Year: 1874

SIAoASs


France has reached a point which all the
lessons OF history teach us to regard as criti-
cal and as pre-eminently dangerous to lib
erty. Out Of provisional political condition
part Of the various powers of the State was
either vague or unrecognized, in which there
was virtual truce between the demand for q


larger freedom and the necessity for the pres
ent denial of such freedom. parliamentary


crisis has suddenly evoked the spectre Of per-


sonal power compelled to assert its authority


against the parties whose mutual opposition


promised much for liberal government but


threatened much to all the good interests of


society by their continued strife and by their


continued failure to create machinery for


giving effect to the recognized principle OF


popular sovereignty.


Marshal MacMahon has informed the As


sembly that he accepted his position as the


head Of the executive for seven years, and


intends to hold it for that period by the assist


ance, if necessary, of the power in his hands,


and that meantime he intends also to exercise


whatever authority may seem naturally to
flow from recognized executive functions,
unless the Assembly shall more accurately
designate the powers and duties of his Office.
Here, then, is positive ground taken and which
we may believe will be held, and AaoAAhon's
incumbency may be regarded as the first real
step toward the organization Of political
machinery Hitherto all that has been done
by this Assembly in the political organization
of the government has been like the play of
children in the dry sand on the seashore,
where in every mimic edifce the weight of the
last handful Of sand carried down with it all
that had been carefully built up before.


In cases where constituent assemblies or
constitutional conventions frame systems un-
der which legislative bodies act the point is
clear that the Legislature must simply exer-
else the functions assigned to it and cannot
repeal the laws made by the body Of higher
authority, which was also clothed with spe-
cifc powers But the present French Assem-
bly, assumes to be at once a constitutional
convention and an ordinary Legislature and
its exercise of the double function has been o
peculiar detriment to the country. It was
convoked to make peace, and it inferred that
this also implied the duty Of establishing
system in which the government should be
administered when the peace it made should
relieve the country of military rule, and SO it
assumed constituent powers. In virtue of the
powers thus assumed it has given its sanction
to several acts that looked to the permanent
organization Of the government and scarcely
has the ink been dry in the record of its pro-
ceedings before, under some contradictory
impulse, it has repealed these acts 1t has thus
always been in q sort Of constitutional drift.
1t has presented the spectacle of q legislature
acting within the limits of constitution
which it had the power to repeal, and which it
constantly did repeal whenever it found that
any point in the permanent law embar-
rassed the impulse of the moment. Conse-
quently through all the years since the As
sembly met in the theatre at Bordeaux it has
gone on in uncertainty and conflict, with not q
step taken toward the formation Of any insti-
tuition that might guarantee the country from
the uncertainties of the future.


There is no doubt, also, that when the As
sembly voted to put MacMahon in power for
seven years the larger number looked upon
this also as merely an act of the Assembly
which the Assembly had the power to re-
peal; for they naturally enough argued that
the power which gave an authority could limit
or modify as to the period for which it was
given, or revoke it altogether, and the execu-
tive Office was thus, in the minds of the larger
number of men in the Assembly, still looked
upon as one of the points around which the
intrigue and complication of the party strife
might gather. MacMahon's brusque an
nouncement of his view Of the case will
startle these gentlemen, and will involve on
their part some new views on the necessity of
Immediately limiting, by definition, the
denly discover they cannot otherwise control
In this way the effect Of the message will be
advantageous.


But how will the country like the discovery
that it is in the hands Of an executive sup
ported by the whole military power and pre-
by its own views of its duties, and which at
moments notice may turn the key In the door
of the Chamber at Versailles and send to their
homes the few hundreds of respectable Depu-
ties who regard themselves as the sacred de-
positories of the national sovereignty We
believe the country will like it very well.
France profoundly feels the need of just such
q r<qime as she is confident she would enjoy
under the firm, sure hand of the old soldier,
and equally feels the necessity Of putting an
end to the strife Of small factions in the As
sembly. As the parliamentary conflict now
stands it has definitely the character of
struggle of all the fragmentary oppositions,
not only against one another, but against the
national sovereignty; against the restoration
of the country to a normal condition; against
public tranquility and against the general