Will the Democratic Republic give us this peace?
It did not begin well. When scarcely born, a civil war was its first necessity—most unfortunately for the republic. Governments find great difficulty in rising out of their cradles. Will the Democratic Republic succeed in the attempt? If time is allowed to it, will it restore social peace?
There is one circumstance which strikes me powerfully, and causes me great anxiety: that is, the ardour manifested by the republic to be expressly and officially called democratic.
The United States of America are universally admitted to be the model of a Republic and a Democracy. Did it ever enter the head of the American people to call the United States a Democratic Republic?
No; nor is this astonishing. In that country there was no struggle between Aristocracy and Democracy; between an ancient aristocratical society and a new democratic society: on the contrary, the leaders of society in the United States, the descendants of the first colonists, the majority of the principal planters in the country and the principal merchants in the towns, who constituted the natural aristocracy of the country, placed themselves at the head of the revolution and the republic. The devotion, energy, and constancy which they showed in the cause, were greater than those displayed by the people. The conquest of their independence, and the foundation of the republic, was not, then, the work and the victory of certain classes over certain other classes; it was the joint work of all, led by the highest, the wealthiest, and the most enlightened, who had often great difficulty in rallying the spirit and sustaining the courage of the mass of the population.
Whenever officers were to be chosen for the bodies of troops formed in the several States, Washington gave this advice:—“Take none but gentlemen: they are the most trustworthy, as well as the ablest.”
A republican government has more need than any other of the co-operation of every class of its citizens: if the mass of the population does not zealously adopt it, it has no root; if the higher classes are hostile or indifferent to it, it can enjoy no security. In either case, it is reduced to the necessity of oppressing. It is precisely because in a republic the authority of the government is weak and precarious, that it stands in need of great moral support from the society over which it presides. Which are the republics that have lived long and honourably, overcoming the defects and the storms incident to their institutions? Those only in which the republican spirit was sincere and general; which obtained, on the one side, the attachment and the confidence of the people, and on the other the decided support of the classes who, by their position, fortune, education, and habits, bring into public life the largest share of natural authority, tranquil independence, knowledge, and leisure. On these conditions only can a republic be established or maintained; for on these conditions only can it exist without troubling the peace of society, and without condemning its government to the deplorable alternative of the disorganization of anarchy, or the rigid tension of tyranny.
The United States of America enjoyed this singular good fortune, but it is denied to the French Republic. Indeed this is not only admitted, but proclaimed and vaunted, by its authors. What is the meaning of the words Democratic Republic now current amongst us, and adopted as the official name, the symbol of the government? It is the echo of an ancient social war-cry—a cry which is still raised, still repeated in every class of society; still angrily uttered against one class by another, which, in its turn, hears it with terror directed against itself. All are in turn democrats as against those above them, aristocrats as against those below; threatening and threatened, envious or envied, and exhibiting continual and revolting changes of position, attitude, and language, and a deplorable confusion of conflicting ideas and passions. It is war in the midst of chaos.
But I hear it said, “This war is a fact—it is the dominant fact of our history, our society, and our revolution. Such facts can neither be hidden nor passed over in silence, and this is become final and decisive. It is not war that we proclaimed in proclaiming a Democratic Republic, it is victory—the victory of Democracy. Democracy has conquered, and remains alone on the field of battle. She raises her visor, announces her name, and takes possession of her conquest.”
Such an answer is dictated by illusion or by hypocrisy. How does a government, whether democratic or not, assert and prove its victory, when that victory is real and decisive? By restoring peace. Thus, and thus alone, could the Democratic Republic have proved that it had conquered. But does peace reign in France? Is it even approaching? Do the various elements of society, willingly or unwillingly, satisfied or resigned, really believe in the existence and permanence of peace, and come to seek tranquillity, order, and protection under the shelter of the Democratic Republic? Listen to the comments on the title assumed by the republican government which are universally heard; see the striking and menacing facts which are continually occurring, and which are the consequence or the proof of those comments. Is this state of things peace? Is there, I will not say the reality, but the bare appearance, of one of those energetic, wise, and conclusive victories which put an end, for a time at least, to social conflicts, and secure a long truce to harassed nations?