Year: 1876

not know that they were combined OF meta
physicians and lunatics. They believed in
the Republic by divine right They con-
ceived that the nation was made up of the
workingmen; not all the workingmen, but
only the mechanics of Paris. If man
worked with plough in Normandy he was
beast of the field. If he was in any occu-
patton that did not require him to wear
blouse he was an aristocrat. If he worked with
tools in any workshop of Paris he was a citizen
and drop of the life blood of the nation.
1t did not take many months to demonstrate
that system based on the assumption that
part was greater than the whole was
merely a conspiracy, and the natien was not
disconsolate when it saw that conspiracy
of drivellers put aside by the more resolute
conspiracy of Louis Napoleon, which,
though it became conspiracy of thieves be-
fore it ended, looked like conspiracy of
soldiers when it began.


But the Republic, as it now exists in
France, is founded for the first time upon
the conception Of republican government as
q principle and as the only valid ground of
practical politics-a respect for the rights OF
ALL however different, and the recognition
that that alone shall be the law upon which
the greater numbers may agree. In this
Republic man may declare for Henry V. if
he chooses; and formerly he would have
gone to the guillotne for such an act. 1t is
not conceived in France that to have re-
public society must be overturned and 'the
bottom rail be put on top" or that the
elements which socially govern all societies
must be silenced and put aside and the
government given over to men distinguished
from others only by their low origin, con-
ceit and ignorance. In these points may be
seen the improvement upon 1889 and
184S. This is not the Republic of
handful of theorists nor the result of an
fme,de. In 1871 it might have been said
that the Republic was the result of an
<meute, and was said by the harsh Prussian
Premier; but the body then chosen to repre-
sent the country was as valid representa-
ton of whole people as was ever seen in
the history of nations. Through four years
it was engaged openly in the view of the
people in the endeavor to organize the forces
ofthe nation on some accepted theory-mon-
archy, empire and republic respectively strove
for the mastery-and it was proved that in the
councils of properly representative body
of the nation the Republic was strongest;
that fact has convinced the nation of the
appropriateness of this form to its present
social condition, and the consent of the ma
ton is behind the principle and behind all
the machinery that has been organized to
give effect to the principle This is equally
different from the government of dreamers
that set loose the fierce instincts of the mob
in '93 and from the intolerance which in
'48 held that no one was to be counted in
the State who did not hurrah for the Repub-
lie; equally remote from the ferocity of one
and the false ideal of the other. This gov
ernment of the nation, inspired and in
fuenced by the spirit of the whole people,
will apply the average moderation and wis
dom of the nation to practical concerns, and
will not, by the pretence to act on standards
of humanity and intelligence far above those
of the French nation or any other nation, fall
into the terrible errors of other times 1t
will prove, we believe, an enduring success,
and the influence of its example on Europe
will be very great.