Little by little order takes the place of confusion; opinions define and classify themselves; and instead of the fermentation of opinions in a chaotic confusion, we have a contest in regular form, and upon intelligible issues, I repeat that a result so salutary cannot be obtained unless upon the condition of a liberty universal, real, and durable; partial or transitory, it would serve only to aggravate the perturbation, and to unsettle opinions still more.
Political liberty has a second effect, one, perhaps, still more important: it forces all questions to submit to the test of practical experiment. As long as the liberty is only in the thought, it is vain and intemperate; everything seems permitted, and everything possible to those who are not responsible for the effects of an act: man's thought, intoxicated with itself, runs riot in the vagueness of infinite space and time. But when to liberty of thought is superadded political liberty,—when, instead of treating questions speculatively, they have to be virtually solved,—when men are charged as real actors to transform into facts their own opinions or those of the spectators who are looking on,—then it is that the human mind, making its own strength the object of its reflection and examination, is driven to the admission that it does not dispose at its own will of the world, and that even in order to satisfy itself, it must confine itself to the limits imposed by good sense, by justice, and by possibility,—then it is that it learns to govern itself, and to hold itself responsible for its acts. Responsibility engenders discretion, but is itself engendered by liberty alone.
Our own times have furnished us with three great examples of the salutary empire exercised by political liberty in furnishing an escape from the embarrassment of situations, and in solving questions the most different—I might say the most contrary—in their nature. We have only to cast our eyes over the contemporary histories of England, of the United States of America, and of France herself, to discover their examples and their authority as precedents.
From 1792 to 1818, England was engaged in struggles first against the spirit of Revolution, and then against that termed by M. Benjamin Constant the spirit of usurpation and of conquest. With what forces and with what arms did England support these two formidable struggles? With the forces and the arms of political liberty. It was by the elections, by publicity, by discussions continued in the midst of the energetic manifestations of all the parties, —it was by appeals to public sentiments and opinions,—it was by setting in action all the springs of a free and representative government, that England succeeded in her resistance to the most potent revolutionary and military movement which ever agitated Europe. That struggle over, after the lapse of a few years, during which the presiding policy prolonged its tenure of office by pursuing a pacific course, England entered upon quite a different path; sometimes under the Government of Liberals, sometimes of Conservatives, the policy of Reform took the place of the policy of resistance; and since 1828, it is in this path that England is progressing; it is in favour of innovations, sometimes prudent, sometimes daring, and sometimes, perhaps, improvident, that she is exerting to the utmost all the forces of the country, all the strength of its government. Political Liberty has in turn, and with similar efficacy, served the cause and assured the success, at one time of a policy of resistance, at another of that of progress.
The United States of America have been subjected to a still ruder trial. Their government has had to struggle against the insurrection of a notable portion of their people, and against a civil war entered upon in the name of a principle, popular independence. The central power of the Confederation has resisted an insurrection radically illegitimate, which was entered upon to maintain the slavery of a part of the human race; it defended the national existence of the State against the attempts which were made to dislocate it, and which were founded upon the same motive; and after a civil war which endured four years, in the course of which each side was prodigal of efforts and sacrifices, and displayed an equal energy, the policy of resistance triumphed by the medium of a republican power, and the liberal idea of the abolition of slavery vanquished the revolutionary idea of the right of insurrection. It is to political liberty, and to the potent force of the institutions and manners founded under her influence, that this victory of the great right of humanity was due; and, the war once over, the civil régime of American society resumed its action, still stormy and perilous, but free from every anarchical usurpation or military tyranny.
Newer to France, its principles less understood by it, and not so well applied, Political Liberty has not on these accounts remained without producing there some fruits. In 1830 and in 1848 France passed through two revolutions, one of which had been preceded by sixteen the other by eighteen years of civil liberty. Neither of the régimes in operation immediately previous to each revolution sufficed to prevent it, but they greatly changed its character and weakened its effects. In 1830, thanks to the instantaneous intervention of the public authorities which owed their existence to the previous régime, a regular government was promptly established, and a new constitutional monarchy succeeded to that which had just fallen. On the instant it set itself in opposition to the revolutionary movement which had given it birth; but the principle of respect for the Law and for Liberty exercised, as yet, so incomplete and feeble an empire upon men's minds, that the anarchical fermentation of opinions prolonged themselves even after the victory. The doctrine of Religious Liberty, in particular, was more than once lost sight of and violated: in February, 1831, the funeral ceremonies in the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, celebrated in commemoration of the Duke de Berri, who had been assassinated eleven years previously, was not allowed to be tranquilly celebrated; a violent and riotous mob sacked the archiepiscopal palace of Paris, and was the cause of the church, which had furnished them with a pretext for violence, being closed for many months. In 1848, on the contrary, during a revolutionary crisis which set men's passions far more furiously in movement, and which was more profound than that of 1830, neither the liberty of Religion nor the peace of the churches was disturbed; the ruling authorities were exposed to anarchy for a longer period, but the rights of the individual were respected, and he might affirm himself free even in the midst of the public troubles and perils. Thirty-four years of civil Liberty have not disappeared with the governments which were then in force without leaving their traces; their traditions and their examples have evidently exercised a salutary influence both upon the last Revolution, and upon the Reaction which put an end to it.
That this influence may still surmount the great trials through which governments and people may have both to pass, two things are necessary: the one is, that civil liberty should form real citizens, that nations as well as governments should learn to make use of their rights, and to submit to the limits imposed by their laws; the other is, that each country and ruling power, at the same time that they are culling the fruits of civil liberty, should accept its inconveniences and its perils. A free government is not exempt from either vices or dangers; it does not dispense men from the necessity of contemplating with resignation the imperfection of every work of man as well as of every human situation.