Until a people which has gone through a great revolution has passed on the principles, the passions, and the doctrines which have led to this revolution, a sentence like that which shall be passed on all human things at the Last Day, “severing the wheat from the tares, and the corn from the straw that shall be cast into the fire,” it can never surmount the perils, nor reap the advantages, of the struggle in which it has been engaged.
So long as this judgment is deferred, chaos reigns; and chaos, if prolonged in the midst of a people, would be death.
Chaos is now concealed under one word—Democracy.
This is now the sovereign and universal word which all parties invoke, all seek to appropriate as a talisman.
The Monarchists say, “Our Monarchy is a Democratic Monarchy: therefore it differs essentially from the ancient Monarchy, and is adapted to the modern condition of society.”
The Republicans say, “The Republic is Democracy governing itself. This is the only form of government in harmony with a democratic society, its principles, its sentiments, and its interests.”
Socialists, Communists, and Montagnards require that the republic should be a pure and absolute democracy. This, in their estimation, is the condition of its legitimacy.
Such is the power of the word Democracy, that no government or party dares to raise its head, or believes its own existence possible, if it does not bear that word inscribed on its banner; and those who carry that banner aloft with the greatest ostentation and to the extremest limits, believe themselves to be stronger than all the rest of the world.
Fatal idea, which incessantly excites and foments social war amongst us! This idea must be extirpated; for on its extirpation depends social peace, and, in her train, liberty, security, prosperity, dignity, all the benefits, material or moral, which social peace alone can ensure.
The following are the causes to which the word democracy owes its power.