The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-25 00:00:00

of reminding both the dynasty arid the- people of

.14p:t.

i ~:

" We read in the Monittur Parisien that the Na-
tional was seized on Thursday at the Post-office and
at the printing-house. Nothing is more true, and
we must admit the accuracy of the above statement.
We could have wished, however, that the journal
abovenamed had carried its civility further. It would
have been agreeable to us to learn the cause of our
seizure, for we declare on our conscience that we
neither know nor can we guess the cause. We vainly
analysed our entire number to discover what remnant
of a phrase, what ill-sounding word, could explain
the susceptibility of the law officers We vainly
examined through the magnifying-glass with which
the Attorney-General reads the National, still the
cause has escaped us, and we are reduced to the ne-
cessity of soliciting as a favour that the law officers
would acquaint us of the crime we have committed. It
is the more urgent to do so, as our ignorance
exposes us to repeat the fault which caused
a visit from the Commissary of Police. But
an idea occurs to us. Under the Spanish In-
quisition prisoners were obliged to make an exa-
mination of their past conduct, and to demand the
secret of the severity practised by the Holy (Ace. It
was thus, on their own confession, they were con-
demned. Does M. Delangle, the Attorney-General,
and inheritor of those sacred traditions, mean to
force us to a public confession ? If so, our examina-
tion of conscience shall be shortly concluded ; and
there is no occasion for torture to unseal our lips.
The Government, moreover, knows us. Well-
convinced partisans of the principle of the sovereignty
of the people, we acknowledge no legitimate power
but that which derives its right to direct society from
that source. The existing Government has no other
foundation ; and, if, denying its origin, it would es-
tablish its basis without the limits f that funda-
mental principle, in that case the nation, released
from every engagement, would resume the full ex-
ercise of its sovereignty. We go further, and we
affirm that the law always remaining independent of
the fact, nothing should prevent France from modify-
ing her institutions, if such was her will. As long as
a constitutional monarchy shall be sufficient for the
wants of our society, it shall be maintained; but
if the majority of citizens believed it neces-
sary or useful to the general interest to substi-
tute for it the democratic regime, for example,
Royalty would have completely finished its task ;
and if, notwithstanding, it endeavoured to prolong its
existence, it would be the Government which would
be in revolt against the universal wish of the nation.
Have we been seized for having professed those un-
deniable truths ? If so, the law officers ought to
have begun by tearing the Charter, and even that
would not be sufficient, the events of 'B9 and 1830
should be effaced from our recollection. But, per-
haps, though innocent in the domain of theory, we
are culpable in practice. Of that we willingly admit
that we are guilty. Yes, we bitterly deplore that the
Government has cast the country into a course full of
danger and misfortune. Corruption at home, revo-
lutionary reaction abroad, afflict and irritate us. Is
this complaint a crime ? France, when establishing
a new dynasty on the throne, did not, as far as we
are aware, renounce the natural development of her
destinies. The revolution of July was not accom-
plished for the exclusive advantage of a family—at
least we believe so. But when we see the Govern-
ment, in place of marching in the road of progress,
incessantly receding—when every day aristocratic
tendencies are more and more manifested in complete
disaccord with the desires and with the interests of the
country, have we not a right to assert that the nation
has been disappointed in its hopes ? and it is imputed
to us as a crime that we point out the cause of its
error. Some persons on our side imagine that a
remedy for those evils may be found in electoral
reform. Did we ever deny the efficaciousness of
those means ? Did we refuse that pacific solution ?
Not the least in the world. The experience of the
past, however, inclines us to doubt that the Govern-
ment will ever consent to it. That opinion may
offend them, but it cannot constitute a crime. But
to what purpose would it be to carry this discussion
further ? Though we have been seized, it is not that
we were more culpable in the eyes of the Government
yesterday than the preceding days. Our crime
arises from our independence. That which the Go-
vernment prosecutes in us is the public voice, which
will not permit it to demoralize the country, ever on
the watch to defend the principles of authority and of
liberty equally compromised. The Government has
forgotten but one matter—between its dream Of re-
venge and the reality—between the seizure of the
National and its conviction, there is the jury. It
is to it we submit with confidence the care of pro-
nouncing between us."
The controversy on the affairs of Switzerland be-
tween the Constitutionnel and the Debats is continued
The former is cool and logical, the latter angry arid
abusive. The Constitutionnel of Friday thus argues
the question :
" Switzerland is a federal state; the cantons pre-
serve a part of the sovereignty, and another part is
given up to the Diet. That is the character of all
federal connexion. Now, the question lies in the
limit between these two parts of sovereignty. What
determines that limit ? The federal compact. What
interprets the federal compact in doubtful cases—the
majority of the cantons or the minority? The
Debats must reply clearly to that question, which we
will not permit it to elude. Forced to the wall, it
endeavours to slip away from the business by saying
all majorities may commit mistakes; the majority of
the Diet may violate the compact, and attribute to
itself too great a share of sovereignty; therefore it
violates at present the compact in the affair of the
Jesuits ; and therefore the little cantons have a right
to resist by force. That is precisely the hypothesis
and sophistry of the insurgents. All majorities, say
they, may make mistakes, public powers may
violate the charter, the parliamentary majority may
render itself accomplice of the Government in an
abrogation of the liberties of the citizens, therefore
we decide that at this very time, in such or such
a case, this violation of the charter is a certain
fact ; therefore we have a right to take our muskets,
and proceed to the marketeplace. Charter or federal
pact, Diet or Parliament, citizens or states having
part in the constitutional sovereignty, the question is
the same when legality is spoken of. Who shall
legally decide the points in dispute ?—the majority of
the nation regularly represented, or the minority?
We must always return to that point. We hold the
Ministerial journal to be an accomplice of all disorder,
and of all propagandism, according to the doctrine of
its own words on moral complicity, as long as it shall
not have replied clearly to that question so clearly
stated. ' But,' exclaims the Debuts, in its extreme
embarrassment, I affirm that the Diet is wrong, and
that the Jesuit affair is not a federal matter.' Truly,
you affirm it ? You act in consequence, and you send
arms like smugglers ! And by what right do you act
thus ? Speak ! Is the Swiss compact subject to the
decisions of your caprice ? Prince Louis was named
a citizen of Thurgau—that displeased you, and you
cried out, ' The affair is a federal one !' The Jesuits
were called to Lucerne to reign there, that is, to
govern, for two years out of six, all Switzerland,
and you exclaim, ' The affair is not a federal one ?'
Answer, then, if you can, to this simple comparison
which we have made of your conduct on the two oc-
casions. In every way you are reduced to equivoca-
tion or silence. One of two things, one, in fact, must
exist; either the Swiss constitution has clearly divided
the sovereignty between the Diet and the cantons,
and traced out the legal course to be adopted in order
to terminate pacifically all conflicts of authority, or
that constitution, incomplete and obscure, does not
leave between the majority and minority, for the so-
lution of questions in dispute, any other arbiter than
brute force. In the first case the legal course can only
be the definitive decision of the majority of the states,
regularly represented, since the contrary would be
absurd, and in that case you are obliged to admit that
the insurgent minority is factious, culpable, and in
rebellion against the constitution and the law. In the
second case, the evil must be in the constitution itself,
and if so, we call on you to support the representa-
tions of those who demand the revision of the compact,
alike odious, barbarous, and sanguinary, since it inevi-
tably throws the Swiss nation on the first internal
difficulty into the frightful extremities of civil war.
There is no medium between these two conclusions—
take your choice."
The Debats is so hard pressed by the arguments
of the Constitutionnel, that, like Sharp in the farce, it
can " only swear and call names." Contrast with
the cool, logical, and argumentative style of the
Constitutionnel the following furious tirade of the
Debats:—

" In Switzerland, as everywhere else, and more
perhaps in Switzerland than elsewhere, the Radical
party is the enemy of liberty as it is of society.
When liberty embarrasses it, it tramples it under
foot. What it cannot bear is that there are cantons
which escape its tyranny. It will he master and
master without dispute—that is the secret of this
abominable war. Little matters it to cause blood to
flow, to ruin Switzerland, to drive from that for-
merly hospitable land the foreigners who enrich it ;
all must cede, all must bend beneath the yoke of
this Radical party, itself only an anarchical composi-
tion of the worst shades of revolutionary opinion.
Under the empire of Radicalism, once solidly esta-
blished, Switzerland would become the asylum of
conspirators of every kind, the head-quarters of the
most dangerous plots against civilization. Corn-
munism would there establish the centre of its opera-
tions. Look at the warmth with which the cause of
the Swiss Radicals is espoused by our own Radicals!
With what sympathies an odious, unjustifiable
war, directed against free men, inspires our
pretended friends of liberty ! The Pact—they
adore it, now that the Pact is in the
hands of those who have so often violated
it Insurrection—they have it in great horror