberty. If such state of pub L. 1807. a withering system is attempted in the healthful state of CHAP. the body politic—that is, where property and education are the ruling, and numbers and popular zeal the controlling power-it will always experience the most decided opposition from the natural jealousy of government on the part of all who do not participate in its advantages. Except in extraordinary circumstances, it is not likely to meet with any considerable success. But the case is widely different when the democratic rulers are themselves in power. Centralisation then goes on at a swift pace; and for a very obvious reason, that both the necessities of government, the interests of its democratic supporters, and the experienced evils of the popular election of public functionaries, concur in recommending it. The executive being erected on the ruins, or against the wishes, of the holders of property, has nothing to expect from their support, and therefore is fain to extend its influence, and provide for its numerous and needy followers, by the multiplication of offices all in the appointment of the central government. The popular leaders, hoping to profit largely by this accumulation of official patronage in the hands of their chiefs, not only in noways oppose, but give their most cordial support to the same system. Meanwhile the great mass of the people, disgusted with the weak or corrupt administration of the municipal or local functionaries who owed their elevation to popular election, rapidly and inevitably glide into the opinion, that no mode of appointment can be so bad as that under the evils of which they are now suffering, and that a practically good government can never be attained till the disposal of all offices of any importance is vested in the executive authority. 93. Thus all classes, though for very different reasons, concur in supporting the system of centralisation-a system, Debasing nevertheless, which, though doubtless often productive of t improvement in the outset in practical administration and tion when local government, is the most formidable enemy in the established. centralisa generally |