“STRIP HIM OF HIS TINSEL.”
As it is desirable that we become perfectly clear on this point, let us first closely examine the essence of republican requirements. Do you honestly believe that by marching resolutely onward from our present basis we should very soon reach a true republic, one without a king? Is this your deliberate opinion, or do you say so only to delude the timorous? Are you so ignorant, or do you intentionally purpose to mislead?
Let me tell you to what goal our republican efforts are tending.
Our efforts are for the good of all and are directed towards a future in which our present achievements will be but as the first streak of moonlight. With this object kept steadily in view, we should insist on the overthrow of the last remaining glitter of aristocracy. As the aristocracy no longer consists of feudal lords and masters who can enslave and bodily chastise us at their will, they would do wisely to obliterate old grievances by relinquishing the last remnants of class distinction which, at any moment, might become a Nessus shirt, consuming them if not cast off in time.
Should they answer us that the memory of their ancestors would render it impious to resign any privileges inherited by them, then let them remember also that we too have forefathers, whose noble deeds of heroism, though not inscribed on genealogical trees, are yet inscribed—their sufferings, bondage, oppression, and slavery of every kind—in letters of blood in the unfalsified archives of the history of the last thousand years.
To the aristocracy I would say, forget your ancestors, throw away your titles and every outward sign of courtly favour, and we will promise you to be generous and efface every remembrance of our ancestors. Let us be children of one father, brothers of one family! Listen to the warning—follow it freely and with a good will, for it is not to be slighted. Christ says, “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for it is better that one of thy members should perish than that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
And now another point. Once for all, resign the exclusive honour of ever being in the presence of our monarch. Pray him to cease investing you with a medley of useless court offices, distinctions, and privileges; in our time they make the court a subject for unpleasant reflection. Discontinue to be lords of the chamber and lords of the robes, whose only utterance is “our king,”—strip him of his tinsel, lackeys, and flunkeys, frivolous excrescences of a bad time—the time of Louis the Fourteenth, when all princes sought to imitate the French monarch. Withdraw from a court which is an almshouse for idle nobility, and exert yourselves, that it may become the court of a whole and happy people, which every individual will enjoy and will be ready to defend, and smile on a sovereign who is the father of a whole contented people.
Therefore, do away with the first chamber. There is but one people, not a first and a second, and they need but one house for their representation. This house, let it be a simple, noble building, with an elevated roof, resting on tall and strong pillars. Why would you disfigure the building by dividing it with a mean partition, thus causing two confined spaces?
We further insist upon the unconditional right of every natural-born subject, when of age, to a vote. The more needy he be, the more his right, and the more earnestly will he aid in keeping the laws which he himself assisted in framing and which, henceforth, are to protect him from any similar future state of need and misery. Our republican programme further includes a new system of national defence, in which every citizen capable of bearing arms shall be enrolled. No standing army. It shall be neither a standing army nor a militia, nor yet a reduction of the one nor an increase of the other. It must be a new creation, which in its process of development, will do away with the necessity of a standing army as well as a militia.
NOT THREATS, BUT WARNING.